Courting Georgia’s Latino voters and more news from the states

Good morning! Thanks for joining us. We’re just a week out from Election Day, so we’re starting our lineup with voting and politics news.

The top federal prosecutor in Seattle claimed that more than 400 noncitizens have been voting in Washington state, as the Trump administration’s crusade against alleged voter fraud intensifies. Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said in a news conference that prosecutors haven’t charged any of the alleged fraudulent voters with a crime.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that the Department of Justice should have never filed a lawsuit intended to aid fellow Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s reelection campaign.

And keep reading for a story from our Georgia newsroom on efforts to court Latino voters among a shifting national scene. 

Thanks again for stopping by. You can read all of States Newsroom’s election coverage at our website. See you back here tomorrow.

National: In the first three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, more than 900 women faced criminal charges for conduct related to their pregnancies, according to a new report. 

Colorado: The state’s most expensive ballot-measure showdown in the 2026 midterms is an overlapping series of fights over several high-stakes tax questions, with a mishmash of left- and right-leaning groups spending a combined total of more than $14 million to influence voters.

Rhode Island: In the first lawsuit from a state over Meta’s alleged role in profiting from scam ads, Democratic Attorney General Peter Neronha claims that the company allows the same advertising machinery that helps legitimate businesses find customers to be used by scammers to target victims.

North Dakota: Every K-12 student has the legal right to receive a lunch at school, but students and families who can’t afford to pay can still have long-term consequences, and some students may choose to go hungry to avoid them. There are more than two dozen school districts that reported referring parents to debt collection agencies.

Texas: A section of border wall that the federal government planned to build along a beloved South Texas wildlife refuge could end up cutting through the refuge instead. The federal government is considering changing its plans for a border wall that it intended to build on a levee that runs adjacent to the Sana National Wildlife Refuge. 

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

Republicans and Democrats are making a play for Latino support in the midsize city of Dalton, Georgia. Grassroots engagement and targeted campaigning are part of an effort on both sides of the aisle to boost Latino turnout and win Hispanic votes ahead of the midterms, Georgia Recorder reports.

In a battleground state with tightening margins, Georgia’s Latino voters have the potential to affect the outcome of the governor’s race in November. With polls showing the two candidates, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson, within striking distance of each other, a 2 or 3 percentage-point swing in either direction could make all the difference. 

About 5% of Georgia’s more than 8 million registered voters are Latino, according to the most recent data from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Over the past decade, the number of active Hispanic voters has grown by 210%, or 267,614. Jackson and Bottoms have made attempts to reach this growing voter bloc in Whitfield County and across the state alongside efforts from local political parties. 

At the local level, county political parties table at Latino community events, host panels, sponsor a local soccer team and send out bilingual canvassers, placing Hispanics in the middle of a tug-of-war of talking points and cultural appeals. 

But while President Donald Trump made gains with Latino voters in 2024, there are signs that this support could be unraveled amid his administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration. In Georgia, immigration enforcement agents have arrested thousands of people.

Faith leaders and an Arizona Supreme Court justice gathered at the state Capitol to call for the respectful treatment of election workers, Arizona Mirror reports. 

Justice Maria Elena Cruz said she empathizes with election workers because, like judges, they endure vitriol from the public. She denounced the harassment of public servants and said Arizonans should appreciate the effort that goes into preparing for and carrying out an election. 

“When ballots are counted accurately and results are reported faithfully, the public rarely pauses to think about the thousands of careful hands that made it so,” she said. 

The push to back election workers comes as the Trump administration seeks to cast doubt on election security, in a repeat of messaging made during the president’s first term that inspired a spate of threats against election officials. 

And this election cycle is already seeing a similar result. On Oct. 15, more than 100 elected leaders, including election officials, and political organizations received suspicious letters, many of which contained unknown substances, in a nationwide threat wave. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office was forced to evacuate after a worker opened a letter containing white powder.