Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
WA Secretary of State debunks confusion over state’s vote-by-mail system
Story published 08/24/2026
Washington State Secretary of State Steve Hobbs shares important election reminders ahead of November. He’s also fighting to protect our state’s decades-old vote-by-mail system amid attacks on it by the President.
In the first installment of a 5-part series, we cut through voting disinformation to better arm you before hitting the ballot box.
Washington’s August Primary is over; the next big voting cycle is the general election.
While most state election information is common knowledge, there still may be some confusion. We want to help you get up to speed with crucial new information, such as changes to postmarking a ballot.
We tapped the state’s top election administrator, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, to ask two questions to get the facts about the state’s election system.
The first question: Is it still okay to vote by mail in Washington in the upcoming November 3rd election?
“Absolutely. But if you're about a week from the election, you should put it in a drop box, not a mailbox, because the USPS, they had some rulemaking about a year ago on when the postmark is made,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs says ballots have to be postmarked before 8 p.m. on that Tuesday. He says if you insist on wanting to mail your ballot or use the US Postal Service, the best thing to do, especially within that week, is to go directly to a postal clerk.
The second question: How secure are elections in all 39 counties in Washington?
“Very secure. And in fact, if you have any doubts, go visit your local elections center, contact your county auditor. Or if you're in King County Elections Director, they would love to have you in there [office] and actually see the elections go on. For with your own eyes, you can actually see the ballots going out, coming in, being opened. I highly encourage that,” he said.
Washington AG’s suit takes on nationwide voter registry, USPS interference
Story published 08/25/2026
On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for President Trump to possibly carry out a controversial executive order. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown has been fighting it in the courts.
In part 2 of our voting series, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown explains what’s at stake for voters if the President gets his way.
“We should be explicit about what the president is trying to do. He wants to create a national voter database that is in the control of the federal government,” Brown said.
Since April, Brown has co-led a lawsuit with about two dozen other attorneys general to challenge the President's March Executive Order to restrict voter eligibility by creating a nationwide list.
“One President, one administration having the final say on who is on an eligible voter list: one, that is contrary to the United States Constitution. Two, it is highly problematic that the federal government would have control over this. There’s lots of reasons to believe that the courts have echoed that would not be administered smoothly. In combination with that same executive order that the President issued in March, he directed the United States Postal Service to only accept and deliver ballots from people that are on that list. And so, if the federal government makes a mistake and doesn't include you on that list, or if you've gotten married and your name has changed or something has changed with you personally, there's all kinds of potential problems with that idea, and that's not the way our system is set up,” Brown said.
In our August 6 interview with Brown, he spoke then about the courts’ rulings on the case.
“We won at the district court level. The judge said what the President was trying to do was illegal. They appealed that to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. We won there again,” Brown said.
But, on Monday, the Supreme Court paused that First Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, meaning Trump could move forward with the plan to restrict voting by mail. But it’s unclear if that’s possible this close to the midterms, and NPR reports the legal fight will continue, as the Supreme Court did not weigh in on the legality of the executive order.
Hobbs pushes back on Trump’s July election security address
Story published 08/26/2026
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs speculates on what could be behind the President’s attack on America’s electoral system leading up to the November midterms.
In part 3 of our 5-part voting series, Hobbs debunks President Trump’s mid-July national address on election security, where he continued to assert voter fraud in the 2020 election – which has been disproven - and finally acknowledged there has been foreign interference in U.S. elections.
“Maybe he's laying down the groundwork to say, look, it wasn't our bad ideas, it was the election fraud. And that really scares me,” Hobbs said.
During President Donald Trump’s July 16th address, he said “China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign.”
That’s an admission Secretary Hobbs says he hasn’t heard from Trump before.
“Finally, he is admitting that there is election attacks or cyber-attacks from nation-state actors and mis and disinformation that's been happening when he's pretty much denied it the whole time, while at the same time reducing the support that we need as states to defend against cyber-attacks. And it's not just China that he is talking about. It's Russia, Iran, North Korea are constantly attacking us,” Hobbs said.
Since the President’s 2020 election loss, he's assailed election institutions. He's waged legal fights, fired bipartisan federal elections commission members and a host of other efforts, all despite investigations which have not found widespread voter fraud.
“The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems,” Trump said in his July address.
As Washington’s top elections administrator, Hobbs says our nation’s voting infrastructure is strong, and that voter fraud in the state is not even an issue.
“If we go back from about 2005-ish, 2008-ish to 2025, where about 90 million people have voted in Washington state, there's only been 5 cases of fraud. If we look at the non-citizen issue, the non-citizen voting issue that everyone talks about. We can go look at like 45 years of data showing us that only 15 non-citizens voted, which if you look at the percentages, that's a 0.000006%. So it's not a massive amount of non-citizens deciding these elections. And when it does happen, they're usually caught,” Hobbs said.
Voters of color more vulnerable after gutting of Voting Rights Act
Story published 08/27/2026
A monumental piece of legislation, considered the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement, was gutted this spring.
