Dem Attorneys General Prepare for What Seems Inevitable: Trump Election Interference
There’s a new Politico piece out today on the prep work that Democratic attorneys general around the nation are doing to create a legal battle plan for the seemingly inevitable reality that will arrive this fall, when President Trump attempts to make good on his threats to interfere with states’ election administration.
Trump’s Justice Department has already sued multiple states who refuse to comply with his demands for sensitive voter roll data. He sparked outcry earlier this month when he suggested that he’s looking at ways to “nationalize” voting — or at least force states to somehow surrender their authority over election administration in more than a dozen places. His FBI has raided the election hub of a key county that he and his allies have fixated on since he lost the 2020 election. And his friends in the broader, online MAGAsphere have been theorizing for months now that he will send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to the polls in November to “monitor” the vote, which experts warn will intimidate people seeking to vote. While no Trump official has necessarily publicly embraced the ICE-at-the-polls idea, the White House hasn’t exactly shut down the notion either.
As Trump and his allies both inside and outside the federal government continue to weave visions of such ominous scenarios, a handful of Democratic attorneys general who spoke to Politico are reportedly preparing legal responses to the potential impending overreach. Per Politico:
They’re preparing for the administration to potentially confiscate ballots and voting machines, strip resources from the postal service to disrupt the delivery of mail ballots, and send military members and immigration agents to polling locations to intimidate voters. They’re readying motions for temporary restraining orders to preserve election materials and remove armed forces from voting sites.
A group of 19 Democratic attorneys general already worked together last year to sue the Trump administration after Trump released his executive order that purported to target many states’ vote-by-mail and voter registration rules. Most of Trump’s executive order from last spring has been blocked by courts.
State election officials have also pushed back against Trump’s increasingly dystopian efforts to exert control over election administration. Many have refused to comply with the DOJ’s demands for voter roll data, hence the lawsuits. In the wake of the FBI’s raid of the election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, election officials from states across the country, both Republican and Democrat, have spoken out asking for more information about the raid and what is being done to protect the materials that were seized.
“Just as this president doesn’t get to decide who wins elections, he also doesn’t get to decide who runs them. The law dictates that,” Michigan Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson said in a recent interview with NBC News. “And the law has, in a very effective way, enabled us to protect the sanctity of our elections at the local level … and that’s why those state officials are so critical because we follow the law, we follow the Constitution, we follow the rules. And we make sure, no matter who someone votes for, they can cast their ballot freely and fairly and have confidence that the results are an accurate reflection of their will. … Our job, unfortunately in this moment often means guarding that reality.”
— Nicole LaFond
The latest proof of citizenship voter bill being pushed by GOP leadership in Washington stands to significantly disenfranchise large swaths of the Republican Party’s own base. Called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, the law purports to solve the non-existent problem of undocumented immigrants voting en masse in federal elections. It would require, among other things, voters to provide either a passport or a birth certificate to register to vote. But a report from the left-leaning Center for American Progress found the lowest rates of passport ownership were found in red states. Every state with the highest rate of passport ownership is blue. Working class, rural, and voters in red states in middle America have repeatedly been found less likely to possess a passport. And studies have shown conservative women are more likely to change their last names after getting married, thereby having a different name than that which would appear on their original birth certificates.
So why is the GOP going so hard for a law that could hurt the party’s own get-out-the-vote efforts?
“I think the end goal of the SAVE Act is to sow chaos in elections, and that’s exactly what they’re after,” Gréta Bedekovics, director of democracy at CAP, told TPM. “I mean, the fact that it would be implemented effectively overnight would essentially make the 2026 elections un-administerable.”
The bill — which also requires voters to register in-person at their local election office, has a voter ID at the polls requirement, and would force states to turn over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security — has been largely opposed by Democrats, suggesting their voters would be the most negatively affected. But Bedekovics, who co-authored the SAVE America Act analysis, said there’s no evidence this law would have a partisan impact. Voters would be disenfranchised across the political spectrum, she said.
Conservative policy think tank the America First Policy Institute declined to respond to a TPM request about the impact of this bill on conservative voters, but published its own analysis supporting the bill and its more restrictive cousin, the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act.
As TPM has repeatedly reported, the scourge of undocumented immigrants casting ballots in U.S. elections, which these bills claim to address, is a myth. Last month, state election officials in Utah, which Trump won, found 99.9% of registered voters in their state were U.S. citizens.
— Layla A. Jones
While the legislation has little hope of going anywhere in either the House or the Senate, both of which are controlled by Republicans, Democratic members of Congress plan to introduce legislation in each chamber that would require the Department of Homeland Security to get consent from state and local officials before building new immigrant detention centers. The news comes as communities across the country have been fighting back against the Trump administration’s plans to take local warehouses and other facilities and turn them into new detention centers as part of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) are sponsoring the bill in the Senate. Per WaPo:
Shaheen and Hassan are introducing the bill as Democrats demand the Trump administration agree to new restrictions on DHS after federal agents last month shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. Much of DHS shut down earlier this month after the two sides failed to strike a deal to send more money to the agency.
The bill would prohibit DHS from setting up new processing sites or detention centers unless local officials and the state’s governor sign off. …
The bill would also require the administration to notify Congress and seek public comment for at least 30 days before setting up new detention centers or processing sites.
— Nicole LaFond
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