The Arizona GOP has rejected a proposal by election deniers to opt out of the state's government-run presidential primary election in 2024 and instead hold their own one-day, in-person election with paper ballots counted by hand. The decision has caused anxiety among top Republicans in Washington, who fear being drawn into a messy fight. The rejection highlights the divide within the party between conservatives who want to change voting procedures after Trump's 2020 defeat and those who accept his loss. The proposal has sparked discussions among Trump campaign advisers and Arizona officials, but the state party leader concluded that they lack the resources to run such an election. Arizona Democrats have confirmed their participation in the traditional government-run primary.
Republican candidates who made election denial a centerpiece of their campaign had a rough time in GOP primaries in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, with voters rejecting their bids to win office. Meanwhile, Meta is expected to face a record privacy fine on Monday when Ireland’s data protection watchdog confirms the social media platform mishandled people’s data when shipping it to the United States. Four people were killed in Nigeria after assailants attacked a convoy carrying U.S. and Nigerian officials, and restaurant owners in New York City are receiving direct messages from influencers asking for free meals in exchange for social media posts.
Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein, who has a history of supporting candidates who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election and groups that helped organize the Jan. 6 rally, has donated over $1 million to a PAC supporting the effort to require 60% of the vote to pass a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment in Ohio. A bipartisan group of five former attorneys general has joined more than 200 groups in opposition to the move, which would cut voters’ power relative to that of the state’s gerrymandered legislature. The state Senate has voted to put the matter on the August ballot, and the Ohio House needs 60 Republican votes to pass the bill out of that chamber.
Ohio has become the latest Republican-led state to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a data-sharing consortium that helps keep voter rolls updated and free of opportunities for fraud. Ohio joins five other Republican-led states that have exited over the past year, citing unproven security concerns and alleged partisanship from the group's governance. ERIC's remaining members deny the accusations and warn that the organization's collapse would eliminate one of the most powerful tools for keeping ballot fraud at bay just as states are beginning to prepare for the 2024 election calendar.
