Wisconsin police will soon be allowed to conduct roadside saliva testing for marijuana and other illegal substances.

Supporters say the new law will help strengthen cases against suspected drugged drivers who may be flying under the radar. A Wisconsin attorney and impaired driving defense expert argues it’s “merely symbolic.”

The post Will a new law allowing roadside drug tests help fight impaired driving in Wisconsin? appeared first on WPR.

A Milwaukee police officer shot and killed a 35-year-old man after police say the man drove away while the officer was clinging to the side of his truck.

The post Milwaukee police officer shoots suspect who drove away as officer clung to vehicle appeared first on WPR.

Student transportation leaders and society at-large are being asked to rethink how they measure risk at the school bus stop, as a 50-state action plan emerging from a National School Bus Safety Summit late last year calls for a sharper focus on injuries and near-miss collisions caused by illegally passing motorists.

The summit, convened on Dec. 10 by BusPatrol along with the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and Safe Kids Worldwide, brought together school transportation officials, federal regulators, safety advocates and law enforcement represenatives to examine how often motorists violate school bus stop arms — and what that behavior is really doing to children beyond the worst-case fatalities that make headlines.

BusPatrol operates what is widely regarded as the largest school bus stop-arm camera enforcement network in the U.S. A company official stressed that despite access to a unique trove of video and citation data, independent safety authorities and government agencies must lead on defining the problem and setting policy.

“It’s important that it’s not just the vendors raising the flag,” Justin Meyers, BusPatrol’s president and chief strategy officer, told School Transportation News. “Independent safety authorities and governments need to make these assessments and do this research. We’ll participate to the extent we’re legally allowed, but this can’t be seen as just a company trying to make money.”

From Fatalities to the Full Spectrum of Harm

The National Action Plan for School Bus Safety authored by GHSA and released Tuesday at an event in Washington, D.C., includes 69 recommendations that seek to move the discussion beyond counting deaths to understanding the broader spectrum of harm and what school district, community, legislative and public safety stakeholders can do about it.

The National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) was among the organizations in attendance at Tuesday’s action plan unveiling. Executive Director and CEO Molly McGee-Hewitt spoke alongside GHSA Executive Director Jonathon Adkins and other dignitaries. NAPT told members in an email Wednesday it is “proud and pleased” to be a part of the national discussion on curbing illegal passing.

Of particular interest to student transporters, NAPT noted the recommendations include urging governors to include school bus safety into their Triennial Highway Safety plans, encouraging school districts to implement school bus stop-arm enforcement programs and training school bus drivers to identify unsafe motorist behaviors.

The action plan recommendations include more serious treatment of illegal passing offenses by judges, increased speed limit enforcement in school zones, implementation of walking school buses, and improving post-crash care.

For years, national conversations have centered on the relatively small number of children killed at the bus stop each year. Historically, more than 1,200 children have died in loading and unloading zones, Meyers noted. According to the annual National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey, which originated in 1970, most of those fatalities were reported in the first decades of the study based on police reports of school bus incidents. But in the decades since, the annual numbers have fallen to a handful a year, though school buses can be just as responsible for fatalities as illegally passing motorists are, if not more so.

Still, Meyers said that focusing on fatalities alone obscures the scale of risk. He pointed to the estimate by the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) that 39 million illegal passes of school buses could occur annually. The national action plan noted that figure equates to each school bus in the U.S. being illegally passed once every three days.

“Forty million times a year someone illegally passes a school bus and creates a very dangerous environment for those kids,” Meyers said. “Most of the time, a child isn’t struck. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t harm.”

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Blog: A Unique Gathering and a Cry for Help

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Summit participants in December explored a largely unquantified middle ground between fatal crashes and clean stops: Non-fatal injuries that may never be captured in formal crash databases, and near-miss events that inflict lasting psychological trauma on students who narrowly avoid being hit — or witness shocking roadway incidents from inside the bus.
BusPatrol has videos from school bus clients that show a student slip in the roadway as a vehicle brakes inches from their face, or an illegally passing tanker truck runs off the road, flips and rolls over, showering the scene in debris.

“Those kids will forever associate getting on and off the bus with the moment they thought they might be killed,” Meyers said, adding that adults attending the summit recounted traumatic incidents from their own childhoods that still affect them decades later.