In the 4th installment of our series on voting, we explore the Supreme Court’s decision to dismantle key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Advocates say this makes voters of color even more vulnerable to voting discrimination, which the VRA was enacted to protect.
In April, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on the Louisiana v. Callias case, a final weakening provision of the Voting Rights Act. The case centered on whether the state of Louisiana complied with Section 2 of the VRA after a federal court ruled that the state’s original congressional map illegally diluted Black voting power.
In response, Louisiana lawmakers regrouped and created a second majority-Black district to update the original map. But the Supreme Court’s conservative justices asserted that even considering race to correct that injustice amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
For nearly 90 years, the Legal Defense Fund, the nation's first civil and human rights law firm, has been fighting for equality and due process under the law for Black and Brown people. The firm’s Associate Director of Counsel, Todd Cox, called the high court’s decision terrible.
“They took the Voting Rights Act and eviscerated it, but they did something even more I think disingenuous. They essentially said that the era of voting discrimination, or discrimination in the United States, race discrimination, is over. And if you're going to bring a race discrimination case in the voting rights context or challenging redistricting plan, you're going to have to factor in partisanship,” Cox said.
Cox said the decision has already created harm in other parts of the country, and he urges voters outside of the Deep South to pay attention and vote.
“Get out and vote, recognizing the importance of showing up to counter this myth that there's voter fraud and that elections are rigged. I think nothing counters that better than an overwhelming voter turnout. And a voter turnout that's designed to make demands that Congress do its job to shore up our democracy. And there are a few ways they can do that. They can pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore many of the protections of Voting Rights Act,” Cox said.
Election system in WA, other states under intense pressure from feds
Story published 08/28/2026
Voting is a pillar of American democracy – a constitutional right granted to eligible citizens. Now, attacks on those rights are coming from the highest level of government.
In our final installment to conclude our voting series, we examine the efforts to weaken our elections to understand what is being undercut ahead of the midterms.
“I think what you're seeing is a concerted effort from the President and his team to dissuade people from voting. I mean, I hate to say that, but I think it reflects the reality that in the last 18 months, the President has taken repeated steps to take control of state voting systems, to spread a lot of misinformation,” said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, during our August 6 sit down conversation.
He says the federal government’s interference is impacting the system.
On August 26, Brown joined 25 other states in suing the United States Postal Service, over its rules that could limit the delivery of mailed ballots, at the direction of the Trump administration.
Since Trump’s 2020 election loss, he’s inundated the media with a web of election attacks and untrue claims of voter fraud.
In his second term, he’s taken many steps to disrupt the electoral process. Some examples include the the firing and resignation of several bipartisan key members of the Election Assistance Commission; dismantling the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and the Department of Justice overhauling its Civil Rights Division, which some former officials strayed from its longstanding mission of enforcing laws that protect against voter discrimination.
In recent years, Trump has been a big factor in causing more polarization in elections, said UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, and Director of Safeguarding Democracy at UCLA Law School.
"He consistently makes unsupported claims of fraud and rigging, and this convinces his supporters that the elections are not being fairly run. In response, you start seeing some states and Congress considering legislation that makes it harder to register to vote or to vote in the name of preventing fraud or rigging,” Hasen said.
“So, distrust in elections is running high. And it's ironic because it's happening at a time where, we've never had elections better run in the United States than we do, right now,” Hasan said.
In Washington, in addition to the lawsuit with USPS, in April the state partnered on a multi-state suit against the President over his March 31executive order that would create a federal list of voters and directed the USPS to only deliver ballots to people on that list. It is still being fought out in the courts and made its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We've seen requests for your personal voting information, and that's been requests made across the country,” Brown said. “Even though we have a distinct system here with state and local control. What happens in other places impacts things here as well.”
The Trump administration has argued their efforts are to make elections fairer and free of fraud.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act in April with the Louisiana versus Callais case, the Legal Defense Fund said it weakened voting protections for Black and Brown people.
For nearly 90 years, the LDF has fought for equality for marginalized groups, most notable during the Civil Rights Movement. Legal Defense Fund Associate Director Counsel Todd Cox said voters everywhere must pay attention.
“What's happening in the Deep South is an example of what's going to happen across the country. The move to do redistricting off-cycle is going to continue,” Cox said. “And now, Callais will add fuel to that fire. They will use partisanship as a justification for removing opportunity districts across the board, not just for Black people, for all communities of color... voters of color are canaries in the mines.”
Hasen says to restore trust in our electoral system, it starts local.
“People tend to trust their local election administrators, the ones who are actually community members, who are employed to tabulate votes and run elections. They also trust local journalists. So the more that, I think, on the local level people can find out what's accurately going on, the less of the noise, I think, will overcome people's heads,” Hasen said.
A system up against tremendous pressures within its own government, leading up to November’s pivotal election that could shift political power in Congress.
“Even though it’s under tremendous stress and assault from unfortunately, from somebody who represents the top,” Washington Secretary of State Hobbs said.
