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Lying, Cheating, Stealing Trump Just Told Us Exactly What He Will Do This November If Democrats Win
The president has made it crystal clear that he’ll say or do anything to hang onto his power, because he knows if he loses that power his entire house of cards collapses.
Jul 17, 2026
Last night, Donald Trump essentially told us exactly what he will do this November. When reports start coming in that the Democrats are winning this fall, he will send in the troops.
He’ll point back to last night‘s speech and tell the nation:
“I told you so. I warned you. They rigged the election for the Democrats and now I have to stop it.”
He’ll mobilize ICE and the National Guard’s “Rapid Reaction Force” that he’s assembled over the past six months to seize ballot boxes and crush the inevitable “insurrection” — protests in the streets against his seizing ballot boxes — by “left-wing communist radical domestic terrorists.”
He’ll declare a state of emergency, invoke his NSPM-7, and blame it on a foreign country and/or “Antifa.” He’ll declare protesting a crime, and tear gas will fill our streets.
This is easy for me to imagine: I was there in 1967 when Lyndon Johnson did nearly the same thing, although for an entirely different purpose, and I’ve worked in several countries where this very scenario had already played out.
And those same white supremacists Trump has already pardoned can also easily imagine how it should play out when he calls them out to attack protesters; they’ve been terrorizing minority communities for centuries and are very good at it.
This includes his tens of thousands of well-armed loyalist cult members who’re salivating at the idea of splitting that $1.776 billion they believe they’ll get when he seizes absolute control of the country.
As Senator Amy Klobuchar said on MSNOW last night:
“This is a man desperate to hold onto his power and he will do anything to keep that power.”
Would he actually be so audacious as to try that? Could he actually pull it off?
He could, he will, because he’s already tried it once.
The difference is that six years ago — the last time he tried to overturn an election he lost — his Attorney General, FBI Director, Director of National Intelligence, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, DHS Secretary, and Chief of the National Guard would all have refused such an order, so he called on thousands of violent thugs to attack the Capitol, stop the election certification, and murder the vice president.
This time, in a classically Putin-esque move, he’s replaced all of those people with lickspittles like Blanche and true believer fanatics like Miller and Homan who’ll do exactly what he tells them to.
Many of them sat in the room with him last night, in the front row in front of the teleprompter, watching and nodding along with his lies. They know that if Democrats win and the election is certified this fall many of them, too, will end up on the wrong end of civil and criminal investigations.
Trump has recently declared, officially, that Democrats are traitors, communists, potential terrorists, and should be deported. The only thing he hasn’t demanded is for Democrats to be arrested for our politics, and that may well come in just a few months.
After all, he can’t afford to allow the House or Senate to fall into Democratic hands, because then he’ll be investigated with the power of law and subpoena for the many crimes he is currently committing.
He wouldn’t survive that politically, and he believes the Senate this time will actually convict him: they know that once he’s convicted and has thus lost his power, there’s no way he can regain it and he’ll no longer represent a threat to their political careers.
This is all why he’ll say or do anything to hang onto his power, because he knows if he loses that power his entire house of cards collapses.
He and his children go to prison or are forced into exile. His wife gets to reinvent her life the way she wants. What’s left of his properties gets sold off at auction like his casinos were the last time he went bankrupt.
This is what he’s imagining at 2 o’clock in the morning when he’s rage tweeting. He’s also remembering the terrifying hours he spent sitting in a courthouse charged with 34 felonies for which he could go to prison.
It’s easy for him to imagine, because it’s exactly what he constantly tries to do to people he thinks have slighted him, from Jim Comey to Leticia James to Adam Shiff and dozens of others: he tries to break them financially while threatening them with long and brutal imprisonment.
He’s done this repeatedly, and his most recent threat to break or jail somebody was issued the day before yesterday.
But none of what he’s planning works without a lot of ordinary people saying, “Yes,” and that’s also where we may have a say.
That’s the thing about these operations that gets lost when we talk about them as if they’re just the work of one man, America’s Hitler, to quote JD Vance. It’s never one man who pulls the whole thing off, although it does take a lying psychopath with charisma and some leadership skills to get the process rolling.
Ultimately, though, it can’t work without the National Guard captain who decides the order is lawful enough, the county clerk who hands over the machines because a federal agent showed her a piece of paper, the local cop who puts on the riot gear because his sergeant did, and the poll worker who turns his ballots over to masked ICE agents because it feels safer.
My friends who were there in Germany in 1933 told me, as does history, that that country didn’t fall to a majority; the Nazis never got a legitimate victory at the ballot box.
That nation fell, as others have throughout history, because tens of thousands of people in unremarkable jobs did the small thing that was asked of them in the moment it was asked, and told themselves it was only temporary, and it must be okay because somebody higher up must know something I don’t.