The action plan urges policymakers and industry leaders to recognize that these experiences are safety outcomes in their own right, even if they do not result in a recorded fatality or “serious injury” in traditional datasets.

Defining and Documenting Near Misses

If injuries are hard to count, near misses are even harder. Yet they are central to understanding risk and trauma.

Current national estimates of illegal passing rely heavily on NASDPTS’ annual one-day survey. Approximately 1,000 school bus drivers in three dozen states manually tallied illegal passes in a single day last spring, and NASDPTS extrapolated results for a figure that indicates how many illegal passes could be happening nationwide across a 180-day school year. That approach has proven useful for counting violations, but not for categorizing the severity of risk.

Meyers suggested adding a category for near-misses, a working definition of which could include any incident where a child or caregiver approaching or leaving the bus has their path impeded by a vehicle that should have stopped, including situations where the person must stop short, hurry or run, or physically jump or move out of the way.

He acknowledged that some stakeholders might prefer a narrower definition that focuses solely on more dramatic, evasive actions.

“The real trauma tends to come from the more extreme events,” he said. “A 7-year-old pausing safely at the end of their driveway while a car rolls by at 20 miles an hour is one thing. A child who slips and falls as a car skids to a stop inches from them is another.”

Options already being used or explored include leveraging onboard cameras and integrated analytics to automatically flag incidents, where a vehicle passes during loading or unloading with a child in the roadway or at the curb, and encouraging school districts to develop internal reporting processes for near-miss incidents, whether or not police or medical responders are involved.

Still, any expansion of data collection will have to navigate the same privacy and policy constraints that currently limit broader data sharing.

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Related: STN EXPO East to Feature Illegal Passing Trends, Safety Recommendations
Related: WATCH: Michigan Association Releases Illegal Passing PSA for School Bus Safety Week
Related: (STN Podcast E290) Ideas, People & Solutions: Three-Pronged Approach to ‘Danger Zone’ Safety
Related: Combatting Illegal Passing with Awareness, Technology

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Measuring Injuries: Who Owns Illegal Passing Data and Who Can Use It?

One of the central questions raised by the summit and the action plan is how to meaningfully track injuries linked to illegal passing at school bus stops.

Meyers said BusPatrol video cameras are installed on more than 40,000 buses nationwide, a number he added is growing by the month. The company estimates that about 10 percent of the national school bus fleet now operates with some form of stop-arm enforcement camera, including those provided by other vendors.

According to Meyers, 36 states currently have some form of law authorizing automated stop-arm enforcement, with more considering legislation. And several states are actively discussing enabling or expanding stop-arm enforcement authority.

Individual school districts and local agencies see their own violation and incident data. But BusPatrol and other vendors are in a unique position to perceive trends across jurisdictions. That does not mean they can simply publish a national injury and near-miss dataset.

“Each state and each community has their own rules and regulations around the data,” Meyers explained. “Some of it can be shared. In other places, it can’t. In New York, for example, there are significant limits on what can be shared and how.”

Privacy laws, public records rules, contract language and concerns around personally identifiable information all restrict the sharing and aggregation of footage and related records. The result, according to Meyers, is a patchwork.

The action plan effectively calls on federal and state authorities—including GHSA, the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to lead efforts that would: Clarify how stop-arm cameras and incident data may be used for research and safety analysis, not only enforcement; encourage or authorize states to allow carefully structured data-sharing between vendors, school districts and central repositories; and develop consistent definitions and reporting protocols for bus stop injuries and related outcomes.

Meyers said BusPatrol would welcome participating in such efforts but emphasized that vendors alone should not define the narrative. Instead, the focus should be on solving the problem.

“All we’re really asking is for people to take an extra 15 seconds and stop for the bus,” he said. “They’re big, they’re yellow, they have flashing lights and stop signs. They’re meant to be seen. If we all respect that, we can eliminate a tremendous amount of trauma, injury and death.”

The post Action Plan Puts National Spotlight on Hidden Toll of Illegal Passing appeared first on School Transportation News.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told governors Friday during a meeting at the White House he has no plans to surge federal immigration operations in states where it’s not wanted. 

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said during an afternoon press conference with several other governors that Trump was asked during the closed-door meeting about what lessons he learned from immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, where federal officers killed two U.S. citizens. 

