September 8, 2026 11:59AM # Election Policy Roundup #30: Meddling Feds, RCV and Spending, Touchscreens By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... Number 30 in our [series of occasional roundups](https://www.cato.org/search?query=%22election+policy+roundup%22) on election law and policy: - Feds intent on meddling: Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee, a Republican, “said the \[Department of Justice\] monitors’ questions were ‘outside the scope of federal voting rights laws.’ She added that they ‘requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators.’” \[[Adam Edelman, NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/wyoming-republican-governor-concerns-aggressive-doj-election-monitors-rcna594730)\] - “Currently, not a single state meets the restrictive ID criteria in the bill, though Ohio comes close.” A state-by-state survey of the costs, hassles, and burdens on administrators and voters had the Save America Act somehow passed Congress this year. \[[Institute for Responsive Government](https://responsivegov.org/research/voter-id-changes-required-under-the-save-america/)\] - The passage of McCain-Feingold weakened the political parties, as was forecast at the time. Are we sure we like the results? \[[Richard Pildes](https://electionlawblog.org/2026/how-pushing-money-away-from-political-parties-to-outside-groups-weakens-democracy/); related, [Samuel Issacharoff, Democracy Project](https://democracyproject.org/posts/a-welcome-correction-nrsc-v-fec-and-the-need-to-empower-parties), on this summer’s [*NRSC v. FEC*](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621_h315.pdf)\] - Populism and judicial selection make an especially bad mix, so it is with relief that I can report that the Kansas electorate voted 39 to 61 percent against electing the state’s supreme court justices \[[Kansas Reflector](https://kansasreflector.com/2026/08/04/kansas-voters-reject-constitutional-amendment-on-judicial-selection-by-wide-margin/)\] - You’re going to get more irregularities with touchscreens than with marked paper ballots, right? Or maybe not \[[*Atlanta Journal-Constitution*](https://www.ajc.com/politics/2026/07/raffensperger-says-audit-bolsters-case-for-touchscreen-voting-system/) via [ELB](https://electionlawblog.org/?p=157245)\] - A new study of instant-runoff ranked-choice voting in Maine and NYC finds it appears to reduce the role of campaign spending in candidate success. Voters’ first choices still correlate highly with spending levels, but the correlation wanes as they proceed down the ballot to make more choices. \[[Kevin Clelland and Jeanne Clelland, SSRN](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6963439)\] ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).