Every one of those people made that decision cold, under pressure, with a stranger in a uniform standing in front of them and about four seconds to think.
Which is why the useful work right now isn’t reactive, and it isn’t something we do in November. It’s finding out, before November, what the people around us are going to do.
— Go meet your county election officials; they’re mostly your neighbors, and in a lot of counties they’re the ones who’ll be standing between a federal agent sent by Trump and a ballot box with nobody backing them up.
— Ask your sheriff, on the record, at a public meeting, whether he takes orders from Washington or from the county.
— Ask your state legislators what the plan is if the National Guard shows up, because most of them probably haven’t thought about it and they damn well should. Ask your governor and state attorney general.
— Find out which lawyers in your town do election work and whether they’re organized. Get to know the people on your block well enough that you can call them at midnight, if necessary.
— Get to know your local elected officials and, in the few months ahead, show up at your local Democratic Party meeting.
People who’ve already decided what they’ll do, and who know that the folks around them decided the same thing, behave completely differently when the moment arrives than people who are trying to figure it out on the spot.
That’s not optimism. It’s just how it’s always worked, in Selma and Kiev and Manila and everywhere else people have looked at an illegal order or an out-of-control authority figure and said, “No.”
What matters most in the next four months is going to happen at the local level, in county commission meetings and election offices that nobody’s watching.
Go be somebody who’s watching.
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Trump Is Waging a Psychological Warfare Campaign Against US Democracy
By constantly raising the alarm about election fraud, Trump seeks to stir fear, doubt, and confusion in the minds of voters.
Jul 15, 2026
With 112 days to go until Election Day, President Donald 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 Department of Justice (DOJ) 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.
All of us who care about free, fair, and secure elections in 2026 should say loud and clear: Voters can vote with certainty.
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 (R-SC) 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 Immigration and Custom Enforcement 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.
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'A Pathetic Power Grab': Trump Purges Bipartisan Election Assistance Commission
"This move undermines the integrity of nonpartisan election administration," said Arizona's secretary of state.
Jul 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump late Thursday forced out the remaining three members of an independent, bipartisan commission that assists state election officials across the country, a move that critics condemned as a "pathetic power grab" ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, were fired, and Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick resigned at the White House's request, according to ProPublica. The agency, established by Congress more than two decades ago, now lacks leadership and any ability to make decisions, just months before the 2026 elections.
The EAC, as its website states, is "an independent, bipartisan commission whose mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process." In an executive order last year, Trump ordered the EAC to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements in the federal voter registration process, along with other changes. The president's effort to impose his policy demands on the EAC was mostly blocked in federal court.
Trump, who has said he wants his administration to "take over" voting nationwide ahead of the 2026 midterms, has since taken other steps that watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers say amount to an attempt to preemptively subvert the coming elections, including a sweeping assault on mail-in voting—which is also facing legal challenges. Legislatively, Trump is pushing Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that experts say would prevent millions of Americans from voting.
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, said Thursday's EAC firings "are deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections."
"These removals leave the agency without leadership and unable to carry out its major responsibilities," said Waldman. "The guardrails Congress placed on this agency are clear and must be followed: The Election Assistance Commission was designed to be bipartisan with four members, no more than two of which can be from the same political party. The agency cannot make any significant decisions or take any significant actions unless three confirmed commissioners agree. Until bipartisan replacements are confirmed, the agency cannot lawfully make any decisions that affect how Americans vote."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said Trump's termination of EAC commissioners underscores that "he’s scared of the voting power of the American people."
"This move is another pathetic attempt to sow doubt in our elections, which are safely and expertly run by states and localities," said Gilbert. "This agency deserves a steady hand and expert leadership. That said, it is important for voters to know that states and localities, not the EAC, run our elections. Even more importantly, it is the voters who decide who takes office."
The EAC firings came less than two weeks after the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court handed Trump the power to purge independent agencies at will with its Trump v. Slaughter ruling, erasing around 90 years of precedent.
Election law expert Rick Hasen warned in a blog post on Thursday that Trump "could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship."
"Trump’s first voting-related EO tried to do this, and he was stymied. But that was acting through the commissioners and before the Slaughter case," Hasen noted. "If he tries anything like this, it will be high-profile and very important litigation that will end up at the Supreme Court on the emergency docket over the summer."
Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said in a statement late Thursday that the EAC purge was "irresponsible and dangerous," accusing the administration of remaining "dead set on causing chaos for our election officials across this country."
"This move undermines the integrity of nonpartisan election administration," Fontes added.