“The president said, ‘We’ll only go where we’re wanted.’ And said, for example, ‘I won’t go to New York unless Kathy calls and says she wants me to come to New York,’” she said. “I took that as a very positive outcome from this meeting. And I would want to hold him and the administration to that statement.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, vice chair of the National Governors Association, said Democratic governors were able to express “how problematic” actions by immigration enforcement officials have been, especially after Republicans in Congress drastically increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection in their signature tax and spending cuts law.  

“We were actually encouraged to hear the president say that one of the takeaways from Minnesota was that he only wants to go places that he is welcomed. So we were very glad to hear that,” he said. “I want to be very clear that until we can have an accountable agency, the type of surge that we saw in Minnesota is not welcome in the state of Maryland.”

Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said during the press conference at the NGA’s winter conference there have been “no problems” with federal immigration enforcement actions in his state. 

“Why? Because it was a completely integrated operation under which local, state and federal partners worked together,” he said. “We did not allow people to break our laws and get in the way and impede law enforcement in doing their lawful duty.” 

Landry said Trump “made it very clear, if you don’t want our help, we won’t give you any help.”

Tariffs ruling interrupts meeting

Governors from throughout the country traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to attend their annual winter conference and meet with Trump at the White House, though that meeting was diverted somewhat after the Supreme Court ruled on tariffs. 

Trump is scheduled to host a black tie dinner for some of the governors this weekend, though he decided not to invite certain Democrats to that event, provoking controversy throughout the lead-up to the governors’ meeting. 

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, chairman of the National Governor’s Association, said during the afternoon press conference the morning meeting with Trump included 12 GOP and 10 Democratic governors. 

“It was overall a really productive meeting and a great show of ‘Hey, here is how the governors can come before the president and bring up issues that affect all of us,’” he said. 

Moore said the White House meeting was “productive” and “a chance for us to be able to share our thoughts and our perspectives and our ideas with the Cabinet secretaries and the agency heads and with the president himself.”

“We had a chance to talk about the things that matter to the people of our states. We had a chance to speak with Cabinet secretaries about energy prices and how we have to have a singular focus to bring energy prices down,” he said. “We had a chance to speak with the Transportation secretary about transportation issues. In the case of Maryland, it was the American Legion Bridge and the Francis Scott Key Bridge.”

Moore added the meeting was an important opportunity to “speak truth to power” and show that bipartisanship still exists on certain issues.

Sewage spill, Gateway Tunnel 

Moore said he didn’t bring up Trump blaming him for a sewage spill that began with a discharge into the Potomac River in the District of Columbia, opting instead to use the meeting to focus on talking with Cabinet secretaries on infrastructure, natural disaster relief and housing. 

“I am here to focus on helping the people of my state,” he said. “I am not going to spend a second talking about a petty attack that the president of the United States had.”

Hochul said she appreciated the Cabinet secretaries were at the meeting and that governors were able to talk with them about several issues. 

“I was able to talk about the Gateway Tunnel and keeping the funding on for the largest infrastructure project in America today,” she said, referring to a project to build new rail track between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River. “We’d like to keep our offshore wind on and not have to go to court constantly to get that turned back on.”

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said he was able to speak directly with Trump about the state’s ongoing recovery needs from Hurricane Helene.

“We’ve got to rebuild houses. We’ve got to rebuild roads and bridges. We’ve got to rebuild businesses. And we cannot do that in North Carolina without the partnership of the federal government,” he said. “We have a $13.5 billion request with (the Office of Management and Budget) and with the Congress. And I asked the president and he said that they are eager to talk about that. 

“So I came away very encouraged that he will bring renewed focus from this administration to help western North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene.”

Landry said the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs, which was released during the meeting, “completely overshadowed, which, in my opinion, was getting ready to be a very productive meeting with the president.”

“It was unfortunate that the Supreme Court came out with a bad ruling at that time because I think we were going to have a great meeting,” he said. 

Trump vowed to keep the tariffs in place under other authorities he believes he holds during an afternoon press conference at the White House, where he also rebuked the six Supreme Court justices who wrote “that (the International Economic Emergency Powers Act) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.” 

Hochul disagreed with the assertion the Supreme Court’s decision wasn’t the right one. 

