Early on Monday morning, federal agents pounded on the door of 72-year-old Omar Muñoz’s home in Commerce, California. Armed officers had surrounded his house before dawn and were threatening to break down the front door unless he came out. When he answered, the agents handcuffed and dragged the lawful permanent resident from Belize out of his home, still in his pajamas, parading him in front of their own government film crew and other media who had been tipped off to document the raid.

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As reporters for the Los Angeles Times put it, Muñoz

described seeing helicopters, at least eight cars and several agents from different agencies descending on his home, and recalled thinking, “What movie am I in?”

The movie in which he was made into an unwilling cast member is President Trump’s “Operation Protect the Vote.” Muñoz is accused of fraudulently registering to vote and casting ballots, allegations he denies. His daughter immediately recognized why this was happening: “They’re trying to instill fear in society,” she said. Her father is being used as a propaganda tool.

The MAGA-friendly California Post,1 which was granted the exclusive story, crowed about the access: “Inside the biggest voter fraud bust in California’s history—as network of 28 democracy-defying cons are snared.” In these statewide raids, authorities charged only 28 green card holders, including Muñoz, among California’s 23 million registered voters.

The arrests were carried out by squads from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. HSI’s primary responsibility is supposed to be investigating serious cross-border criminal activity. But under the Trump administration, HSI has been given very different tasks—like investigating campus protesters, spying on critics of the administration, and executing the recent pre-dawn raid on Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home.

And the 28 individuals charged in California are not the end of the administration’s use of HSI late in this campaign season: HSI agents have reportedly fanned out across the country to go to people’s homes to ask about their immigration status, voter registration, and past voting.

This isn’t ICE at the polls on Election Day. It’s DHS on doorsteps now. It’s dangerous election interference.

The good news: It’s possible to fight these lawless intrusions and to win. But to fight them, you need to understand them first. Here’s what you should know.

Read more

See our new poll results here.

But why?

Tova and Ben dig in with some theories.

Resources mentioned:

• How you can protect democracy.

• If you can keep it: “How to talk about threats to the midterms.”

• The New York Times: “Most voters believe the midterm elections will be accurate, poll finds.”

• Politico: “Trump is mobilizing more Democrats against him than Republicans for him.”

See you all next week.

President Trump has sought to deceive the American people into believing that the results of the 2026 midterms cannot be trusted. The president has claimed, again and again, that American elections are “rigged” and that Democrats “cheat like hell.” This deception is a pretext to disrupt the election and deny the results if his favored candidates lose. Deceive, disrupt, deny.

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But what do the voters think about the administration’s midterm deception campaign?

This month, If you can keep it conducted a national poll with YouGov to find out. The poll was fielded between October 9 and October 20 and surveyed 806 voters. The results are weighted to be nationally representative. The margin of error is ±3.8 percent.1

The results are striking.

Donald Trump has failed to convince the country, or even a plurality of Republicans, that the election will be fraudulent or that federal intervention may be justified. To be clear: Election denialism remains a virulent belief among approximately one in five voters. This may push some elected officials to dangerous and extreme places. But these are still minority views. The authoritarian faction’s failure to win over the rest of the electorate is a very positive sign for democracy.

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My colleagues Ben Berwick and Jessica Marsden have an absolute must-read op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. Gift link here.

In it, they unpack a certain mystery behind the Trump administration’s most aggressive attack on the midterms yet: DOJ’s sweeping lawsuit against my home state, California. The Trump administration is accusing California of having 20,000 ineligible people on the state’s voter rolls — a number that both sounds scary and is less than a tenth of one percent of California’s 23 million registered voters (and almost certainly includes eligible voters, as the administration itself has admitted).

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The administration is now attempting to intimidate both Californians — with a highly staged pre-dawn military-style raid (a glitzy press exclusive coordinated with the conservative New York Post) — and our election officials. The president posted a threat that election officials “will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” for counting any ballots cast by anyone on the list of suspected ineligible voters. (As a reminder, just because someone is registered to vote doesn’t mean that they will actually cast a ballot.)

There’s a tremendous amount of good analysis of the administration’s theatrics and lies about noncitizen voting. For instance, two I recommend:

• The New York Times: How claims of widespread noncitizen voting fall apart

• Rick Hasen: US government pre-dawn raid to arrest purported non-citizen registering to vote is meant to obscure the small number of noncitizen voters that DOJ has found in California.

But in their op-ed, Ben and Jessica go a bit beyond just the legal details and ask about the timing of this whole thing.

The Trump administration first raised its absurd claim to have found tens of thousands of “noncitizen voters” on California’s voter rolls back in July. Why did they wait three months — deep into the 90-day NVRA pre-election “quiet period,” when mass voter removals are illegal per federal law — to send a flash drive with names of voters they wanted disenfranchised?

Why did the feds wait so long, until after mail ballots had already been sent out, then give California just 48 hours to respond before suing? If they’re genuinely trying to make sure that no ballots are cast by ineligible voters, that doesn’t seem like a particularly good legal strategy.

The simplest explanation is the same reason why the flash drive of voter names came with the password on a sticky note: These people are bad at their jobs. This is a hackish, rushed attempt to spread lies about our election and make President Trump happy, not a serious legal strategy.

But (without necessarily discounting that possibility) Ben and Jessica raise another explanation:

In all likelihood, DOJ knows its lawsuit against California will fail. This case has all the hallmarks of a “zombie lawsuit,” a lawsuit deliberately filed close to Election Day intended not to influence voting, but as a legal placeholder to try to overturn results if the election goes the other way.

Read the op-ed

Zombie lawsuits are the new frontier of election subversion litigation

We first noticed zombie lawsuits — and Jessica coined the term — back in 2024. In that election, a slate of different lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies had the same pattern:

• They were broad, challenging tens of thousands of voters’ eligibility or some large portion of the election administration process.

• They were baseless or factually nonsensical.

• They were filed way too late, or had other procedural or technical flaws, making them essentially impossible for a court to even consider.

We realized that this was almost certainly by design.