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'At Least He Admits It': Trump Says Pro-Democracy Resolution Would Destroy GOP
"The Supreme Court’s attacks on voting rights are about rigging elections for Republicans," said Rep. Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Jul 06, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Sunday attacked a pro-democracy resolution recently introduced by key House caucus leaders, warning that the measure's adoption would strike a fatal blow to the Republican Party.
"They do this, and the Republican Party is DEAD!" Trump wrote in a social media post, citing a Politico story on the resolution. The proposal, unveiled last month by the heads of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, calls for the restoration and strengthening of voter protections gutted by the US Supreme Court as well as court reforms—including possible expansion of the number of justices and term limits.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the CPC, wrote Sunday that Trump's post amounted to an acknowledgment that "the Supreme Court’s attacks on voting rights are about rigging elections for Republicans."
"At least he admits it," the progressive leader wrote on social media.
This is what Trump says about my resolution with @RepYvetteClarke, @RepEspaillat, and @RepGraceMeng to restore voting rights, end the filibuster, and reform the Supreme Court.
At least he admits it: the Supreme Court’s attacks on voting rights are about rigging elections for Rs. pic.twitter.com/GgQzhlwo4Q
— Congressman Greg Casar (@RepCasar) July 5, 2026
Politico reported that while the resolution "stands virtually no chance of adoption" in the current GOP-controlled Congress, "it is the latest indicator of how the Congressional Black Caucus and other key Democrats want to respond to the April decision that cleared the way for Republican states to redraw their congressional maps and eliminate majority-minority districts"—a reference to the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
Trump seized on the ruling to push state-level Republicans to aggressively gerrymander their maps ahead of the critical 2026 midterm elections. The president is also pressuring congressional Republicans to force through legislation known as the SAVE America Act, which would impose strict voter ID and documentation requirements nationwide, potentially blocking millions of American citizens from casting ballots under the pretext of cracking down on noncitizen voting—something that is already illegal and rare.
Trump is currently holding a bipartisan housing affordability bill hostage in a bid to get the stalled SAVE America Act through Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) affirmed on Sunday that Republicans intend to attach the assault on voting rights to a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package in a last-ditch effort to get the measure through the Senate, where it has not received enough support to clear the upper chamber's 60-vote threshold. Trump has called for elimination of the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, but Senate Republicans have thus far declined to remove the barrier.
The progressive resolution that Trump attacked on Sunday also proposes "the elimination of the 60-vote threshold in the Senate"—but it specifies that the action should only be taken "under the next pro-democracy governing moment."
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A Citizen's Declaration of Independence for July 4, 2026
The history of the government of the United States in this century, especially under this president, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all tending to the establishment of a corporate despotism over the American people.
Jul 04, 2026
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the bands which have subjected them to a government which has burdened and oppressed them, and to restore the powers and rights to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation upon such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to seem to them most likely to them to effect their future safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes: and accordingly all experience hath shown that people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under an absolute despotism it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffering of the American people, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their present government.
The history of the government of the United States in this century, especially under this president, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all tending to the establishment of a corporate despotism over the American people. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
On repeated occasions, the current government has manipulated elections from which officials have assumed their offices.
A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people.
Its current president has allowed his subordinates to suggest a postponement of the constitutionally required date of a presidential election, a step unprecedented in United States history, even in times of war and civil rebellion. While doing so, he has suggested that no further national elections will be necessary.
The current government has repeatedly undermined access to equal voting rights, and has promoted the power of the dollar to replace the voice of the people in elections.
It has compromised the security of the people in their persons, homes, workplaces, schools, travels, papers, and effects by sponsoring actions that harass the people with both open and clandestine searches and surveillance.
It has denied immigrants their rights under asylum law and the Constitution, subjecting them to arbitrary arrest and cruel and unusual punishment.
It has refused detainees under its authority access to counsel and security from physical mistreatment, in violation of international covenant, the supreme law of the land, and the English-speaking tradition of law dating from Magna Carta.
As has been the case for nearly two generations, it has failed to erect adequate safeguards against domestic terrorism and the massacre of children and young people in our schools and colleges.
It has long evaded international covenants for the protection of the environment, the humane treatment of prisoners of war, the security of nations from invasion, and the prevention of war crimes, thereby subverting the law of nations and the supreme law of the land. The current president’s actions in this respect are especially cruel and malign.
It has acted to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
It has weakened enforcement of environmental laws most wholesome and necessary to the public good, has compromised others, and has allowed corporations to poison the environment on which the public’s health, prosperity, and well-being depend.
It has hollowed out the nation’s civil service and established bribery as standard government practice.
It has further endangered public health by weakening legislation that would remedy the people’s woefully inadequate access to essential medical care.
