Citizenship questions roil voter rolls and more news from the states

Good evening. Even as mail and absentee ballots have gone out across the country, various efforts to root noncitizen voters from state rolls have the potential to disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters. In Utah, a fraction of voters warned that they needed to provide additional citizenship documentation have done so. In North Carolina, nearly 1,400 voters have been flagged by state and federal officials as potential noncitizens. And the Trump administration is taking California to court over a dispute involving 20,000 voters there. 

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of attorneys general in six states are pursuing lawsuits against Chat GPT for harms against children, while a federal appeals court upheld Florida’s social media ban for younger kids. 

Across the country, groups are courting Gen Z voters to the polls, particularly in states with reproductive rights on the ballot. 

Of more than 6,000 Utah voters who state election officials notified earlier this year needed to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship before this year’s November election, only 1,827 have responded and confirmed their citizenship, Utah News Dispatch. 

Those voters received a ballot with state and federal races — but those who didn’t respond were sent a ballot in the mail this week with only federal congressional races printed on them. 

A fraction — 57 — requested to be removed from Utah’s voter rolls because “either they could not confirm citizenship or otherwise asked to be removed,” the lieutenant governor’s office said. 

The new proof of citizenship requirements were enacted earlier this year after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a new state law, HB209. It requires voters to provide “documentary proof” of their U.S. citizenship before the Nov. 3 election — or else they would be provided a federal-only ballot with no state or local elections. 

In North Carolina, election officials warned that letters flagging nearly 1,400 registered voters as potential noncitizens were “a service” to let them know in advance that state elections officials and federal prosecutors were looking into their eligibility to cast a ballot.

On Thursday, the Trump administration sued California over a dispute about potential noncitizen voters. Read about that case in National Scene. 

More voting news: 

An Alabama county commission unexpectedly approved a 20-year, $1.15 billion tax break for the state’s largest planned data center development this week amid concerns and pushback from residents, Alabama Reflector reports. 

Residents have attended Lowndes County Commission meetings to protest the development in recent months, forcing the commission to change locations to accommodate the audience size. 

According to the proposal, the project will be Alabama’s largest planned data center, operate 24/7, and it’s requested 1,500 megawatts of energy capacity from Alabama Power — enough to power roughly 1 million homes. The entire state of Alabama has about 2 million households and about 2.4 million housing units.

Related: New Mexico AG finds ‘substantial share’ of Project Jupiter data center public comments raise concerns

Attorneys general from eight states announced plans Wednesday to sue OpenAI in state courts, alleging ChatGPT harmed children and violated state consumer protection laws, Iowa Capital Dispatch reports. 

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was joined by fellow Republican attorneys general Kris Kobach of Kansas, Mike Hilgers of Nebraska, and JB McCuskey of West Virginia at the Iowa Capitol to announce their planned litigation against the generative artificial intelligence company. Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana are also suing OpenAI in their respective state courts, alleging the company provided misleading statements about the safety of ChatGPT.

The lawsuit filed in Iowa district court accuses OpenAI of failing to provide proper warnings or restrictions on the use of ChatGPT — particularly by minors — amid reports that the chatbot has issued responses that include false medical advice and that encourage violence or self-harm. 

“We will not just accept that any big tech company can make money by hurting Iowa’s kids and use them as lab rats, you know, in a race to be the first or the biggest or to have the most users,” Bird said. “When a big company does that, it’s time for me, as attorney general, to step in and … hold them accountable to our law and take them to court.”

Alaska: One year since the remnants of Typhoon Halong ripped through coastal communities, displacing an estimated 1,600 residents and prompting the largest mass evacuation of the region in state history, the recovery effort is ongoing and uncertain.

Colorado: Food assistance programs have seen an influx of families in support of need, fueled by the rising cost of living and cuts to federal benefits. 

Alabama: After announcing a positive measles test earlier this week, public health officials strongly encouraged vaccination as cases of the disease mount nationwide.

Virginia: Federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program money can no longer be used for certain gender-affirming care to young people in Virginia and other states, after a new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule took effect this week.

Florida: A federal appeals court panel ruled that the state’s 2024 law restricting access to social media for teens is likely constitutional and can continue to be enforced while the legal challenge continues.