“I think the Supreme Court, many of whom are appointees by the president, sided with supporting the Constitution and doing what’s right,” she said. “So we support this decision and hope that we can continue to find ways to work together to drive down costs, not do the opposite as we saw tariffs do in our states.”

Criminal justice has emerged as one of the most wide-ranging and politically charged areas on lawmakers’ agendas in this year’s state legislative sessions. Across the country, legislators are weighing proposals that affect nearly every part of the criminal justice system, including policing, gun policy, solving crimes, sentencing, prison oversight and reentry support.

The breadth of legislation reflects how deeply crime policy intersects with daily life, shaping public safety, civil rights, state spending and the scope of law enforcement. It also comes amid a shifting national conversation about crime itself. While violent crime rose during the pandemic, recent data shows declines in many categories, despite continued public concern.

According to Gallup’s most recent annual crime poll, Americans’ perceptions of crime improved in 2025. Approximately 49% of adults now say crime is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the United States, and the same share believe crime has increased in the past year. Both figures are down significantly from 2024 and are at their lowest levels since at least 2018.

Still, crime remains a top political issue, particularly in statehouses where lawmakers may face pressure to respond to high-profile incidents and constituent fears.

Gun policy

Firearm-related legislation has moved quickly in several states, with lawmakers pursuing sharply different approaches that reflect regional politics and partisan control.

In Democratic-led states, lawmakers have advanced proposals aimed at tightening restrictions on firearms.

Virginia House Democrats approved a sweeping package of bills this month that would restrict access to assault-style weapons, tighten firearm storage and transfer rules, limit where guns can be carried in public and expand civil liability for the gun industry. The bills are now being considered in the Senate.

Maryland lawmakers are debating a measure that would prohibit the manufacture, sale, purchase or transfer of certain handguns that can be converted into automatic weapons using an illegal accessory known as a pistol converter.

The bill doesn’t name specific firearm models, but it would effectively ban secondhand sales of some popular discontinued guns. In urging its members to oppose the bill, the National Rifle Association’s legislative arm says on its website, “These conversion devices are already illegal, yet this proposal targets responsible firearm owners rather than criminals who ignore existing law.”

But sponsors noted that the measure would exempt current owners of the affected firearms and argued that it doesn’t punish responsible firearm owners. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott led a rally last week in favor of the bill, saying it would reduce homicides. And a high school student testified to lawmakers about her fears of a school shooting.

Other states have focused on regulating firearm sales.

New Mexico senators passed legislation restricting certain firearm transactions, while lawmakers in New York and Washington state have proposed measures that would prohibit the production and possession of 3D-printing files used to manufacture gun parts to build so-called ghost guns.

Gun control advocates say 3D-printed guns are becoming more common, especially among young people. Just this week, a ghost gun was recovered after a student was shot inside a Maryland high school. The student’s injuries weren’t life threatening, and a suspect has been charged with attempted murder.

But some gun rights advocates say those measures go too far.

“We believe that making your own firearms, if you have the skills to do it, is an American tradition. It literally dates back to the founding of our country,” said Chris Stone, the director of state and local affairs for Gun Owners of America, one of the country’s largest gun advocacy groups. The group opposes bans on 3D-printing firearms.

Republican-led states are pushing in the opposite direction, removing specific firearm regulations, limiting local regulation, strengthening legal protections for gun shops and dismantling “gun-free” zones, such as areas near schools or inside government buildings.

South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed a bill into law this week that deregulates gun silencers, or suppressors. These devices will be removed from the state’s definition of a controlled weapon.

In Georgia, lawmakers approved a ban that would keep local governments from adopting gun storage requirements. The bill has not yet been sent to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for consideration.

In South Carolina, legislators have proposed a measure that would protect gun shops from being held liable in lawsuits when crimes are committed with products they sold, as long as the original sale was lawful. That bill remains in committee.

Florida lawmakers advanced legislation last month to lower the age to purchase long guns to 18. The West Virginia Senate also passed a bill that would allow 18- to 20-year-olds to carry concealed weapons without a permit, removing current training and licensing requirements for that age group.

New Hampshire and Wyoming legislators are considering proposals that would prohibit public colleges and universities from regulating whether students, faculty or visitors are able to carry concealed firearms and nonlethal weapons on campus.

Immigration and policing

Questions about the role of law enforcement — particularly in immigration enforcement — have become a flashpoint in state legislatures, as lawmakers debate how closely local and state agencies should cooperate with federal authorities.