It has reduced benefits and medical care to veterans of current and previous wars and their families.
It has created a population that lags behind the rest of the developed world in educational attainment, life expectancy, access to decent housing, and prevention of infant and maternal mortality.
It has eaten away at the substance of ordinary people by denying them a living wage, and initiated class warfare in our nation by promulgating laws and taxes that favor the already wealthy at the expense of the people at large.
It has failed to protect the people’s hard-won savings from obscure and deceptive investments, and usurious mortgages on their homes, thereby undermining their material security and driving hard-working citizens into the street.
It has lavished financial support on failed investment banks and corporations while denying the working class, the poor, and the jobless minimal support for their existence.
It has at times deprived federal workers pledged to protect the nation’s security the right to bargain collectively to secure fair compensation for their labors.
It has promoted international trade regulations that deprive laborers of rights protected by international agreement.
Through economic policies that have extended over a generation, it has plunged one-eighth of its population and one-fourth of its children into a permanent state of poverty and hunger.
It has undermined the security of future generations and burdened them with debt by turning record federal surpluses into unprecedented deficits.
It has on occasion neglected to provide its troops at war personal equipment that is necessary to their safety and comfort in the field, and violated the terms of their original enlistments.
It has promoted the development of weapons systems beyond any rational military requirement, and equipped its armed forces with weapons dangerous to their users.
In like manner, it has evaded the obligations of international law and common decency by holding all humanity hostage to an existentially perilous nuclear arms race.
It has distracted the nation from the necessary struggle against terrorism and arms proliferation by initiating offensive war abroad without sufficient cause and has subjected civilians abroad to the horrors of combat, in violation of international covenant, its own rules of engagement, and the supreme law of the land.
In defiance of international law, it has threatened neighboring and allied nations with invasion and annexation, and misused our tax money to finance and abet genocide directed against a foreign people.
It has replaced the world’s respect for the United States of America with apprehension, contempt, and fear.
In every stage of these oppressions, which our current president has encouraged and promoted, the American people have petitioned for redress in most humble terms; our repeated petitions and supplications have been answered chiefly by repeated delays and indifference. A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to its individual members. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts to extend an unwarranted jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our common heritage here. We have appealed to their sense of decency; and we have conjured them, by the ties of common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. More often than not, they, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and common citizenship.
We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare, that all political connection between ourselves and the present federal administration is hereby abandoned. And for the support of this declaration and the restoration of our liberty, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
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Don't Let False Claims of Fraud Make It Harder to Vote
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case that could overturn grace periods for mail-in ballots, and the Trump administration targets mail-in voting as well, it's important to refute false claims about mail ballots and misreadings of election laws.
Jun 26, 2026
The Supreme Court is set to decide a case that could overturn laws in 30 states that provide grace periods, which allow counting mail ballots received after Election Day but sent on time.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has issued two executive orders seeking to displace states’ mail voting laws, including one that attempts to deny federal funds to states that do not reject mail ballots received after Election Day. (The Brennan Center and other voting rights groups have challenged both orders in court.)
These efforts seek to undermine state policies for when mail ballots may be counted. They are centered on false claims about mail ballots and misreading of election law and are occurring as states pass restrictive voting laws—some of which even rely on the executive orders or the ongoing litigation.
While many states have expanded access to mail voting since 2020, between 2020 and 2025, 27 states enacted laws restricting mail voting. These restrictions have followed false claims by Trump and his allies about fraudulent mail ballots. Indeed, Trump made similar claims due to ballot processing times following California’s recent primary. These false claims and restrictive laws around mail voting persist even though the overwhelming evidence shows that it continues to be safe and secure.
Lawmakers who focus on voters when enacting election laws recognize that some face unique hurdles when accessing the ballot box.
Laws restricting mail voting include laws eliminating grace periods. Notably, between 2020 and 2025, at least seven states, including Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and Utah, have either tightened the deadline for returning a mail ballot or blocked officials from accepting mail ballots arriving after Election Day. At least four states have done so in the past year, including two that did so after the executive orders or Supreme Court litigation.
North Dakota eliminated its grace period, which counted mail ballots so long as they were postmarked by the day before Election Day, in April, shortly after Trump’s March 2025 executive order on voting. Among other things, that order illegally directs the Election Assistance Commission, an independent federal agency, to condition funding on a state’s adherence to an Election Day ballot-receipt deadline, even if the ballots were submitted on time under state law. Just three weeks after Trump issued the order, state legislators amended an elections bill to include a new section “addressing the new executive order” by eliminating the state’s grace period.
