SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
voter suppression
Donald J. Trump Is the Leading Threat to US Election Integrity
For the president to try to personally grab power over our election system so blatantly is unprecedented. And it is emphatically counter to the law.
Aug 08, 2025
Will voters have the final say in 2026?
In recent years, despite the pandemic, violence, and intense pressure, American elections were secure and their results were reported accurately. Election officials worked together across party lines. The system held.
This year, however, a new threat to free and fair elections has emerged: the federal government itself.
It’s now clear that the Trump administration has launched a campaign to undermine American elections. An important new Brennan Center analysis uses the facts to connect the dots. All of this is unprecedented. It’s often illegal. It’s alarming. And it has begun to unfold in plain sight.
In 2020, 2022, and 2024, American elections withstood great pressure. They can do so again, but that will take vigilance, courage, and ferocious determination to defend democracy.
This strategy has been less visible than other, more dramatic power grabs—the unilateral imposition of tariffs, the deployment of the military into American cities, and more. But as my colleague Jasleen Singh writes, “A clear pattern suggests a growing effort. As the 2026 midterms approach, that effort will likely gather momentum.”
Some of this is well known, and some of it has unfolded quietly.
U.S. President Donald Trump has gutted the agency that provides states with election security support and purged its experts, the very people on whom states have relied for help.
An executive order tried to require Americans to produce a passport or the equivalent to register to vote in federal elections—documents that millions of citizens just don’t have. (A federal court has blocked that bad idea, in a suit brought by the Brennan Center and others.)
The administration has demanded that states provide access to voter rolls with personal information to the Department of Government Efficiency so it can find fraud. (What could possibly go wrong?!) Already, according to The Associated Press, the Justice Department has sought access to voter information in 19 states.
There’s even an attempt to withdraw federal approval for the voting machines used across the country.
And, in recent days, the White House has supported Republicans in the Texas State Legislature in their effort to adopt one of the most gerrymandered congressional maps in the nation’s history—an even more severe gerrymander than the party had drawn at the start of the decade. It would be an egregious case of politicians choosing their voters rather than the other way around.
Expect more to come. The president recently visited the Justice Department, where he declared that the people behind the “crooked” 2020 election “should go to jail.” Prosecution task forces have been established in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey. These federal officials are looking to bring charges against state election officials. The president already issued executive orders targeting a former high-level government official and others for their work to protect elections and voting rights.
In 2020, Trump’s attempt to overturn the election was haphazard and chaotic. It was ultimately constrained by federal and state officials. His own attorney general dismissed claims of fraud with a barnyard epithet. Now, the executive branch has been weaponized. Election deniers hold top Justice Department positions. The new civil rights chief, Harmeet Dhillon, declared that she is “turning the train around and driving in the opposite direction.”
All this adds up to more than mere politics, more than the usual tussles over rules and scrambling for momentary advantage. For the federal government to intervene this way—for the president to try to personally grab power over our election system so blatantly—is unprecedented. And it is emphatically counter to the law.
Presidents do not run elections. The Constitution gives states the responsibility to run federal elections. Congress can set national standards. But the president has little if any proper role.
It’s a personal drive by a peevish second-term president to take control of important parts of the election system, just months before a critical midterm election.
Why do all this? Threats, noise, investigations, and false claims of fraud can spread doubt and discredit valid results. The clamor will make it harder for brave election officials and citizen volunteers to resist presidential pressure to change results.
In 2020, 2022, and 2024, American elections withstood great pressure. They can do so again, but that will take vigilance, courage, and ferocious determination to defend democracy. This is the substance of true patriotism.
State election officials must continue to stand up for voters. At the Brennan Center, we are working to support these quiet heroes of our system. We are arming them with information, for example, about which data requests are improper.
Courts, too, must act—and some already have.
Ultimately, it will be up to voters. It’s harder to rig an election when people are watching—and shouting. High turnout can overwhelm chicanery.
So stay tuned. This great fight will become an increasingly important story until next November, and no doubt beyond. All this goes well beyond typical partisan jostling. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that government is legitimate only when it rests on “the consent of the governed.” The Brennan Center will do our part to defend voters and protect the system.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Blaming Donald Trump—a Dangerous Distraction?
In focusing on Trump’s shocking amorality we risk sliding over a painful truth we must embrace to create the democracy we need and want: His rise is a symptom.
