Threats, executive orders, and rumors fly this election season. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 
With 112 days to go until Election Day, President Trump’s drive to undermine the vote continues. As time runs short, his efforts grow more aggressive, more brazen. But they are facing pushback with ever greater assurance.
Last Friday, Trump pushed out the remaining commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission. This tiny agency exists to provide help and funding for states. Trump had previously tried to force the commission to implement his pet voter suppression policy — requiring a passport to register to vote — but a federal court barred it from doing so in a lawsuit brought last year by the Brennan Center and others. Now, without any commissioners, the agency can’t do much of anything.
Another federal judge quashed Justice Department subpoenas issued to hundreds of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia. The judge said the subpoenas were “staggering,” and that the Justice Department was engaged in a “fishing expedition.”
Also last week, the Justice Department sent a scarifying letter to state officials warning that they will be held criminally liable if noncitizens are found on the voter rolls or voting.
Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, who runs elections in that state, wrote, “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”
Trump even claimed that recently deceased Sen. Lindsey Graham’s last conversation with him involved his allegedly ardent support for the anti-voter SAVE Act.
Now comes word that on Thursday, Trump will deliver an address to the nation, rumored to be when he will reveal that the 2020 election was hacked by . . . China? Iran? Whoever.
Why is the president continuing to press on like this? Yes, he’s relitigating the 2020 election. And some of his desired election policy changes, were they to become law, could restrict the vote for millions.
But the bigger reason is to stir fear, doubt, and confusion in the minds of voters.
We’re seeing a psychological warfare campaign waged against American democracy by leaders of its own government.
People tell me of encounters they’ve recently had with voters. One voter is convinced she will have a hard time voting because she changed her name when she got married from the one on her birth certificate, even though the SAVE Act has not become law. Another worries that the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling in Louisiana v. Callais means they cannot vote.
Crazy rumors fly. That former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, for example, will “confess” to stealing the 2020 election in exchange for leniency. And so on. Few pan out. But the decibel level can be deafening.
All this requires deftness by those who would protect the vote. Every election year, voting advocates like the Brennan Center weigh carefully whether and how to reassure voters, as merely mentioning the potential threats to voting could backfire and scare people away from the polls.
Latino voters and other immigrants, for example, may fear ICE being present at polling places. Even though such a deployment would be illegal, simply raising it as a possibility may cause voters to stay home. Fear would have done its work.
For other voters, though, we may see a new phenomenon: Efforts at suppression could fuel mobilization. In the South, Black voters are outraged by the efforts to redraw election maps after the Supreme Court’s Callais decision gutted the Voting Rights Act. They could turn out in historic numbers. People get really mad when you try to take something from them — and when it’s representation and the vote, watch out.
All of us who care about free, fair, and secure elections in 2026 should say loud and clear: Voters can vote with certainty. Make a plan to vote. Vote as early as you can. In person, via drop box, in the mail.
One hundred twelve days. It will feel like longer. But when this year is done, the strong response across the country to an egregious effort to undermine our democracy may be the real story.

 

Inside the Government’s Data Grab
The Trump administration is working to collect and analyze vast amounts of personal data, raising serious concerns about privacy and First Amendment rights. A new expert brief with interactive graphics examines these data consolidation efforts, the risks they pose, and what Congress and state and local governments can do to protect the public from the misuse of their personal information. Read more
Court Backs Sanctuary Cities
As state and local leaders continue to grapple with how to protect their communities amid aggressive federal immigration enforcement, a federal judge in Boston reaffirmed in May that cities have the right to decide whether and how to cooperate with ICE. The ruling marks an important setback in the administration’s effort to dismantle so-called sanctuary policies nationwide. Read more
Justice in the Dark
The Supreme Court’s transparency problem is getting worse. In a first, during the last term, the Court decided more substantive cases on its shadow docket than through its traditional public process. “If our nation’s most important legal decisions are being handed down without briefing, argumentation, or reasoned analysis, Congress must act to reform the Court and make it a more democratically accountable institution,” Ashleigh Maciolek writes. Read more
A Chance to Protect Election Security
The Senate Intelligence Committee is set to hold a hearing Sunday to consider the nomination of a new director of national intelligence. Lawmakers will have a crucial opportunity to question the nominee and secure commitments that he will not abuse the intelligence agency’s authority, particularly at a time when it has been weaponized against our elections. “It is critical that the ODNI’s authority in matters of election security be carefully limited,” Kate Lurie and Derek Tisler write. Read more
The Quiet Campaign Against Direct Democracy
About half the states allow citizens to make or change state law via referendum — a power that Americans in many states have used to circumvent their elected officials and enact popular policies, such as reproductive rights protections. But these efforts have prompted a backlash. “Officials have sought to burden the direct democracy process with restrictions that may seem modest in isolation but collectively threaten to render these rights unusable,” State Democracy Research Initiative’s Derek Clinger writes in State Court Report. Read more

 

Podcast
Lifelong civil rights activist Maya Wiley joins the podcast this week to discuss the importance of coalition building to fight back against the administration’s and Supreme Court’s attacks on democracy. At a time marked by rising discriminatory rhetoric, the weaponization of government power, and growing concerns about corruption, she offers a clear sense of what comes next and why collective action still matters. YouTube // Spotify // Apple // SUBSTACK

 

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