Then, in December 2025, Ohio passed a law eliminating its grace period, which counted ballots postmarked before Election Day and received by the fourth day after (a period that Ohio had already shortened in 2022 from the 10th day after the election). One of the 2025 bill’s sponsors pointed to Trump’s executive order. But Ohio lawmakers also made their decision while the Supreme Court case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, had yet to be argued, let alone decided.
That case began in early 2024 under a sham legal theory: that century-old federal “Election Day” laws, which require states to have presidential and congressional elections on the first Tuesday of November, preempt Mississippi’s policy of accepting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days thereafter. Those federal laws do not set the date by which states must receive and count ballots, and a federal district court rejected the lawsuit. But in March 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the ruling in a deeply flawed opinion that inaccurately described the plain text, historical practice, and congressional history of the “Election Day” laws.
The same week in November 2025 that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Watson, Ohio’s Legislative Budget Office cited the Fifth Circuit’s flawed reasoning in its analysis for lawmakers. By the following month, Ohio had eliminated the state’s grace period except for military and overseas voters. (Mississippi, for its part, recently enacted a “trigger law” that, if the court overturns Mississippi’s current grace period, will require mail ballots to be received a full day before Election Day.)
To be sure, North Dakota and Ohio lawmakers also pointed to other states that do not provide grace periods. But North Dakota and Ohio’s passing of restrictive voting laws following a contested executive order and grace period-related litigation, respectively, shows the damage that the executive branch and courts alike can cause by elevating debunked legal theories.
In contrast with the executive order and Watson litigation, multiple states have exercised their authority to develop mail voting policies under a different approach: addressing voters’ needs. Today, at least 14 states, the District of Columbia, and three other US territories provide a grace period for all voters. At least 16 states provide a grace period specifically for military and overseas voters. And Montana provides a grace period specifically for users of the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, which serves as a backup ballot for military and overseas voters.
During the Civil War, officials in states including Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island gave military voters additional time after Election Day to have their ballots arrive so they could be counted. In 2010, US Postal Service delays resulted in over 26,000 mail ballots arriving too late to be counted in California’s general election. This led California to adopt a three-day grace period for all voters, which the legislature lengthened to 17 days during the Covid-19 pandemic and shortened to seven days following the pandemic. Texas decided in 2005 to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day and received the day after. It added longer deadlines in 2017: five days after Election Day for civilian ballots and six days for military service members deployed abroad and their families. And some states, like Alabama and Colorado, that have adopted grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters have done so to build upon protections embedded in the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.
Lawmakers who focus on voters when enacting election laws recognize that some face unique hurdles when accessing the ballot box. As the Brennan Center and co-counsel Covington & Burling noted in a friend-of-the-court brief in Watson, overseas civilian and military voters can face mail delays that prevent ballots from arriving on time, through no fault of the voter. Rural voters, like many in largely rural Alaska, can be wholly dependent on mail voting to participate in elections. So too can voters with disabilities, or certain communities of color that may rely on mail voting as an effective alternative to in-person voting. Indeed, recent research on the rescission of Ohio’s grace period suggests that thousands of valid votes in the 2024 election would not have been counted under the new rules.
Court decisions sanctioning Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders or the misleading claims underpinning Watson could add to the burdens some voters already face. But even if Trump’s executive orders fail and the Supreme Court upholds the grace period at issue, policymakers and advocates should still be concerned about how lawmakers can turn the false claims behind executive orders and litigation into restrictive state voting laws.
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State AGs Applaud Court Blocking 'Unconstitutional' Trump Proof of Citizenship Voting Requirement
"As President Trump has made clear today, the fight to protect the right to vote isn’t over," said California Attorney General Rob Bonfa.
Jun 24, 2026
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked portions of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year that required Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
US District Court Judge Denise Casper ruled that Trump's March 2025 executive order establishing proof-of-citizenship requirements was illegal because the US Constitution explicitly gives states the power to implement elections, with some oversight and input from the US Congress.
In contrast, wrote Casper, the Constitution "does not grant the president any specific powers over elections," making any effort to regulate voter registration via executive order unconstitutional on its face.
Casper's ruling came about after 19 states sued to block the Trump executive order from taking effect.
New York Attorney General Letitia James expressed gratitude that the court "blocked the president’s unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections."
"Generations of Americans fought tirelessly for the right to vote, and we honor their legacy by protecting that right against anyone who tries to undermine it," said James. "As we approach this year’s midterms, I will continue doing everything in my power to protect free and fair elections and defend the sacred right to vote for New Yorkers and all Americans."
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar called the ruling "an important reminder to our president that he does not administer our elections." Aguilar vowed that he and other state-level officials nationwide would use every tool we have to protect the right to run our elections at the local level, and the ability of our voters to lawfully participate.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta celebrated the court victory but warned that Trump would continue efforts to rig the 2026 midterm elections in the GOP's favor.