In some states, lawmakers are moving to require or expand cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bills in Alabama, Arizona, Iowa and Kentucky would encourage or mandate that state or local law enforcement agencies collaborate with ICE or expand officers’ authority to question or detain people over their immigration status. Supporters argue the measures are necessary to enforce federal law and improve public safety.

Other states are taking the opposite approach. In Virginia this month, Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger ended a 287(g) agreement with ICE that allowed state police and corrections officers to assist the agency with certain federal immigration enforcement functions. Spanberger, who has a background in law enforcement, had promised in her campaign to end the agreement, saying she wants policing agencies to focus on their core duties.

The move drew sharp criticism from state Republican leaders, with GOP lawmakers arguing that the decision prioritizes politics over public safety and could expose the state to retaliation from the Trump administration.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, introduced a similar proposal last month that appears to be gaining more support from police and elected officials.

The Maryland House and Senate this month also overwhelmingly approved bills that would prohibit 287(g) agreements between local police and federal immigration agencies. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is expected to sign them. Several local law enforcement officials across the state have urged the governor to veto the measures, arguing that ending the agreements would lead to more federal immigration enforcement activity and higher crime rates.

Beyond immigration, legislatures also are grappling with broader questions about policing authority and accountability.

In Indiana, lawmakers approved legislation expanding the role of the National Guard’s military police in certain law enforcement functions, giving the governor authority that some Democrats say could be abused.

Iowa lawmakers are considering a proposal that would eliminate affirmative action and anti-bias training requirements for police officers.

A bill in Utah would create the Violent Crime Clearance Rate Fund, which would provide grants to law enforcement agencies to support efforts to improve the rate at which violent crimes are solved.

Sentencing and prison conditions

State legislatures also are revisiting what happens after arrest, with several states considering tougher penalties for certain crimes.

Iowa Republicans have proposed a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for some repeat offenders.

Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that would raise the base penalty for fleeing from police from a misdemeanor to a felony, with harsher penalties for repeat offenses and other aggravating factors.

The Kentucky House advanced a bill aimed at cracking down on street racing. It would impose penalties of up to 30 days in jail and $1,000 in fines, and allow vehicles used in the offense to be destroyed or auctioned to support the state’s crime victims compensation fund.

Other states are pursuing more rehabilitative approaches.

Lawmakers in Washington state are considering legislation that would give people serving long sentences a new pathway to release.

Oklahoma lawmakers have proposed a measure that would eliminate the requirement that a prison inmate serve a set amount of time before becoming eligible for good-time credits, which would also allow people awaiting transfer to prison to earn these credits sooner.

Last month, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Clean Slate Act into law, paving the way for an estimated 1.7 million adults with nonviolent criminal records to have them automatically sealed beginning in 2029.

Juvenile justice debates also have been unfolding alongside these efforts.

States including Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Maryland and Kansas are reconsidering when young people can be charged as adults, how long they can be detained and what role rehabilitation should play.

In Kansas, for example, lawmakers are considering expanding judges’ authority to send youths to juvenile prison and increasing detention limits, moves that opponents say would reverse a decade of changes designed to keep low-risk youths out of custody.

In recent years, poor prison conditions and lax oversight have emerged as a bipartisan concern, driven in part by staffing shortages and the rising costs associated with incarceration.

Florida legislators are considering proposals that would create an independent ombudsman to monitor prison conditions. Alabama and Arizona lawmakers have filed measures that would address oversight of food services in prisons and fund the state’s independent prison oversight office, respectively.

Several states are working to expand death penalty options, both for crimes and for execution methods.

Alabama legislators passed a measure this month that would expand the death penalty to include child sex crimes. The bill is now awaiting the signature of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who expressed her support for the proposal last month.

In Indiana, lawmakers considered a proposal that would add firing squad and gas as execution methods.

In New Hampshire, lawmakers are considering two Republican-backed bills that would reinstate the death penalty — nearly seven years after the state voted to abolish it. One bill would bring it back for homicide or sexual assault offenses against children under 13, while the other proposal would reinstate it for capital murder, which would combine the murder with aggravating circumstances.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte told reporters last fall she would like to see capital punishment restored in the state.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

FBI agents load boxes of election documents onto trucks at an elections warehouse in Fulton County, Ga. State and local election officials are bracing for the prospect of federal action after President Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections. (Photo by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

President Donald Trump’s calls this week to “nationalize” elections capped a year of efforts by his administration to exercise authority over state-run elections. The demands now have some state and local election officials fearing — and preparing for — a tumultuous year ahead.

