Southwest
Behind-the-scenes battles: Legal challenges that could impact the vote before Election Day begins
Battleground states have already seen their share of fights before Election Day as legal challenges centered on voting issues, and while some have already been decided, others remain up in the air just hours before polls open Tuesday morning.
From issues including mail-in ballots, drop boxes and concerns about ineligible voters, here are some of the high-profile swing state cases and where they currently stand.
Arizona
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes acknowledged in September that 218,000 people in the state were allowed to register to vote without proof of citizenship despite state law that requires it. A state court set a deadline of Monday for production of a full list of affected people so that the recorders of each county can verify the citizenship of voters who had not previously provided proof of citizenship.
The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Monday before receiving any list that approximately 2,000 people had tried to submit voter registration updates and subsequently received notices that they had to prove their citizenship.
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“These voters were contacted individually to let them know their registration was incomplete. However, after further consideration, the decision was made to fully restore those voters from the not-registered status, only if they were previously an existing, registered voter,” the statement said.
Georgia
Georgia has seen multiple lawsuits involving mail-in ballots. In Cobb County, the ACLU sued, claiming that at least 3,000 voters did not receive their ballots on time. A lower court had ordered new ballots to be sent overnight to the affected voters, saying that their votes would be counted as long as they are received by Nov. 8 at 5 p.m., but the Georgia Supreme Court stayed that ruling on Monday, so these voters now have to make sure their ballots get to the county elections office by 7pm on Election Day or vote in person.
Also in Cobb County, as well as in Fulton, Dekalb and Gwinnett Counties, the Republican National Committee sued, claiming that election offices improperly opened over the weekend to allow voters to drop off their mail-in ballots in person. The RNC cited state law that says drop boxes should be closed after the end of the early voting period, which was Friday. A state court said the county elections offices had the discretion to open for additional hours.
Another Georgia case involved Fulton County’s offices being open over the weekend for dropping off mail-in ballots. At first, poll observers were barred from entering, with Fulton County elections director Nadine Williams stating that they were not allowed because it was a county office and not a polling site. Just hours later, it was announced that observers would be permitted after all.
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Nevada
A lawsuit from the Trump campaign, RNC and Nevada Republican Party opposing the potential counting of mail-in ballots that the state receives after Election Day that do not bear a postmark. The state Supreme Court ruled that such ballots can still be counted up to three days after Election Day. There is a similar case in federal court where challengers also lost but are appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The same issue was also brought before the Fifth Circuit after a case was brought in Mississippi, and while the court said such ballots cannot be counted after Election Day, the ruling does not apply to this year’s election.
North Carolina
The RNC also has a lawsuit in North Carolina, involving 225,000 people it alleges are improperly registered because they had used an old form that did not ask for their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. The RNC claims that this violates the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
“Because of these errors, the North Carolina voter rolls, which both HAVA and state law mandates that Defendants regularly maintain, are potentially replete with ineligible voters – including possible non-citizens – all of whom are now registered to vote,” the RNC and North Carolina GOP said in a court filing.
Pennsylvania
The Keystone State remains a key battleground, not just on the ballot but in courtrooms, with several lawsuits having been filed over a variety of voting issues, many involving mail-in ballots.
Republicans scored a win when they appealed a court ruling that said mail-in ballots without a required handwritten date could still be counted. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overruled, saying that handwritten dates must be on the ballots.
The GOP was not so fortunate in a separate case in which it sought an emergency appeal from the U.S. Supreme Court after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that provisional ballots should be counted if voters’ mail-in ballots were disqualified for technical errors, such as not being in mandatory secrecy envelopes. Republicans cited a state law that they argued prohibited voters from casting provisional ballots if they had already submitted mail-in ballots on time.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned away the RNC’s appeal, with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas issuing a statement that made clear that because the case only involved two votes in a small county, it would not have impacted the results of the election either way.
