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The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

Kristi Noem facing away with her hand up to be sworn in as she testifies.

Kristi Noem is a Criminal. They Fired Her Because She’s a Woman

People at voting booths.

Just the Facts: Voter ID, States’ Powers, and Federal Limits

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting of the Cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House

Trump’s Troubled Appointees Face Scandals, Backlash, and Low Support

Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules

Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules

A defiant Georgia county switches from touchscreens to paper

Paper ballots

Clarke County, Ga., elections officials vote to use paper ballots in the upcoming election rather than the new machines, due to privacy concerns.

Office of the Georgia Secretary of State
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMar 05, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

A Georgia county is defying a state law requiring every place in the state to use new voting equipment this year. Eyesight, not voter suppression, is the reason.

It's the latest twist in a debate over whether the touchscreens that are part of the new $100 million system are so big and bright that guaranteeing voter privacy is impossible.

By 3-2 this week, the Board of Elections in Clarke County accepted the privacy concerns. So instead of the machines deployed everywhere else across the state, paper ballots will be used in the Democratic presidential primary there.

Early voting ends March 20 and election day is March 24, the last big nominating contest in the South.

There are about 100,000 eligible voters in Clarke County, centered in Athens and about 70 miles east of Atlanta.

An advocacy group had filed a lawsuit in another Georgia county recently making the same argument about the lack of privacy created by the new tablet computers. But a state court judge rejected the request for an immediate order requiring all counties to use paper ballots.


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Voters lining up to vote.

Voters line up at the Oak Lawn Branch Library voting center on Primary Election Day in Dallas on March 3, 2026. Republicans' decision to hold a split primary from the Democrats and to eliminate countywide voting forced Dallas County voters to cast ballots at assigned neighborhood precincts, leading to confusion. Republicans have now decided to use countywide polling locations for the May 26 runoff election.

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Dallas County GOP Will Agree To Use Countywide Voting Sites for May 26 Runoff Election

Dallas County Republicans will agree to allow voters to cast ballots at countywide voting sites for the May 26 runoff election after a switch to precinct-based voting sites caused chaos, the county party chair said Tuesday.

Dallas County Republican Chairman Allen West supported the use of precinct-based sites earlier this month, but said using precincts again for the runoff would expose the county party to “increased risk and voter confusion” because the county is planning to use countywide sites for upcoming municipal elections and early voting.

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Javon Jackson, center, was able to register to vote following passage of a 2019 Nevada law that restored voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals.

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If you gathered every American with a prison record into one contiguous territory and admitted it to the union, you would create the 12th-largest state. It would be home to at least 7 million to 8 million people and hold a dozen votes in the Electoral College.

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President Trump doesn't need the SAVE America Act to pass. He only needs the debate to continue. Every minute spent arguing about voter suppression repeats the underlying premise — that noncitizen voting is a real and widespread problem — until it feels like an established fact. The question is whether Democrats will contest Republicans’ definition before the frame hardens.

Trump's claim that 88% of Americans support the bill traces to a Pew Research Center survey — a survey that found 83% support a “government-issued photo ID to vote,” not extreme vetting for proof of citizenship. That support included 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats, indicating genuine, broad, bipartisan support for a basic civic principle. That's worth taking seriously.

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The federal government seems to be barreling toward a federal election power grab. Trump's State of the Union address called for the Senate to push through the SAVE Act, which has already passed the House, in the name of so-called "election integrity." And the SAVE Act isn’t the only such bill. Like the SAVE Act, the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act—introduced in the House—would require voters to provide a document outlined in the Act that allegedly proves their U.S. citizenship. We’ve been down this road before in Texas, and spoiler alert: it was unworkable.

Both the SAVE and MEGA Acts would disenfranchise millions of eligible U.S. citizens without making our federal elections more secure. They seek to roll out a faulty federal voter registration system, despite the existing separate registration and voting process for state and local elections. And these Acts target a minuscule “problem”—but would unleash mass voter purges and confusion.

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