Essentially every major election in the modern era has seen some pre-election litigation trying to tweak the rules in one direction or the other.

These lawsuits were not that. They clearly didn’t care about changing the playing field before the election. They were placeholders — planted in the court system in advance — so that if Donald Trump and his allies lost, they could use the claims to retroactively try to overturn the result.

Obviously, Donald Trump won the 2024 election, so there was no need for any of those zombies to rise again. But there was one race where one of Trump’s allies lost — and the dead did indeed attempt to rise: North Carolina. In 2024, the Republican state supreme court candidate lost by just 734 votes. Instead of admitting defeat, he used a failed pre-election lawsuit to try to overturn his loss.

That zombie lawsuit — filed before the election but after election officials had already started mailing ballots to overseas and military voters — challenged the eligibility of certain voters who, per The New York Times, “unknowingly registered, sometimes years or decades ago, using erroneous forms that did not clearly require applicants to provide the last four digits of a driver’s license or a Social Security number as proof of identity.” The loser tried to use this lawsuit to throw out over 60,000 ballots cast early or by mail, even though all of those voters had presented proof of identity.

The case dragged on for months, and there was a serious, coordinated effort by Republicans across the state to use the zombie lawsuit to reverse the outcome.

Thankfully, that zombie turned out to be little more than a stinking corpse. A Trump-appointed federal judge eventually saw through the strategy and quashed it. But the playbook is now in the open, and it suggests how the California situation could play out in the weeks ahead.

The mother of all zombie lawsuits

In their op-ed, Ben and Jessica suggest five scenarios to watch for, in which the Trump administration may use this legally doomed lawsuit for other ends:

• The administration intimidating or harassing election officials, such as Trump’s threat to try to jail them for tabulating the ballots of any of these 20,000 Californians (even though not tabulating them would likely be the actual crime). Note: This legal harassment does not need to result in criminal convictions for it to be extremely harmful to election officials.

• ICE confronting or intimidating eligible voters, such as DHS’ tactic of sending armed agents to Americans’ homes to question their eligibility to vote (Protect Democracy is representing the California Nurses Association in their lawsuit against this policy).

• Trump allies using the lawsuit as a pretext to try to block election certification (which would also be a crime).

• Federal agents citing this lawsuit as justification for trying to seize California ballots or other election materials (you guessed it: also a crime).

• The president or his allies filing Hail Mary legal challenges against the results, arguing — as in North Carolina in 2024 — that any race where any of these 20,000 people voted needs to be overturned.

But the thing about zombie lawsuits?

They’re just like the smoke machines that Tova wrote about last week. They’re an illusion. They rely on a perception of legitimacy — a public perception that they’re good-faith legal filings, not the legal equivalent of a ransom note made of cut-out magazine letters — to be effective.

If we can, in advance, expose this cynical and sinister strategy for what it is, it’s doomed to fail. These corpses will stay in the ground where they belong.

So here’s what you can do:

1. Help spread the word. Share Ben and Jessica’s op-ed with your networks.

2. Help explain this tactic — on social media, in your neighborhood, with your friends and family. Be a resource and a guide. Speak with clarity, not fear.

3. If and when there’s an attempt to raise the dead, be ready to speak out. The zombie lawsuit in North Carolina failed in part because tens of thousands of North Carolinians made their voices heard.

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Let’s keep these zombies in the ground.

Even though President Trump’s efforts to bend elections to his will have so far largely failed, don’t mistake defeat for retreat. The federal government’s highest power centers are working overtime to tilt the election in the administration’s favor.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued California, accusing the state of harboring noncitizens on its voter rolls. The suit was filed forty-eight hours after DOJ mailed county election officials a password-protected thumb drive purportedly containing a list of alleged noncitizen voters. This item was delivered with an ultimatum: use the list within the next two days to review the names and prepare to separate their mail-in ballots when returned—or get sued. An L.A. County official rejected the thumb drive as an insecure medium for such a list, and the lawsuit against the state followed.

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On Friday, the administration escalated from litigation to threats of criminal prosecution. In a letter to Los Angeles County officials, DOJ warned that knowingly counting ballots from people federal agencies had identified as noncitizens could make election workers criminally liable—even though California officials say the administration has provided no evidence to substantiate its claims. Trump amplified the threat on Truth Social: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”

The administration’s tactics in California mirror what the Department of Homeland Security tried in Nevada, where Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed nearly 16,000 noncitizens were on the voter rolls and sent a letter to state officials pressuring them to review each case. Upon scrutiny, that number fell to 185 and then to zero. The pretext for the purge completely fell apart, yet the Trump administration keeps pushing these sorts of voter-fraud narratives and making demands for election officials to go to great lengths to restrict voting access.

While January 6th showed Americans what one vivid form of election subversion looks like, schemes of that sort rarely announce themselves with the clamor of an insurrection. More often, they are carried out through the subtle machinery of government: paperwork, pressure, propaganda. And the authoritarians in the Trump administration are not discouraged by failure. They’re like battering rams, hammering at the system again and again, hoping it will eventually break down in a way that benefits them.

So don’t miss what’s happening now. Trump’s election interference effort is well underway.

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Swinging against the system

The falsehood that has been used to provide a basis for all the administration’s actions is simple: They pretend voter fraud is widespread. This initial lie has a natural corollary in turn: The only way to stop the fraud is to put the Trump administration in charge of who gets to vote.

Based on this false framework, Trump has issued a pair of executive orders intended to put his appointees in a position to control who can vote in our elections. The administration has interpreted these orders expansively as an instruction for agencies to create new voter requirements, to compel the states to provide unredacted voter rolls, and to prohibit mail-in ballots unless voters were placed on a new federal voter registry. Those plans faced heavy resistance, even in red states, as the Constitution strictly leaves the power to administer elections to the states.