Washington: Democratic Attorney General Nick Brown will not ask state lawmakers again to pass a sweeping bill to limit social media for youths, saying a recent court settlement with social media giant Meta is sufficient.

Kansas: Democrat Adam Hamilton says reporting by Kansas Reflector and MS NOW warrants an ethics investigation into whether his opponent, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, misused government resources to support his reelection campaign.

Maine: Now operating as an independent nonprofit known as People Powered Maine, former volunteers for Graham Platner’s suspended U.S. Senate campaign are still pushing for change outside the two party system. 

Indiana: Lincoln Party secretary of state candidate Greg Ballard filed suit Thursday to force the state Election Commission to rule on four pending campaign finance complaints against his opponents before the Nov. 3 election.

A statue of the Virgin Mary holding a young Jesus sits on a coffee table at the Ursuline sisters’ residence in New Orleans, where Sister Carolyn Brockland, 85, is the lone remaining member of the order in New Orleans. (Photo by Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

Inside the National Shrine to Our Lady of Prompt Succor on the Ursuline Academy campus, Brockland points out stained glass, jewel-encrusted crowns and items that are hundreds of years old, explaining each story. These objects are the heritage of the Ursuline Sisters, a religious order that has helped heal, teach and shape the Crescent City since 1727. 

Overall, there are only about 100 Ursulines of the Roman Union remaining in the United States. With a sharply declining population, the sisters have been preparing Ursuline schools for their absence, training laypeople to become spiritual leaders and carry on traditions.

“I don’t know what the future is going to hold,” Brockland said. “Maybe there’ll be another resurgence of people who want to live a religious life, but if not, God’s work will go on in another way.”

Read more from Louisiana Illuminator.

The Trump administration sought a federal court order Thursday to force California to purge 20,000 people from its voter rolls over claims they are not U.S. citizens, a major development less than three weeks before the midterm elections, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan on Wednesday declined to open a thumb drive the federal government sent them containing a list of suspected noncitizens registered to vote in California. 

Logan said the drive was unvetted and opening it would violate the office’s security protocols. 

The Trump administration’s lawsuit seeks a judicial order blocking the state from counting mail ballots sent to registered voters that the administration says are noncitizens.

David Becker, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, suggested that the administration’s objective was not to deny noncitizens from voting, but to sow doubt about the election results. He added that the thumb drive was sent in an envelope that included a handwritten note with a password written on it, which is a serious red flag for cybersecurity experts.

More from the D.C. Bureau: 

In Idaho and Missouri, where voters will decide the future of abortion access on Nov. 3, campaigns are trying to reach Gen Z voters: a generation dealing with rising living costs and skepticism toward politics. For some young voters, abortion remains a defining issue. But for many others, it ranks behind more immediate economic concerns, Stateline and The 19th report. 

Idaho’s initiative would restore abortion access. Missouri’s measure seeks to reinstate a near-total ban jettisoned by voters two years ago.

In most elections, it’s difficult for campaigns to achieve high turnout among young voters, especially in between presidential election cycles. But there are some signs that turnout could be higher this year. Nonpartisan youth vote organization The Civics Center noted a significant increase in voter registration among 18-year-olds compared with the 2022 midterms, from 35% to 42%. 

And a survey by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University points out that there are many signs Gen Z is active and engaged on political subjects, but that connecting issues to candidates and ballot questions is the challenge.

This story is part of Gen Z at the Ballot Box, a collaboration between States Newsroom and The 19th. 

Ten endangered red wolves were transported between North Carolina and New York this week as part of a coordinated effort to preserve the critically endangered species, North Carolina Newsline reports. 

Pilots to the Rescue — a nonprofit that uses volunteer pilots to transport animals — flew three red wolves from the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York, to North Carolina. 

The team then returned with a breeding pair of wolves and their five young pups from the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. The family includes first-time parents Carolina and Jacques and their five pups, who were born in May. 

The exchange is part of a breeding program designed to maintain genetic diversity among red wolves living in human care.

The red wolf is one of the world’s most endangered animals. Once found across much of the Southeast, the species was driven to the brink of extinction by habitat loss and human predation. 

Today, eastern North Carolina is home to the only remaining wild population. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 21 adult red wolves remained in the wild, along with about 14 pups.