Both parties won legal challenges when voters in multiple counties did not receive mail-in ballots on time. Democrats in Erie County sued when as many as 20,000 voters did not receive their ballots from a third-party vendor on time. A judge ruled that the Erie County Board of Elections had to remain open last Friday and Saturday so voters could fill out ballots.
In Bucks County, Republicans sued over voters waiting in line for mail-in ballots being turned away at 5 p.m., even though they had been there waiting. A judge swiftly ruled that voters should get an additional three days to apply for a mail-in ballot.
Another Pennsylvania case involves six Republican members of Congress who sued Pennsylvania’s State Department with allegations that overseas voters’ ballots were vulnerable to fraud because those voters were not made to adhere to the same identification requirement as absentee ballot voters in the U.S. The GOP lawmakers lost when a judge dismissed their case based on standing, timeliness, not presenting a viable cause of action and failing to join indispensable parties.
One situation that remains ongoing involves a potential voter fraud operation that is under investigation. Officials have said that several counties have seen large batches of voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications that were suspicious. In Monroe County, District Attorney Mike Mancuso said that some of the forms detected in his county were submitted by “Field and Media Corps,” an apparent subsidiary of Fieldcorp, an Arizona-based organization working in Lancaster County.
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Southwest
James Carville blasts Crockett for breaking ‘first rule of politics,’ focusing on herself more than voters
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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville spoke about Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s bid for the Senate in Thursday’s episode of his podcast, arguing she tends to break a key rule of politics.
“Politics War Room” podcast co-host Al Hunt argued Crockett throwing her hat into the ring for the Texas Senate is good news. He argued that the most likely Democratic candidate to win would be state Rep. James Talarico, saying, “If he ends up running against Ken Paxton, I like those odds.”
Carville said he feels more optimistic about Texas than he has in a long time.
“I’ll address the issue of Jasmine Crockett,” Carville said. “First of all, it seems like she’s well-educated. It seems like she’s got a lot of energy. But she, to me, she violates the first rule of politics, and that is, in politics, you always make it about the voters and never about yourself.
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James Carville warned that while Rep. Jasmine Crockett is viable in a heavily Democrat-leaning district, she may not do so well in a broader area. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for MoveOn)
“You listen to her talk. It’s a lot more about herself than it is the voters.”
He warned that Crockett lives in a district that favors Democrats by 24 points, arguing it would be far better for her to try to rally Democrats in districts that slightly favor Republicans.
“You can stay in Congress as long as you want,” Carville suggested. “You can get all the hits. You can get all the clicks. You can get on all of the TV shows. You can get in as long as you’re polemic, but you’re not helping very much.”
He went on to argue that a perfect example of Democrats making unforced errors would be Tennessee’s 7th district, where Aftyn Behn was considered a poor choice of candidate in an election where Republicans were unusually vulnerable.
Carville joked that it was as if Democrats had “gone into a lab” to “design the worst candidate that we could possibly run in Tennessee 7.
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Rep. Jasmine Crockett, frequently seen in the news for incendiary rhetoric, caused a shakeup by entering the race for the Texas senate. (LM Otero/AP Photo)
“We would pick somebody who said they didn’t like country music. We could pick someone that said they don’t even like where they live. We could pick someone that said they wanted to pay for gender-affirming surgery for prison. We could pick someone that said, ‘We want to defund the police.’ Actually, we picked that person. We actually did. And even there, she cut the margin from 22 to nine.
“But we know what wins elections,” Carville concluded. “We just do. And what wins elections is not sitting there talking incessantly about yourself. Winning elections is not how many clicks you get or how much overnight fundraising you do. Winning elections is being part of framing issues and understanding where people are coming from, and I don’t think Congressman Crockett is very good at that. I’ll be very frank.”
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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville has frequently warned that the Democratic Party loses what should be easy victories by catering to far-left cultural politics. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SCAD)
Fox News Digital reached out to Behn and Crockett and did not receive an immediate response.
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Southwest
Black Lives Matter OKC leader charged with wire fraud, money laundering in alleged $3.15M embezzlement scheme
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The executive director of Black Lives Matter (BLM) Oklahoma City (OKC) has been charged with wire fraud and money laundering after federal prosecutors say she diverted more than $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal bank accounts over a five-year period, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, 52, of Oklahoma City, is accused of routing money intended for the group’s bail fund and social justice programs into accounts she controlled between June 2020 and October 2025.
The indictment says Dickerson used the money “for her personal benefit,” including travel to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, “tens of thousands of dollars in retail shopping,” more than $50,000 in food deliveries, a vehicle and six real properties.
According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release covering the indictment, BLM OKC raised more than $5.6 million beginning in 2020, including major grants from the Community Justice Exchange, the Massachusetts Bail Fund and the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
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The Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Oklahoma City, speaks during a rally outside the Stillwater Police Department in Stillwater, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Those organizations routed most of the money through the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), which served as BLM OKC’s fiscal sponsor and required that all funds be used for tax-exempt purposes permitted under Section 501(c)(3). AFGJ also prohibited real estate purchases without its approval and required BLM OKC to fully account for expenditures upon request.
Prosecutors say Dickerson instead deposited at least $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal accounts “rather than into BLMOKC’s accounts” and used interstate wires to submit two annual reports to AFGJ that “did not disclose” her personal use of funds. Those reports said the organization’s money had been used only for tax-exempt purposes.
Dickerson served as the group’s executive director beginning in at least 2016 and had access to BLM OKC’s bank, PayPal and CashApp accounts, according to the indictment.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., left, and Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City leader Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson pose for a selfie. (Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson via Facebook)
Prosecutors allege the misconduct began during the period when national bail funds allowed BLM OKC to retain portions of returned bail money to build a revolving bail fund or support its stated mission.
In 2022, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a separate national organization not affiliated with BLM OKC, came under scrutiny after New York Magazine reported that it had purchased a $6 million California property using donor funds.
Internal memos showed senior leaders discussing how to manage questions about the house, which the group said was intended to serve as creative and community space. The reporting ignited debate at the time over financial transparency and oversight within national BLM-associated organizations.
When contacted about Dickerson’s charges, a Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation spokesperson said BLM practices a “model of decentralized leadership.”
“The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation operates independently from local chapters, and the local chapters operate independently of the Foundation. The Foundation remains committed to transparency and integrity, and disrupting what philanthropy looks like in service of Black people,” the spokesperson said.
Image of “Spirit Rock” painted with a Black Lives Matter message. (Alliance Defending Freedom)
A federal grand jury returned a 25-count indictment Dec. 3 charging Dickerson with 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. She faces up to 20 years in federal prison for each wire fraud count and up to 10 years for each money-laundering count, along with potential fines of up to $250,000 per charge.
All charges are merely allegations and Dickerson is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office and IRS Criminal Investigation.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Black Lives Matter OKC and the Alliance for Global Justice for comment.
Fox News correspondent David Spunt and Fox News Digital’s Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
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Southwest
US Border Patrol agent kills suspected cartel smuggler after ‘struggle’ near Texas riverbank
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A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a suspected cartel smuggler on Thursday after he came across the Rio Grande in Starr County, Texas, Fox News has confirmed.
The suspected smuggler assaulted the agent, who fired his weapon in self-defense, killing the man, three border law enforcement sources told Fox News.
The agent is “okay,” according to those sources.
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A U.S. Border Patrol agent is alive after shooting and killing a suspected cartel smuggler during a “struggle” at the border, according to Texas law enforcement. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the officer-involved shooting on X, adding that the suspect was pronounced dead at Starr County Memorial Hospital.
The Starr County Sheriff’s Office said Border Patrol agents were “involved in a struggle prior to the shooting,” which was confirmed at about 5:30 p.m. local time.
U.S. Border Patrol was involved in an officer-involved shooting Thursday in Midway, Texas. (Kirsten Luce for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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The sheriff’s office asked the public to avoid the area as first responders clear and secure the scene.
It is unclear what led to the encounter or the subsequent shooting. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
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The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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