"As President Trump has made clear today, the fight to protect the right to vote isn’t over," Bonta said. "While President Trump continues to spread lies and feed into delusions about our elections, our coalition of AGs will continue to stand strong in protecting our democracy."
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'Totally Crazy': Trump Holds Bipartisan Housing Bill Hostage to Push Evisceration of Voting Rights
"Trump just threw a tantrum," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "He's refusing to sign bipartisan legislation to make housing more affordable in a bizarre effort to try to rig the elections."
Jun 24, 2026
Congress this week passed a bipartisan bill "to build more housing, lower costs, and stop private equity's housing grab," as US Sen. Elizabeth Warren highlighted after the final vote, but President Donald Trump on Wednesday scrapped his plans to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act over a stalled GOP attack on voting rights.
Trump initially took a swipe at Warren (D-Mass.) on his Truth Social platform Wednesday morning, writing that "the Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates, and even FISA, pales in comparison to passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. That is what Americans, both Dumocrats, Republicans, and everyone else, care about."
"Get the bad Republicans to approve it or, better yet, Terminate the Filibuster and approve it, AND EVERYTHING ELSE REPUBLICANS HAVE EVER DREAMED OF," Trump continued. "The Dumocrats will do it in hour one, 100%. Republicans will feel very stupid if they don’t do it first. I'll be watching with tears in my eyes!!!"
Less than an hour later, he added, "Today's Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency."
Trump and other backers of the anti-voter bill argue it is needed to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting in US elections—which is already illegal, and research shows is remarkably rare. Critics warn that the legislation would disenfranchise eligible voters who lack access to proof-of-citizenship documents.
While Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) responded by stressing that he and other Republicans in the House of Representatives support the SAVE America Act, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the canceled ceremony was Trump's "call to make" but expressed hope that he'll "find his way to sign" the housing bill, other lawmakers—including Warren—and supporters of the legislation took aim at the president over his move.
"Congress overwhelmingly passed a housing bill to bring down costs. But Trump just threw a tantrum," Warren wrote on social media. "He's refusing to sign bipartisan legislation to make housing more affordable in a bizarre effort to try to rig the elections. Nope—I'll keep fighting to lower housing costs."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told journalists that "Trump is running away from one of the very few accomplishments that could actually help the American people," and urged the president not to veto the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
Approved by the Senate in an 85-5 vote on Monday and the House in a 358-32 vote on Tuesday, the bill contains dozens of provisions to promote the rebuilding of older homes and development of vacant buildings, encourage local governments to build more housing, streamline regulations for construction, ban corporate investors from buying single-family homes to rent out, and more.
Stressing that the bill passed "overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way," and would "save American families a lot of money when it comes to housing," Sen. Andy Kim (D-Calif.) said that "I honestly can't believe that the president is holding this hostage."
"I hope the American people see this for what it is, which is that he doesn't care at all about the high cost of living that a lot of Americans are struggling with," Kim declared. "He doesn't care about the housing crisis. He is just continuing to push forward on his extreme agenda."
In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) replied to the president: "The housing crisis is a national emergency. Do something to make life more affordable for hardworking American taxpayers. Sign the bill."
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) pointed to Trump's campaign pledges, writing: "The president who promised lower costs on Day 1 is refusing to sign the largest housing affordability bill in a generation. It's a slap in the face to millions of Americans struggling to afford a place to live. My Republican colleagues need to find some courage and stand up to this mad king."
In a video, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) warned the public that Trump "is taking away your housing for his personal projects that can never pass and are unconstitutional."
Longtime human rights advocate Kenneth Roth, who's now a visiting professor at Princeton University, similarly summarized: "Trump to America: I [couldn't] care less about affordable housing. So I won't sign a bill to advance it unless Congress endorses my autocratic efforts to restrict the right to vote."
Although Trump has not decisively said whether he will formally block the bill, Roth wondered, "Will the Republicans have the backbone to override his veto?"
Either way, The New York Times noted that "Trump's decision threatened to deprive Republicans, in particular, of an opportunity to showcase a legislative success in a year with very few of them—one that spoke directly to voters' economic concerns."
In a Wednesday statement, Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, looked to the midterm elections, in which Democrats aim to retake majorities in both chambers of Congress.
"Donald Trump has been clear: The SAVE Act is his #1 legislative priority—not lowering costs for working people, creating good-paying jobs, or helping families afford a roof over their heads," said Edkins. "Today, he decided it was more important to help Republicans avoid accountability for the cost-of-living crisis than actually do something about it."
"Trump was born on third base, and it shows. He has no clue what it’s like to struggle to make rent, save for a down payment, pay a mortgage, or worry that your kids will be able to afford a home of their own," he added. "Trump could've signed bipartisan legislation today to help lower housing costs and give Republicans something—anything—to show voters that they deserve reelection this November. Instead, he told working families to screw themselves. It's selfish, petty, and self-defeating."
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Voter Fears Grow as Trump Continues to Lie about Election Integrity
New data find that Americans’ concerns about political violence, democratic participation, and safety at the polls remain alarmingly high.
Jun 20, 2026
President Donald Trump has baselessly claimed that there was fraud in California’s recent elections. The Department of Justice sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, and the US attorney appointee has said there are “multiple election fraud investigations under way.”
These false allegations levied for years against our election systems by Trump are taking their toll on voters. New data find that Americans’ concerns about political violence, democratic participation, and safety at the polls remain alarmingly high.
This constant stoking of fears over nearly nonexistent voter fraud by Trump and other political figures is harming people’s faith in the system: 44% of Americans across the political spectrum are not confident that our elections will be free and fair, and 59% are now afraid of voter fraud either by ineligible individuals or election officials. People are afraid of each other.
Worse, voters are fearful of exercising their rights and have multiple concerns about involvement in the democratic process. In political situations, only 48% of respondents feel completely safe going to their polling place. Only 22% feel completely safe at events like political rallies and candidate forums, and only 17% feel completely safe attending a demonstration or protest. These numbers are alarming and speak to the lack of trust in our institutions and could be an indicator of significant unwillingness to participate in important aspects of our democratic processes.
When those people were asked who or what was to blame for the divisions, the top answer was President Trump and the Republican Party.
Most concerning is that a full 15% of voters would leave without voting if they witnessed or experienced harassment or intimidation at the polls. That includes 21% of Black people and 22% of Latinos compared with 11% of white people. And 19% of Gen Z and 23% of Millennials would leave. This obviously presents a challenge at a time when it’s imperative that young people are brought into the democratic process and their faith in the system is bolstered.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is also stoking fear. A disturbing number, 33% of Americans, say they are very worried about future violent attacks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), higher than fear of groups like the white supremacist Proud Boys at 26% or armed militias at 27%. When asked about an ICE attack, 70% of Black and Latino people reported being worried, while 49% of white people did so.
Of those who feel less safe than in 2022, mass shootings at 57% and general crime at 52% are the top two reasons, as would be expected, but continued political divisiveness is blamed by 51%, right behind crime. Tragically, 70% of Gen Z feel less safe because of mass shootings. And a third of respondents cite the cultural divides created by targeting specific groups as bad for the country. Another third blame fear of extreme right-wing groups as a reason for feeling less safe, compared with 17% who named fear of extreme left-wing groups.
At this moment, the political landscape of America seems to be one where acts of violence and unrest are expected. Furthermore, expectations of disruption, dispute of election results, and even the advent of another January 6 following the next presidential elections are high. Throughout the survey, people cited political and racial divides as areas of concern when it comes to fears and violence. When asked if our nation and people are as or more divided as we were at the Civil War, 69% said yes. The response was 68% four years ago.
And when those people were asked who or what was to blame for the divisions, the top answer was President Trump and the Republican Party. The number has risen to 52% in 2026 from 41% in 2022. Most significant are the changes in the Republican and Independent responses since 2022. Republicans reported a sharp increase from only 8% in 2022 to 19% in 2026 saying that Trump is to blame for the nation’s divided nature. And Independents went from 38% to 50% blaming Trump in 2026.
Given these fears, what can secretaries of state and election officials do to ensure voters feel safe exercising their rights? Well, there is one issue that is broadly agreed to by those polled: 68% of Americans fully support banning guns within 100 feet of polling stations, including 62% of gun owners. Black and Latino Americans report their greatest fear is others carrying guns at the polls. Today, 17 states have prohibitions on open and concealed carry of firearms at polling places and a total of 20 ban concealed carry. That’s up from 12 states in 2022.
Based on this alarming data, we recommended to secretaries of states across the country earlier this month that states:
- Ban all weapons in and around polling places;
- Communicate early and clearly plans and assurances that the elections will be fair and honest;
- Use the authority of the secretary of state offices to counter any misinformation about the elections;
- Communicate to the public instructions for what a voter should do if intimidated or harassed; and
- Reject any possible federal efforts to place ICE or other federal agents near the polls.
In addition to stopping the false election fraud narrative, taking these actions is critical to protect voters, especially as President Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has not taken the usual steps to establish a “command center” to monitor and address the typical emergencies that pop up around Election Day, and which would address things like voter intimidation and targeted disinformation meant to interfere with a fair process.