Jul 08, 2025
Americans are waking up to President Donald Trump’s assaults on our democracy. In just four years, his documented lies have topped 30,000. He has also broken laws, including his attempts to dismantle government agencies, his blatant conflicts of interest with Elon Musk, and his disregarding courts on a number of fronts. We honor those courageously stepping up to hold Trump accountable—from Indivisible to Common Cause to Democracy Forward, and many more citizen-organizing efforts.
But our appropriate outrage might hide a danger—that in focusing on Trump’s shocking amorality we could slide over a painful truth we must embrace to create the democracy we need and want: His rise is a symptom. Donald Trump was able to triumph because of deep dysfunction long built into our governing structures. While we must resist his actions and work to limit the immediate damage, we must also commit to fighting for an even more democratic future, free of our current limitations.
Simply put, some features of our democracy are baked-in barriers to one-person-one-vote. The Senate, to name one. Wyoming, with a population of just over half a million has the same number of Senate seats as California, home to nearly 40 million. In other words, a voter in Wyoming has almost 68 times greater representation than a voter in much more densely populated California.
Our fight can’t merely be against Trump but in pursuit of a positive vision of an America where each of us counts, and we work together building the world we want.
And the challenges don’t stop there. Gerrymandering of electoral districts—the redrawing of district lines to favor the party in power—creates unrepresentative legislatures. As a result, one report found Republicans had an advantage of about 16 House seats in 2024’s congressional election. And then, there’s voter suppression as well as the hugely corrupting role of money in politics and the limits of our two-party system.
Despite being unfit, Trump rose to power in large measure because our antidemocratic rules have led to deep dissatisfaction with government that he was able to tap. Indeed, it’s been nearly four decades since 60% of us expressed satisfaction with “the way democracy was working.”
Since then, approval has tumbled steeply. By early 2023, just 28% of U.S. adults expressed satisfaction with how our democracy is working. And by early 2025 well more than half of Americans—61 percent—remained dissatisfied.
And Americans’ view of our standing in the world?
Despite deep doubts about our democracy, interestingly, over half of us still see our country as one of the world’s greatest. One in five even place the us at the top, and only 27% acknowledge there are better democracies.
Hmm. Self-perception can be self-deception: In global comparisons we rate shockingly low. Each year, Freedom House, founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, ranks nations by the quality of their political rights and civil liberties—a reasonable measure of democracy.
Sadly, the U.S. ranks 57th worldwide, and not even in the ballpark of nations we imagine to be our peers. Almost all European Union nations rank in the top 25.
Really? That bad?
Yes. So, how do we explain the disconnect? And how might we use this bad news for good?
Domestically, we know that there are deep roots to dissatisfaction with our democracy. But it’s not just the structural features named above: At the same time, our extreme economic inequality—deeper than more than 100 nations—means economic stress for most Americans, even as we hold onto the myth that we’re a middle-class country.
Still, the myth of American exceptionalism blinds us.
Instead, let us heed this truth: Be it a rocky marriage or a sprained ankle, healing starts when we get honest with ourselves—when we stop averting our eyes, making excuses, or just hoping one day it will all go away.
Today, as our democracy is diminishing before our eyes; let’s drop these dangerous escapes and choose constructive action. The good news in our sad scores is proof of possibility—hard evidence that we can do better as we learn lessons from the leading democracies.
So, let our dissatisfaction fuel determination and bold action. Our fight can’t merely be against Trump but in pursuit of a positive vision of an America where each of us counts, and we work together building the world we want.
Democracy is not a dull duty but a thrilling vision and empowering action.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The GOP Is Already Planning to Win the Midterms... by Suppressing Your Vote!
The party is taking no chances on the upcoming plebiscite and has hatched a plan to rig all future federal elections with the goal of transforming the United States into a one-party state.
May 10, 2025
If you’re counting on the 2026 midterm elections to wrest control of U.S. Congress from the GOP, be forewarned.
The party is taking no chances on the upcoming plebiscite and has hatched a plan to rig all future federal elections with the goal of transforming the United States into a one-party state.
At the center of the plan is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, passed on April 10 by the House and pending before the Senate, and an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on March 25 with the Orwellian title of “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” And looming in the background, with the final word on either measure’s constitutionality, is the Supreme Court, packed with three Trump appointees and holding a long and sorry record of hostility to voting rights.
All of this is happening step by step, setting the stage for what could turn out to be the final chapter for American democracy.
The SAVE Act would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote; require each state to take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote; and remove noncitizens from their official voter lists. It would also create a private right of action, after the fashion of the Texas anti-abortion law, to allow disgruntled individuals to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship and establish criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.
