Miles Parks

The document pardons all those associated with a plot to make false electoral slates that could have potentially interfered with the presidential certification on January 6th, 2021.

It names Trump campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chesbrough, Mark Meadows and John Eastman, as well as dozens of other people who met often in secret to sign documents claiming they were legitimate electors in states actually won by Joe Biden.

The pardons are essentially symbolic, as none of the people pardoned have been charged with federal crimes.

Some are charged in their individual states, but the pardon has no impact on those cases.

Miles Parks, NPR News, Washington.

Maine routinely has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country.

And this year, voters there chose to keep their election rules just as they are.

Had the Republican-backed ballot referendum passed, Maine would have added new photo ID requirements, shortened its early voting period by two days, and added numerous hurdles for voters hoping to vote by mail.

Notably, it would have ended the practice of elderly voters being able to sign up to have ballots mailed to them every election.

All of that was a tough sell in a state where more than 40 percent of voters voted early or by mail in 2024.

Miles Parks, NPR News, Washington.

Here's NPR's Miles Parks.

NPR has spoken to voting officials in numerous states who say they found that the servicer of their elections equipment was changing hands from reading about it in the media.

It didn't help that the buyer of Dominion Voting Systems, former Republican election official Scott Leyendecker, seemed to lean into some of the unfounded suspicions surrounding the company since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

As of today, Dominion is gone, read the first line of the press release announcing the sale.

It's unclear what's actually changing, though.

Company representatives in Georgia sent an email to counties there that said Liberty Vote shares the same values as Dominion.

Same team, same support, different name, the company wrote.

Miles Parks, NPR News, Washington.

Almost 9 in 10 U.S. voters felt this year's general election was administered well, according to the Pew Research Center. That election approval rating is more than 30 points higher than it was at the same time in 2020, when Donald Trump and his allies were making false claims and sowing public distrust of elections every day.