The DOJ has also canceled election-integrity training sessions for prosecutors and FBI agents, deleted a 281-page guide to prosecuting elections offenses, fired most of the lawyers in its Public Integrity Section, and failed to replace the director of its Election Crimes Branch. It is up to state governments to fill the breach.
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Juneteenth and the Distance Between Freedom and Meaning
Freedom does not become real simply because it is declared. It becomes real because someone carries it into the world. Someone teaches it. Someone protects it. Someone organizes around it. Someone refuses to let it disappear.
Jun 19, 2026
As Juneteenth approaches, I find myself thinking about anniversaries.
Not because I am particularly sentimental about dates, but because anniversaries reveal something about how societies remember. They tell us which stories we choose to elevate, which contradictions we learn to live with, and which truths we have become comfortable leaving unresolved.
This year, those questions feel particularly urgent.
Communities across the country will gather to celebrate Juneteenth, commemorating the moment enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas learned they were free more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed. At the same time, the nation is preparing to commemorate its 250th anniversary, renewing familiar conversations about liberty, democracy, independence, and freedom. There is something meaningful about those two anniversaries sitting so close together. One asks us to remember the promise of freedom. The other asks us to remember the distance between a promise and its fulfillment.
Every democratic gain we now celebrate exists because ordinary people organized, challenged existing systems, imagined alternatives, and demanded that the nation become more than it was.
For many people, Juneteenth is understood as a story about delayed freedom. That is certainly true. But the older I get, the more I think it is also a story about delayed meaning. The people in Galveston were legally free long before they knew they were free. The law had changed. Their status had changed. On paper, their relationship to the nation had changed.
Yet their lived reality had not. The declaration existed, but the meaning had not yet reached them. That distinction matters because we often talk about freedom as though it becomes real the moment it is declared. We assume that once a law is passed, a court issues a ruling, or a right is recognized, the work is complete. History tells a different story.
Again and again, America has demonstrated that there is often a gap between what institutions proclaim and what people experience. The abolition of slavery did not end racial hierarchy. The passage of the Voting Rights Act did not end voter suppression. Legal victories did not eliminate the need for organizing, education, resistance, or vigilance. Rights may be secured in law, but they must still be carried into communities, institutions, and everyday life. Juneteenth reminds us of that reality. It reminds us that freedom is not simply a legal condition. It is also a social condition, a cultural condition, and a lived condition. It becomes meaningful only when people can actually experience it.
That lesson feels particularly relevant today.
Across the country, we are witnessing renewed debates about democracy, citizenship, rights, belonging, and power. We are watching efforts to restrict voting access, weaken public institutions, narrow how history is taught, and redefine who gets to participate fully in public life. At the same time, many Americans are being encouraged to believe that these concerns are exaggerated, that racism and inequality belong primarily to the past, and that the nation's democratic project is largely complete. What concerns me is not simply the political debate itself. It is the historical amnesia that often accompanies it. Too often, we remember progress while forgetting the struggle that produced it. We celebrate outcomes while ignoring the generations of people who fought to make those outcomes possible. We remember milestones but forget movements. We remember victories but forget the conditions that made those victories necessary in the first place.
In doing so, we begin to mistake progress for permanence. Juneteenth offers a corrective.
It reminds us that democracy has never been self-executing. Freedom has never expanded automatically. Rights have never sustained themselves. Every democratic gain we now celebrate exists because ordinary people organized, challenged existing systems, imagined alternatives, and demanded that the nation become more than it was. That is why I find myself thinking differently about the conversations surrounding America's 250th anniversary. I am less interested in celebrating a polished national mythology than I am in wrestling honestly with the tension at the center of the American story. The United States was founded on extraordinary democratic ideals while simultaneously denying many people access to them. Those contradictions are not incidental to our history. They are central to understanding it.
Yet Juneteenth is not ultimately a story about contradiction. It is a story about persistence. It is a story about Black people who continued reaching for freedom even when freedom arrived late. It is a story about Black people who expanded democracy even when democracy excluded them. It is a story about generations of Black Americans who carried hope, memory, responsibility, and struggle across time so that future generations might inherit possibilities they themselves were denied. That is what I find myself celebrating this year.
Not a perfect nation, completed democracy, or a tidy story of inevitable progress.
I am celebrating the people who carried the work forward anyway. The people who understood that freedom does not become real simply because it is declared. It becomes real because someone carries it into the world. Someone teaches it. Someone protects it. Someone organizes around it. Someone refuses to let it disappear.
The lesson of Juneteenth is not that freedom finally arrived. The lesson is that even after freedom was declared, someone still had to carry the news.
And generations later, someone still has to carry the meaning.
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