Trump’s executive order is no less extreme. Among its directives is a mandate for the Election Assistance Commission, an independent nonpartisan agency created by Congress, to require voters to submit documentary proof of their citizenship when using national voter registration forms. It would also stop states from counting mailed-in ballots votes that are sent in by Election Day but are delivered afterward, require recertification of all state voting systems to meet new security standards set by the EAC, and halt election assistance funding to states that do not comply with the terms of the order within 180 days. Perhaps most alarming, the order would allow the Department of Government Efficiency and the Department of Homeland Security to subpoena state records and use federal databases to review state voter registration lists.
There is some good news amid the darkness. On April 24, federal district court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee who sits in Washington, D.C., issued a 120-page opinion and preliminary injunction, blocking the EAC from adding documentary proof of citizenship to the national voter registration form. “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the states—not the president—with the authority to regulate federal elections,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote, holding that Trump’s order violated the separation of powers and referring to Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which states:
The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [original text] Senators.
But while voting-rights groups have praised Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion, the judge left the rest of the executive order in place. More concerning, the ruling did nothing to derail the SAVE Act. As the judge noted, “Consistent with [the separation of powers doctrine], Congress is currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the president purports to order.”
The dangers posed by the SAVE Act cannot be understated. According to a survey conducted by the Brennan Center and affiliated organizations, more than 9% of American voting-age citizens, or 21.3 million people, don’t have a passport, birth certificate, naturalization papers, or other proof of citizenship readily available. “Voters of color, voters who change their names (most notably, married women), and younger voters would be most significantly affected,” the Brennan Center has warned.
In an article posted after the House approved the act, Democracy Docket, the digital election news platform founded by attorney Marc Elias, featured the views of a group of distinguished historians and voting experts on the act.
“There’s never been an attack on voting rights out of Congress like this,” Alexander Keyssar, a professor of history and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, told the Docket. “It’s always been the federal government trying to keep states in check on voting rights, for the most part.”
“Congress has never passed a voter-suppression law like this before,” Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the Brennan Center’s voting-rights program, said. “When it has exercised its power to regulate federal elections, Congress has usually done so to protect the freedom to vote. If this becomes law, it will be a new low for Congress.”
Princeton professor Sean Wilentz also weighed in with a dire assessment. “It’s the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history,” Wilentz said, characterizing the act as “the latest attempt to gut voting-rights advances that were made in the 1960s,” one more dangerous than the Jim Crow-era laws used in the South, because it is national in scope. “This is an attempt to destroy American democracy as we know it.”
All eyes now turn to the Senate, where Democrats have the power to filibuster the SAVE Act to prevent its passage unless 60 members vote to invoke cloture. Thus far, the Democrats seem to be holding the line, even in the face of persistent propaganda spewed by Trump, Elon Musk, and other Republicans that election fraud is rampant and that Democrats are “importing [undocumented] voters” to swing elections. In truth, of course, election fraud in the U.S. is miniscule, with some long-range state-by-state studies finding it occurs at rates between 0.0003% and 0.0025% of total votes cast.
Should any part of the SAVE Act pass and be signed into law, it will likely come before the Supreme Court, where its fate may turn on Chief Justice John Roberts, who along with Amy Coney Barrett, sometimes aligns with the panel’s liberals in big cases.
Roberts, however, has a long history of undermining voting rights that stretches back to his stint as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration and his role as a behind-the-scenes GOP consultant, lawsuit editor and prep coach for oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the run-up to Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election.
In 2013, as chief justice, he composed the disastrous majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. In 2019, he continued his anti-voting-rights crusade, writing the majority opinion Rucho v. Common Cause, which removed the issue of political gerrymandering (the practice of designing voting maps to benefit the party in power) from the jurisdiction of federal courts. And in 2021, he joined a 5-to-4 majority ruling penned by Justice Samuel Alito that upheld Arizona laws prohibiting out-of-precinct voting and criminalizing the collection of mail-in ballots by third parties.
In the meantime, hundreds of lawyers have resigned from the Justice Department, repelled by Trump’s reactionary policies. As The New York Times has reported, the exodus has been especially felt hard at the department’s civil rights division, whose mission Trump has transformed from one of opposing voter suppression to stamping out phony claims of rampant election fraud.
All of this is happening step by step, setting the stage for what could turn out to be the final chapter for American democracy. Not only is it not too early to start thinking about the midterms, it may already be too late.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular