The Trump administration continues to expand its authoritarian push to revamp voting rules and seize state election powers, despite growing resistance from US courts, state officials and Democrats, who warn the moves are endangering voting rights and the rule of law.
Donald Trump’s unprecedented drive to change election rules is fuelled by his obsession with his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, which he falsely attributes to voter fraud, and his fear that Democrats will impeach him if they take control of the House in November’s midterm elections, say former election officials and legal experts.
The administration has used justice department legal moves and threats, FBI raids and investigations, and other federal agencies to coerce states into curtailing postal voting and targeting voting machines that Trump and his allies have baselessly vilified as riddled with fraud. Legal experts say the administration is intimidating election workers and voters, and laying the groundwork to challenge results where Republican candidates lose.
In July, the Department of Justice demanded unredacted voter lists from 30 states, containing personal and sensitive information. The same month, top justice official Harmeet Dhillon threatened state election officials with criminal investigations if they knowingly permitted non-citizens to register. The FBI has also taken extraordinary steps to investigate Georgia’s 2020 election results, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots from Fulton County earlier this year and sending 200 agents there in July.
Courts have overwhelmingly rejected the justice department’s claims. Eileen O’Connor, a former justice department attorney, said the department had filed 30 cases seeking unredacted voter rolls and lost 15 of them. In one case, a judge excoriated the department for an “arbitrary fishing expedition”. Despite losing in court, O’Connor stressed the administration is “injecting chaos” into this year’s elections.