“I don’t think we can put anything past this administration,” Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read told Stateline in an interview. “I think they’re increasingly desperate, increasingly scared about what’s going to happen when they are held accountable by American voters. So we have to be prepared for everything.”

Ever since Trump signed an executive order last March that attempted to impose a requirement that voters prove their citizenship in federal elections, the federal government has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to influence how elections are run. Under the U.S. Constitution, that responsibility belongs to the states.

Then came Trump’s remarks on a podcast Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections and take over voting in at least 15 places, though he didn’t specify where. In the Oval Office the next day, the president reaffirmed his view that states are “agents” of the federal government in elections.

“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, despite the Constitution’s clear delegation of that job to states.

Across the country, election officials are watching recent developments and, in some instances, grappling with how the Trump administration’s moves could affect their preparations for November’s midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. Local election officials say they are considering how they would respond to the presence of federal law enforcement near polling places and what steps they need to take to ensure voting proceeds smoothly.

Several Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have spoken out. Placing voting under control of the federal government would represent a fundamental violation of the Constitution, they note.

The U.S. Constitution authorizes states to set the time, place and manner of elections for Congress but also allows Congress to change those regulations. The elections themselves are run by the states.

“Oh, hell no,” Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a video statement posted to social media about federalizing elections. Bellows, who is running for governor, said she would mail the White House a pocket Constitution, “because it seems they’ve lost their copy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice already has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia to obtain unredacted voter rolls that include sensitive personal information that it says is needed to search for noncitizen voters. The Department of Homeland Security wants states to run their voter rolls through a powerful citizenship verification tool. Those opposed to the demand say sharing the data risks the privacy of millions of voters. Many fear the administration could use the information to disqualify eligible voters, challenge the legitimacy of a victory in a closely contested midterm election, or use the information to target political enemies.

In recent weeks, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the presence of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in part to Minnesota’s refusal to turn over its voter rolls. And the FBI seized ballots from an elections warehouse Fulton County, Georgia — a state that was a central focus of Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“I think it does affect our planning as far as, what if there is some sort of federal law enforcement presence on Election Day or before or after? So that definitely factors into our planning,” said Scott McDonell, the Democratic clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes Madison.

Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat running for secretary of state, said she and other election administrators conduct tabletop exercises and keep emergency plans for numerous scenarios. Those used to focus on floods, power outages and cyberattacks.

“Now, unfortunately, it’s turning into the president of the United States meddling in elections,” Byrum said. “We will be prepared. Voters will hopefully not see anything different at their polling locations. … But we need to be diligent.”

Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the election security nonprofit Verified Voting, said election officials and their lawyers need to study up on laws and regulations, including chain-of-custody requirements for ballots.

David Becker, director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which operates the Election Official Legal Defense Network, said more than 10,000 lawyers have been recruited who are ready to provide pro bono legal assistance or advice to election officials.

Trump doubles down on calling for the feds to take over state elections

When Stateline asked Read whether he anticipates Oregon facing federal pressure over its voter rolls, the secretary of state said he was set to meet this week with county clerks in the Portland metro area “to talk about that very question.” Read’s office later confirmed the meeting took place.

Oregon’s largest city, Portland, has been a focus of the Trump administration. Last year, Trump deployed federalized Oregon National Guard members to the city after protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. And federal agents last month shot two people in a hospital parking lot. Portland is a self-described sanctuary city that does not aid the federal government in immigration enforcement.

The concern in Oregon comes after Bondi on Jan. 24 sent a letter to Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz after federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in separate shootings in Minneapolis that were captured on video.

Bondi’s letter outlined three “common sense solutions” that would help end the “chaos” in Minnesota, she wrote. One of those solutions called for the state to provide the Justice Department with its full, unredacted voter rolls.

Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon has called Bondi’s letter an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota” into handing over the data. Simon hasn’t provided the voter list, but White House border czar Tom Homan is pulling 700 immigration agents from Minnesota amid outrage over their presence. Roughly 2,300 agents will remain in the state.

In North Carolina, Durham County Director of Elections Derek Bowens called Trump’s rhetoric and recent federal actions concerning. Bowens, a nonpartisan official appointed by the Durham County Board of Elections, said that as long as the rule of law persists, a “constitutional guard” will protect election administration.

Still, Bowens, who oversees elections in a largely Democratic area in a presidential swing state, said he and other local officials are preparing to prevent potential “intrusion” into the process.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what that would be in terms of security protocols, but that’s definitely in the forefronts of our minds,” Bowens said in an interview, adding that he would be working with local emergency services officials “to make sure we’re positioned to ensure everyone that is eligible has unfettered access to the ballot box.”

Trump wants federal control

Trump appears to be crossing a line from urging Congress to set additional election requirements into wanting the federal government’s hands on states’ election administration infrastructure, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Elections Research Center at the university.

“That would be brand new,” Burden said.

After Trump called for nationalizing elections during Monday’s appearance on the podcast of Dan Bongino, a right-wing media personality who was previously a top FBI official, the White House said Tuesday that the president had been referring to legislation in Congress that would require individuals to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate.

But Trump late Tuesday doubled down on his original comments during an unrelated bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office. He suggested the federal government should take a role in vote counting.

“The federal government should get involved,” Trump said. “These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Even before Trump’s nationalization comments, Democratic state chief election officials and some Republicans had refused to turn over copies of voter rolls containing driver’s license numbers, date of birth and full or partial Social Security numbers after the Justice Department began demanding the data last spring.

Federal judges in California and Oregon have ruled those states don’t have to provide the data; numerous other lawsuits against other states are ongoing.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Trump-supporting Republican who campaigned for office on calls to hand-count ballots, told a Missouri House committee on Tuesday that he wouldn’t provide the state’s full voter list without a court order. He said his office had only shared a public version of the voter rolls; Missouri hasn’t been sued by the Justice Department.

The Trump administration has previously confirmed it is sharing records with Homeland Security, which operates an online program that it uses to verify citizenship. The Justice Department has also offered some states a confidential agreement to search their voter lists.

“Clean voter rolls and basic election safeguards are requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a statement to Stateline.

“The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration.”

But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, wrote in a Jan. 15 decision that the voter roll demands risk a chilling effect on Americans who may opt not to register to vote over concerns about how their information could be used. He dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking California’s voter rolls.

“The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left. The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans,” Carter wrote in a 33-page decision.

Some Republicans oppose nationalization

Amid Trump’s call for nationalizing elections, some Republican election officials have broken with the president even as they have avoided criticizing him directly. State control has long been a central tenant of conservatism, though Trump has challenged elements of Republican orthodoxy over the past decade.

Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, told state lawmakers on Tuesday, “I personally don’t believe we should nationalize elections.”

Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a news release on Monday urged lawmakers to focus on strengthening state administration of elections. He said that was better than “moving to federalize a core function of state government.”

Raffensperger, who is running for governor this year, was famously targeted by Trump following the 2020 election to overturn his loss in Georgia. In a phone call, Trump told Raffensperger he wanted to “find 11,780 votes” — the size of his loss in the state. Raffensperger refused to aid Trump.

Five years later, Raffensperger now faces pressure from Georgia state lawmakers to provide the state’s unredacted voter list to the Justice Department. The Georgia Senate on Monday passed a resolution calling on the secretary of state to fully comply with the department’s request.

Georgia Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, the resolution’s lead sponsor, said during a state Senate committee hearing last month that federal law supersedes limits on data sharing in Georgia law. He didn’t respond to an interview request.

In a statement to Stateline, Raffensperger said that state law is “very clear” that officials aren’t allowed to turn over the information. “I will always follow the law and the Constitution,” Raffensperger wrote.

The Georgia Senate vote came less than a week after the FBI searched the Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots. Fulton County, which includes much of the Atlanta metro area, was where Trump was indicted on charges of conspiracy and racketeering related to his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. The case was dismissed last year.

The Justice Department didn’t answer a question from Stateline about whether it plans to seek search warrants for other election offices.

On Wednesday, Fulton County filed a motion in federal court demanding the return of the seized ballots and other materials, Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said at a news conference. The motion also asks for the unsealing of the affidavit used by the FBI to support its search warrant application.

“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections,” Pitts said. “Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.