When those efforts faltered, Trump pivoted. He demanded that Congress pass the SAVE America Act to enact some of these restrictions and requirements, but even a Republican-controlled Congress wouldn’t pass it. At the same time, DOJ tried to get the voter data another way: by suing states to hand it over. But the courts are shutting those efforts down, too; the Trump administration is 0–26 in those cases, with Republican-appointed judges delivering some of those defeats. Additionally, the Supreme Court stepped in to stop the postal rule, keeping mail-in voting safe, secure, and out of Trump’s hands for now.

DHS’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) tried to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in terrorism preparedness grants unless states and local governments accepted the imposition of FEMA’s de facto nationwide election code. The agency’s demands included stipulations about what kind of voting equipment to use; the means by which voters cast ballots; how post-election audits and ballot reconciliation processes are conducted; and how to make citizenship checks on voters and election workers. A judge recently blocked DHS from withholding the grants, and FEMA has rescinded the unlawful election-related requirements the agency had attempted to impose.

At this point, Trump should have taken the dozens of Nos to amount to a larger No. He didn’t. He keeps pounding away.

Trump gave a primetime speech in July, during which he accused

China of nefariously accessing U.S. voting data, said voting machines were vulnerable to attack, and falsely claimed that more than 250,000 noncitizens were illegally registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada. That speech seems to have become an operating blueprint. Those unproven allegations about California were a seed that grew into the lawsuit DOJ brought against the state this week, even after the tactic flopped in Nevada.

Beyond voter rolls: Intimidation, propaganda, and vote buying

Messing with voter rolls is obvious election interference. Other attempts to subvert the already-underway midterms are not so direct, and they indicate how widespread the impulse is across government.

The raid by Homeland Security Investigations on the home of Democratic congresswoman and Somali immigrant Ilhan Omar is a prime example. Breaking a longstanding Justice Department norm against taking public investigative steps relating to political candidates within sixty days of an election, the Trump administration wants to build a case to ultimately strip her of her citizenship and deport her. This is more than the continued weaponization of law enforcement against political rivals; it is direct election interference. Viewed against the barrage of bad-faith claims MAGA leaders have leveled at Somali and other minority communities, the Omar raid cannot be dismissed as a routine matter. Federal agencies are being leveraged to scapegoat and intimidate these voting blocs, using one of the country’s most prominent Muslim women, whom the president has repeatedly denigrated, as a warning shot.

Trump’s recent run of taxpayer-funded campaign ads is another. Directly ahead of the midterms, he raided $20 million in DHS funds to broadcast commercials praising himself, including reruns of a 2024 Trump campaign ad. A district judge ordered the ads to stop airing, ruling that the spots “exceed the purposes authorized by Congress and violate restrictions on publicity and propaganda,” but the administration kept running them, only pulling the ads after millions of people had seen them.

Then there is the attempt to outright buy votes with Trump’s promise of a $5,000 “dividend” check for all Americans—but only if Republicans keep the House and Senate. This isn’t even close to normal political pandering. Trump claims he doesn’t need Congress to issue the checks because the money already belongs to the people (why he doesn’t just send the checks now, in that case, he has never explained). This isn’t true, but consider the audacity of this logic: Trump is telling voters these tax dollars, which supposedly belong to them, will be kept in government coffers unless they cast their ballots for his preferred candidates.

Although his $5,000 offer is getting pushback, Trump slipped almost a million Americans $500 “Obamacare refund” checks ahead of the midterms with ease. The checks came with a Trumpian self-aggrandizing message: “For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov. That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the government, and now, I am returning it to you!”

What to do

The good news? This administration has tried numerous ways to seize control of the voting rolls and block access to the polls, yet the path to the ballot box during this critical early voting period remains clear.

But the election isn’t over on election night. Sixty-one days separate Election Day from the date when the new Congress is seated on January 3. Don’t tune out after you cast your ballot.

Trump and his authoritarian allies have proven that the post-election certification period is fertile ground for subversion. But Trump won’t necessarily need to summon a mob this time. In his second term, he installed election deniers throughout the federal government—and helped some get elected to critical roles in key states—to do his dirty work from within.

Be ready to stand with the targets of this administration’s intimidation and smear campaigns. It could mean organizing at the local level or providing financial, legal, and moral support to those targets or others working to protect elections. It might mean poll-watching on Election Day.

If we are going to prevent the Trump administration from exploiting federal authority and resources for partisan advantage in the 2028 presidential election, reform-minded members of Congress must make reclaiming the body’s constitutional power of the purse a top priority. We must stop President Trump from corrupting our federal coffers and using our money as a personal partisan piggy bank.

We can take comfort in seeing the administration flailing through its most brazen attempts at election interference, but we can’t be complacent that some won’t succeed. We won’t be sure until the votes are counted and the rightful winners are seated. For now, we must recognize how dedicated these authoritarians are to pulling federal levers in their favor, and act accordingly.

This piece was originally published on The Bulwark.

Resources mentioned:

• How you can protect democracy

• Save, print, and share your state’s voting guide 🗳️

• Authoritarians are afraid of our joy

17 days and counting.

This week, the Trump administration sent agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to raid Representative Ilhan Omar’s house in an attempt to cast doubt on her and her family’s citizenship status.

Rep. Omar has been an American citizen for 26 years. Federal law enforcement has a longstanding practice of not conducting high-profile actions within two months of Election Day. The raid was only 22 days before Election Day.

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For the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security is the weapon of choice when they’re trying to intimidate voters and political opponents. DHS’ budget has ballooned and its ranks have been filled with many who are subservient to the president’s political aims, rather than to their supposed purpose of non-partisan public safety. Meanwhile, the department — and ICE in particular — has become notorious for its willingness to use violence and spread fear.

In this context, the raid on Rep. Omar’s home is a textbook example of a retaliatory and abusive investigation.

To be clear, Trump is unlikely to get what he is hoping for here, either politically or legally. The investigation against Rep. Omar seems to be rooted in the president’s racist conspiracy theories, not credible claims of wrongdoing. And yet, DHS’ latest politically motivated abuse raises a question: If DHS can target a member of Congress on the eve of an election, what stops ICE from showing up at local polling places on Election Day?

A substantial portion of Americans are worried about the possibility.

In a recent poll, over 40% of surveyed Americans said that they expected to see ICE agents at their local polling place. Unsurprisingly, Americans of color feel particularly on edge: 39% of Asian American, 31% of Hispanic, and 24% of Black respondents agreed with the statement “I worry that going to the polls could put me at risk of being questioned by federal immigration officers, despite being a US citizen” — compared to only 9% of White Americans.

But while it’s understandable to worry about what the Trump administration might do, any attempt to deploy ICE or DHS agents to polling places is very likely to fail.

So why does the Trump administration keep hinting that they might try?

The Trump administration wants to scare us

Last weekend, brimming with Halloween spirit, I went to a haunted house. It was terrifying, but most of the illusion — most of the haunt — came from a simple trick: Smoke machines. Each room was blanketed in synthetic fog, which covered up reality and made the horror feel real.

In their way, authoritarians love smoke machines.

They generate a cloud of fear and confusion so thick that it obscures what they can and can’t actually do, making their reach look infinite and overwhelming. When Trump blusters, in response to a question about whether he’d send ICE to the polls, that he’d do “anything necessary,” he’s turning the smoke machine on high, hoping the haze makes us too afraid to show up.

This is classic “Deceive, Disrupt, Deny” — the three-party strategy we keep pestering you about because, well, the administration keeps using it.

But smoke machines have two big weaknesses. First, smoke can’t pass through a solid wall. In our democracy, state and local authority over election administration and strict legal prohibitions against armed agents at the polls are those walls. Second, we as Americans don’t have to sit passively, overwhelmed by the haze — we can clear the air. When we learn our rights, help our neighbors get to the polls, and make an effort to see through the lies, we blow away the smoke.

Clearing the smoke doesn’t mean there’s no threat underneath. But it allows us to see the authoritarian at his actual, human size, and realize that the power to protect this election remains firmly in our hands.

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The law is so freaking clear: Armed agents are prohibited at polling places

Don’t be deceived by the smoke machine; bluster isn’t legal authority.

States run elections. The federal executive branch does not. Full stop. State and local election officials, laws, and regulations govern who is allowed at a polling place, so federal agents can’t simply march in and take over without violating state sovereignty.

Generations of Americans have fought to ensure our legal system protects against such efforts to intimidate voters or interfere with free elections. In response to our country’s dark history of voter suppression against Black Americans and other voters of color, Congress and state legislatures built a robust legal framework specifically designed to keep troops, law enforcement, and private militias far, far away from the ballot box.

Since the end of the Civil War, it has explicitly been a felony to order or keep “armed men” at election sites. Since DHS officers (including ICE agents) are required to be armed on duty and act under executive authority, this means that, by definition, they’d fall under this law. And it’s not just the agents that would be violating the law — the officials who order the agents would be subject to criminal prosecution. A violation of this law carries serious consequences, including imprisonment of up to five years and being barred from holding office again.

Sending ICE even into the general vicinity of polling places, drop boxes, and other election sites could also violate longstanding laws against voter intimidation. For instance, Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act and U.S. criminal code both prohibit any attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce voters. And crucially, it’s the attempt itself that’s unlawful, not the outcome. Regardless of whether ICE agents physically turn away anyone from the polls, their very presence at or near polling sites would likely be considered intimidation of voters and a violation of the law.

Now, if you’re skeptical that the current, nauseatingly politicized Department of Justice would go after violators of these laws, I don’t blame you.

But here’s the legal beauty — even if the current DOJ doesn’t prosecute, the statute of limitations for these criminal prohibitions runs up to five years, meaning that the next administration’s Department of Justice still could. And, in the meantime, states could prosecute violators under their own laws. And nonprofit organizations (including ours) have already brought civil cases to halt ongoing efforts to intimidate voters and interfere with elections.

Together, we can stop DHS interference

Before I get into what to do about it, it’s worth noting the political reality: Actually sending ICE to the polls could very well backfire.

The midterms aren’t just a day, but a period — more than 7 million Americans have already cast their ballots. And Trump’s supporters, not opponents, are more likely to vote on Election Day itself, meaning that any attempt to snarl or disrupt last-minute voting could easily have the opposite effect to what the Trump administration intends. Plus, ICE is extremely unpopular, and any election-related abuses are likely to spur public backlash — which could itself motivate more people to vote.

Maybe that means the Trump administration will back off its threats to send ICE agents directly to the polls. The recent surge of ICE activity in California suggests their strategy may be to use ICE presence in communities generally, rather than at the polls specifically, to terrify voters into staying home. The confusion, intimidation and fear is the point. Trump is attempting to threaten and intimidate Americans, especially naturalized Americans and Americans of color, into not exercising their fundamental right to vote.

It’s an ugly tactic, but it’s hardly new.

The smoke machine is designed to overwhelm us, but together we can clear the haze. We have lots of tools to fight back. To name just a few:

Exercising your rights: Make a plan to vote, if you haven’t yet, and track your ballot if you have. The earlier you vote, the sooner you’ll know your vote has been counted.

Being a breath of fresh air for others: Help reassure and support others in your life who may be afraid. (You can use this handy guide my colleague Ben published last week!)

In doing so, it’s important to recognize the very real basis for this fear — ICE has been menacing communities, using violence, and crossing legal boundaries. The law itself won’t be enough to make people feel protected at the polls, and understandably so. So think about how you can serve as a resource to help those in your community vote safely and freely (Protect Democracy maintains a list of specific ways to do this).

Documenting and reporting: If you do see something that looks amiss at or near an election site, know that there are resources to help. Make sure to document anything worrying that you see — this can be evidence for investigators later on. You can call 866-OUR-VOTE to speak with trained Election Protection volunteers.

The Trump administration is not as powerful as they want us to think they are.

Let’s shut off the smoke machine.

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Authoritarian Action Watch updates

Two events to note in the Authoritarian Action Watch this week.

First, the raid on Rep. Omar’s home is both a sign of a floundering presidency and a blatant attempt to demonize and frighten naturalized citizens. Quashing Dissent is RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

Second, in a related incident, Donald Trump posted a Truth Social post saying: “The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back… The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!” Stoking Violence is also RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

See all the updates: Authoritarian Action Watch.

How you can protect democracy #101

Register your community to vote 🗳️ Communicating with your network about when and how to vote — and making sure everyone you know is registered — is one of the most direct ways to strengthen participation in our democracy. Millions of eligible voters aren’t registered, and many registered voters have outdated information that could prevent them from casting a ballot. With registration deadlines for the November 3rd general election approaching in many states, now is the time to check and help others do the same.

What you can do:

• Check your voter registration status to make sure your name and address are current — and check more than once, as voter rolls are updated periodically.

• Register to vote if you haven’t already, and help someone in your life do the same, especially anyone who has recently moved, changed their name, or will be voting for the first time.

• Find your state’s registration deadline and sign up at Vote.org to get reminders of upcoming deadlines.

• Send your contact list accurate information about the upcoming election well before the registration deadline — a simple text or email can make all the difference.

• Use The Civics Center’s guide to plan and run a voter registration drive in your school, community, or workplace. It includes step-by-step guidance, training workshops, and social media templates.

• Download your state’s Voter Registration Drive Guide for state-specific rules, requirements, and guidance for drive organizers.

• Read and share Protect Your Vote: A Citizen’s Guide from the Elections Group — download and print the pocket-sized version to share with people in your community.

• Should anyone have problems with voting, share the Election Protection Hotline numbers: English: 1-866-OUR-VOTE | Spanish: 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA | Asian Languages: 1-888-API-VOTE | Arabic: 1-844-YALLA-US

Deceive, Disrupt, Deny.

But there are things all Americans can do to help protect free and fair elections.

How you can protect democracy

Learn more about the Executive Override strategy here.

Will you take 30 seconds to help spread this video to everyone you know?

We need your help showing as many people as we can what’s coming and what they can do. Help share this video on Youtube here, Facebook here, and LinkedIn here.

Together, we will defeat it.

When you consider all the outrageous things President Donald Trump has done in his second term, you might be tempted to think his big ballroom project doesn’t rate high on the scale of his most authoritarian offenses—that, at worst, it’s another expensive monument to his vanity; at best, it could include some features useful to national security.

No.

This is an enormous separation-of-powers problem that, if left unresolved, essentially renders one of Congress’s major functions meaningless. Put aside the president’s deep-seated desire to host state dinners in a gilded bunker and start with one basic question. How is this bunker-ballroom—which has morphed into a six-story subterranean complex complete with a military hospital, facilities for unspecified research, and a rooftop drone port—being funded?

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Funny story: No one really knows!

That’s not good, especially considering the White House already has a previously secret, nuclear-proof underground facility built during the Obama administration, and Trump is steamrolling ahead to build a “ballroom” that dwarfs the actual White House in square footage. Many people should be able to tell us. Five hundred and thirty-five, to be exact, because Congress’s job is to pass legislation that says how the government spends money.

Now, you may be confused, because Trump said at the outset of the project that no taxpayer money would be used to construct the ballroom—it was instead going to be a “gift” to the country fully funded by private donors. (Hold this thought.) His exact words were that it would be “taxpayer free,” that “We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.” This turned out to be a bald-faced lie, but the gambit served its purpose: It bought him time to break ground.

As soon as mounds of dirt began piling up, Trump began making noises that finishing the ballroom would require taxpayer funds after all, specifically to pay for the accompanying national security support. Just like the “free” Qatari plane that turned out to require a bit of extra money—nothing too serious; “less than” $400 million—in order for it to be “maxed out” with security upgrades. After the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley began taking up Trump’s requests and introduced bills to set aside the required funds. Those efforts, however, failed. A bipartisan group of senators stripped ballroom funding from a spending bill after opposing taxpayer funding for the project.

In other words, Congress has already said no to taxpayer funding for the big, beautiful ballroom, and this should have been a stop order on the project. Because, again, if Congress doesn’t fund a president’s pet project, how does he get taxpayer money for it?

Answer:

by stealing it from other programs. Investigative reporting by the Washington Post revealed that the White House and the Office of Management and Budget diverted $352 million intended for Secret Service recruitment and training—which covered a big chunk of the ballroom’s overall price tag, considering that for a long time, Trump claimed the total cost would be $400 million. That number was double the figure the White House set out when first announcing the start of construction in July 2025, but, hey, who’s counting?

Well, someone needs to, because the cost has now ballooned to $900 million. Members of the media are still working to piece together what other coffers the president might be raiding. Because, again, Congress, the body that is constitutionally required to authorize government spending, has no idea.

Oddly enough, Congress originally created an “apportionment” process that gives OMB a role in doling out authorized and appropriated money to federal agencies to ensure they stick to their budgets. But over time, OMB has sometimes misused this process, instead using it to thwart rather than implement Congress’s spending laws. A notable example of this dubious behavior was when Trump 1.0’s OMB illegally held up funds intended for Ukraine, leading to his first impeachment. In the aftermath, Congress passed legislation during the Biden administration requiring OMB to post publicly whenever it uses this process, but Trump 2.0’s OMB is resisting that directive.

To ensure everyone can find apportionments, including ones that may withhold funds, my colleagues at Protect Democracy created a searchable public website, OpenOMB.org, to help people find and analyze these postings. After Trump officials took the records offline, Protect Democracy sued to restore public access to them and won, keeping OpenOMB.org functional and helping congressional staff, members of the media, and other watchdogs monitor how OMB directs taxpayer money. But that victory is under appeal, with a hearing due in just a few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to defy Congress’s power of the purse by other means. In addition to spending money in ways that Congress did not authorize, the Trump administration is using OMB to cancel money through a mechanism known as a “pocket rescission.” A growing number of senators are calling this move “illegal,” and the Government Accountability Office characterizes it as “unconstitutional.” Even the Trump administration’s new America.gov AI chatbot describes pocket rescissions as “not allowed.”

But the Trump administration seems not to worry about acting unlawfully. To check these flagrant, repeated abuses, Congress has to do more than express concern. Real, concrete action is needed to reclaim and defend its spending power, but the Republican-controlled Congress under President Trump has shown little interest in doing so.

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If the upcoming midterms result in Congress seating a new majority that is willing to check the executive branch, it should do three things.

First, follow the money. Congress must fulfill its oversight responsibility and follow the money trail to find out how this ballroom and many other projects are being funded. What is the expense to other programs? Whose budgets are being raided? And who is responsible for stealing that money from its intended purpose? Who made the transfers? And how much is Trump’s special-projects spree truly costing taxpayers? We need a full accounting. Congress should subpoena the contracts and communications to find out who is getting paid and how. Many private contractors, keenly interested in future federal contracts, are involved in these deals, and they should be willing to disclose the information.

As part of this oversight program, Congress also needs to find and follow the private money Trump has claimed is being used to fund the ballroom construction. How does that arrangement work? Well, the National Park Service has longstanding authority from Congress to accept gifts that support its mission “to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wildlife” in the National Park System so as to “leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” But does that authority really open the door wide enough to allow private individuals and corporations to shovel huge amounts of private money through it to construct a giant new building over a historic site that was destroyed to make way for it? Probably not. And how far is Trump stretching that gift authority for the ballroom?

Congress literally does not know. And it should.

Right now, the rules regulating the acceptance of private gifts are too vague. There is no current list of all federal agencies’ authorities to accept gifts or any estimate of how much and what kinds of gifts agencies are accepting. That is basic information, and a cross-partisan group of organizations has recommended that Congress demand it.

Another issue with donations is who gives them. These private funding arrangements for the ballroom project are not entirely public, but we do know donors include people with huge amounts of corporate business before the federal government, not to mention foreign entities and persons, and these present major vectors for corruption and national security risk. These entities are lining up to curry favor with Trump, though one prominent figure has spoken out against it. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said he would not donate to the ballroom because “we have to be very careful about how anything is perceived and also how the next DOJ [Department of Justice] is going to deal with it. So we’re quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like we are buying favors or anything like that.”

Several Democrats who could be holding committee gavels next year have expressed interest in investigating this. Appropriations are meant to include input, oversight, and control from Congress to avoid pay-to-play shakedowns for government projects like this (not to mention ensuring the building is safe). The lead ballroom architect, James McCrery II, resigned after Trump repeatedly dismissed safety codes, reportedly telling McCrery, “I am the code.”

Second, Congress should use its legislative powers to curtail the administration’s range of motion when it makes a grab for money that has been allocated for unrelated purposes, and to force it to respect the wishes of Congress as put forward in its spending bills. Appropriations riders are regularly used to prohibit funding or impose strong requirements on government projects and programs.

Third, if the president continues to defy the laws preventing construction of the ballroom, members should take Trump to court for a binding decision on what should be a straightforward constitutional matter. A previous Supreme Court ruling permitted construction of the ballroom to move forward, but it did not rule on whether the executive branch or Congress has the right to pay for and authorize the ballroom; the Court ruled only that the group bringing the suit lacked standing to stop construction. Congress has a strong claim to standing in this matter and a strong argument that Trump is overstepping his authority by pursuing it.

The power of the purse is Congress’s strongest check on the president. If a president can both spend money Congress refused to give him and refuse to spend money Congress ordered him to spend, Congress no longer has the spending power because the president has arrogated it to himself.

And once Congress gives up this fundamental purpose—deciding how the country will spend its money—it starts getting harder to see the point of Congress at all. Yes, it can keep passing laws, but what meaning do they have if Congress keeps letting the administration ignore them? Squat.

This is why the ballroom matters. Of course, it’s demeaning and absurd for a tacky presidential banquet hall to prompt a giant constitutional clash. But this isn’t about Trump’s vanity or dictator-chic decor choices. Trump has described the project as a “monument to myself,” but if built, it will also be a monument to congressional surrender.

This article was originally published in The Bulwark.

All of a sudden, it’s everywhere.

Have you noticed it too?

A coworker in the break room, your neighbor at the dog park, your group chat of friends, a random phone call from your mom, a text from your uncle. Each time, the same questions. So many different people in your life are wondering…

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In a special event, The Jim Acosta Show and If You Can Keep It brought together award-winning journalist Jim Acosta, former senior FCC official Gigi Sohn, and Protect Democracy Special Counsel Rachel Goodman for a live conversation about ABC’s fight against the FCC, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s ongoing effort to weaponize the FCC as a tool for censorship, the threats to an independent press, and what it means for the 2026 midterm elections.

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Jim knows the pressure on newsrooms firsthand as a journalist who was barred from the White House in 2018 and left CNN to report independently in 2025. Gigi has the insider view of the FCC, and Rachel is on the front lines of the legal fight. We’re really looking forward to a conversation bringing these pieces together. Gigi and Rachel are also representing a bipartisan group of 18 former high-ranking FCC officials who have filed a brief supporting ABC in the litigation. When officials from both parties are sounding the alarm ahead of a major election, it’s worth listening.

The FCC’s actions against ABC are part of FCC Chairman Carr’s campaign to pressure, threaten, and attempt to discredit journalists for coverage the Trump administration dislikes. This is about more than one broadcaster’s license — it’s about controlling voters: what you see, what you trust, and whether you accept election outcomes as legitimate.

Featuring:

• Jim Acosta, award-winning journalist and host of The Jim Acosta Show

• Gigi Sohn, former senior FCC official and co-founder of Public Knowledge

• Rachel Goodman, Protect Democracy Special Counsel

Last weekend, President Trump posted a video telling Republicans to vote by mail. This is the same man who spent years calling mail voting “inherently corrupt.” The same man whose party spent eighteen months trying to kill it via law and illegal executive order. And now, he’s begging his own voting base to use it.

That is not strength. That is desperation. And it is a reaction to the resolve of the big and growing pro-democracy, pro-America coalition. They are desperate because we did not back down.

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Since March, we at Protect Democracy have tried to keep you ahead of the curve about what this administration would try to do to corrupt this election. But it’s just as important to focus on what they’re afraid of.

The authoritarian movement is afraid of our coalition working across our differences. They are afraid of us harnessing our anger and turning it into joyful action, into what the great John Lewis called “Good Trouble.” They are afraid of what happens when we show up together and refuse to be managed by dread.

An uncreative, desperate playbook

Here is the truth about what we call the Executive Override playbook: It’s not clever. It’s the same three moves, over and over: deceive, disrupt, and deny.

The playbook is predictable. We know they lie about who’s voting. Make it hard for people to vote. Try to unnerve, confuse, and discourage via racist gerrymandering and other tired tactics, all while preparing to claim victimhood, to say their losses don’t count. Steal taxpayer money allocated to combatting drug trafficking and for memorials for officers killed in the line of duty to air ridiculous and illegal propaganda videos (as flagged by our colleagues at OpenOMB). Make wild, baseless claims that noncitizens are voting by the thousands — then shrug when their own investigations turn up next to nothing.

The ultimate purpose of all these actions?

They’re aiming to frighten us. With less than a month before polls close, they’re panicking, because they know the pro-democracy coalition is strong. So, like all authoritarians, they’re trying to project an inflated sense of power to make us afraid. They want us to give up, stay home, bend the knee.

Americans aren’t going to do that. We’re not built like that.

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Here’s how we close this out

Lawyers across the pro-democracy movement are more coordinated and prepared than ever. We’ve been working with local election officials for months to make sure they are prepared for unique threats and are ready to go to court the moment authoritarian forces try to intimidate a voter or break the rules in the middle of the game. And we are ready to rally around any organization or individual targeted with sham investigations designed to scare us off the field.

But that is just one piece of the puzzle. This fall, our coalition is bigger, more diverse, and more creative than ever.

Scientists and public health experts are building benches of Science Rising Ambassadors for Election Protection, who can identify and speak out about specific election threats in their communities. Business leaders are standing up for free, fair, and secure elections as the basis for a thriving economy and engaging in creative tactics to help their employees and communities vote. Faith leaders are showing up nationwide as trusted sources of information and conviction — check out the 15-state multi-faith bus tour launching today in Omaha, Nebraska! Gen Z organizers have been doing extraordinary work in the off-season, resulting in a 6.7% increase in 18-year-olds registered to vote compared to 2022 (and, of course, dominating the content game). Volunteers are flooding into education and readiness work, making sure nobody walks into November confused about where, when, or how to vote — including the next No Kings Early Vote Day of Action on October 17.

Our coalition is mobilized and ready for what comes next.

And we can predict what comes next. In the next few weeks, brace yourself for more of the same: last-minute claims that eligible people shouldn’t be allowed to vote, armed presence near polling places meant to rattle you, and sudden legal moves trying to change the rules, even though more than 1.7 million people have already voted. None of it is new. All of it has failed before. It will fail again — because we will all do our part to make sure it does.

Specifically, here is your part:

• Go check your own registration right now, and decide exactly how and when you’re voting. Then call at least three people you love. Ask if they have a plan. Make sure they don’t fall through the cracks because nobody checked in.

• If you can give more, sign up to be a poll worker or a trained poll observer — and stay ready, because this fight does not end on election night. Ballot curing, recounts, runoffs: We’ll see all of it through.

• Most importantly, find your community. The best way to turn fear and exhaustion into energy is to face it together. Whether you find your people at No Kings, your faith community, the family group chat, or your local, make sure you have your crew for crunch time.

They’re counting on you being afraid. They are counting on you being alone. But we’re not alone, and we don’t have to be afraid. We are ready for this moment and we will win together.

If you caught the Seattle Seahawks vs. Washington Commanders game this weekend, you might have had the misfortune of seeing one of Trump’s propaganda ads.

In one, a chorus of women earnestly sing “love me,” as a strobing array of Trump photos flashes across the screen. A male voice gushes that Trump is “the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met, and nothing was gonna stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.” Not exactly subtle.

And at the bottom of the screen, a disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

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The Trump administration has reportedly spent $20 million in taxpayer money on this ad campaign. It claims the ads are “public service announcements,” not political, even though these commercials have been repurposed from actual Trump campaign ads and were hand-selected by Trump himself. The ads have already run more than 2,000 times on broadcast networks.

But this is just the beginning. CNN obtained access to a set of 10 more ads the Trump administration is planning beyond the three currently on air — including one titled “God Made Trump,” and another called “King of the Jungle.” We have every reason to expect this to ramp up as the midterm elections draw nearer.

This is all instinctively upsetting. No matter your political persuasion, it just plain feels wrong for our taxpayer money to go toward glorifying a sitting president. Maybe that’s why several prominent Republican leaders have criticized the Trump administration for this move.

There are several entangled layers of terrible to this story. Today, I want to peel these apart to understand why these ads aren’t just annoying, but deeply dangerous.

Layer one: This is a clear spending abuse

I recently engaged in the time-honored American tradition of being surprised at the amount of federal taxes deducted from my first salaried paycheck. I consoled myself by picturing the manifold ways that the money must be helping society. I definitely don’t like to hear that it was being used for Trump campaign ads.

And indeed, it’s not supposed to be used for that.

Congress has long sought to limit this sort of use of public funds for partisan purposes. The 1939 Hatch Act restricts federal executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activities in their official capacity. And the Anti-Publicity and Propaganda Rider has, since 1951, explicitly banned the use of public funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”

Now, I bet you’re wondering, did Congress actually pass a law providing funding for these ads? No, they didn’t. Not even close.

Congress did pass a law providing for billions in funds for Customs and Border Protection, and gave the agency a list of eight things it could use the money for to beef up border security.

Trump campaign ads? Not one of the things. So, which of the eight permitted uses is the administration relying on?

Commemorative events, which the version of the bill originally passed by the House explains are “line-of-Duty death memorials, Department or agency anniversaries, and commendation ceremonies.”

You read that right. Trump is using a provision intended to commemorate fallen officers for ads praising himself. Ugh.

And he is also taking funds away from actual border security efforts — which he claims is a priority of his administration and a promise he campaigned on — to do it.

(As a sidebar: you can see the source of this ad funding through Protect Democracy’s OpenOMB tool, which is a great resource to track the ways in which the Trump administration has been abusing its spending authority. Try it out yourself.)

Congressional appropriators are taking note. Several senior Appropriations Committee members sent a letter to the White House chief of staff expressing their outrage, calling the ads an “egregious and utterly illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.” On Thursday, Senator Patty Murray introduced the “Penalties for Propaganda Act of 2026” that would decrease the budget of the Office of Management and Budget by $20 million for each violation of propaganda laws.

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Layer two: Ads like these could be used to attack the midterms

It seems likely that, with these propaganda ads, the Trump administration is testing the waters to see how much they can get away with. If unchecked, they could ramp up their propaganda efforts and potentially use these ads as a powerful tool to spread election disinformation.

According to the White House budget office’s own records, there is around $5.5 billion left in the account that the Trump administration is using to pay for the ads. That’s more than six times what the Harris campaign spent on ads in the whole 2024 election cycle. It’s some serious campaign firepower.

It’s possible, though, that these ads could be meant for something broader than just driving support to Republicans. In the event of a win for the opposition in the 2026 midterms, the Trump administration might use these ads to question the results themselves. Trump could place ads, with the seeming endorsement “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” on news stations and broadcast shows to advance false claims about the election.

We already know that Trump is actively attempting to subvert the 2026 midterms through his Deceive, Disrupt, Deny tactics. He’s consistently cast doubt on election results. He’s done it before. He’ll do it again.

But this time, it’s like we, the taxpayers, would be buying him a giant, multimillion-dollar megaphone to shout his election conspiracies into.

Layer three: This echoes exactly how other autocrats have channeled public resources into propaganda

Finally, to state the obvious: Self-promotional ads glorifying the president are a page ripped directly from the global authoritarian playbook. One of the fundamental tactics of autocrats is “aggrandizing executive power,” which often involves building a cult of personality. Propaganda efforts can be used to shore up support, discourage dissent, and justify the expansion of executive strength.

A clear example is Hungary under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Not only did Orbán structurally expand his executive power through radically rewriting the Hungarian constitution to remove checks and balances, he accompanied this power grab with a concerted propaganda effort. He unleashed regulatory fury against media critics. He directed government advertising money to loyal outlets. And, like Trump, Orbán’s political party used taxpayer money to place pro-regime ads on the air, skirting around a constitutional prohibition against paid political advertising by claiming its ads were public service announcements.

Sound familiar?

In fact, a Hungarian civic watchdog group found that Orbán’s Fidesz-led government spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on propaganda ads which praised Orbán and lashed out at political enemies. An international election observer group found that these ads had a meaningful impact on Hungarian elections, systematically disadvantaging the opposition.

Autocratic leaders have employed similar propaganda ad tactics in Turkey, El Salvador, Serbia, and elsewhere.

If we’re not vigilant, this could be where we’re heading. And this comparison isn’t paranoia — Trump and his allies have explicitly and enthusiastically embraced Orbán as a role model.

That said, the playbook may not be as effective as Trump and his administration hope. Orbán’s propaganda worked only until, eventually, it didn’t. Earlier this year, he and his Fidesz party were swept out of power in a landslide. Among other things, voters were furious at the perception that Orbán was acting corruptly and irresponsibly with government resources.

Trump’s ads are likely illegal and definitely immoral. But the best way to stop this from happening — now or in the future — is if the American people refuse to believe the propaganda, call out what’s happening, and deliver swift political and electoral punishments for the abuse.

Even if our money as taxpayers is buying these ads, it doesn’t mean that we as citizens have to.

Three updates to the Authoritarian Action Watch this week.

First, the president is withholding almost $1 billion in congressionally approved funding, an illegal maneuver known as a pocket rescission (read more about those here). Because of that move, Aggrandizing Executive Power is RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

Second, as covered above, Trump’s ads are both an aggrandizement of his power and an attempt to spread false information. For that reason, Spreading Disinformation is ESCALATING.

And finally, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of the SAVE database is an unwelcome development, but not one that should keep you from feeling confident that your vote is safe and secure. Because of the ruling, Corrupting Elections is ESCALATING.

Overall: Authoritarian actions are RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

See all the developments: Authoritarian Action Watch.

How you can protect democracy

Watch this great video from my colleague Anna Dorman on three ways you can secure your vote, and give it a share:

Earlier today, a federal court struck down the Trump administration’s illegal attempt to use anti-terrorism funds to coerce state and local governments into changing their election rules. This important (and timely) win helps ensure communities don’t have to choose between the safety of their residents and the health of our democracy.

(You may remember this storyline from when Ben wrote about it in August)

Some quick history: In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Congress established the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) to allocate money to help states and local governments prevent and respond to terrorism. For more than two decades, communities have relied on these funds — between $1 billion and $2 billion per year nationally — to administer counterterrorism, cybersecurity, border security, and emergency preparedness programs.

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These funds aren’t political. They’re meant for public safety, and maintain broad bipartisan support. The money is already authorized and appropriated by Congress.

Then came the Trump administration. This past June, DHS and FEMA hit state and local governments with a shocking (and unlawful) bargain: agree to a litany of the Trump administration’s election demands, or lose access to 20% of their HSGP grant funds. That’s hundreds of millions of counterterrorism dollars at stake.

We knew this gambit wasn’t just harmful to American communities. It was also illegal. So we sued.

Together with our partners at the Brennan Center for Justice, Jacobson Lawyers Group, Public Rights Project, and county lawyers, we represented six counties and cities — Nashville and Davidson County, TN; Harris County, TX; Columbus, OH; El Paso County, TX; Travis County, TX; and Dallas County, TX — in their case against DHS and FEMA.

(See more details about the case here.)

The district court agreed with our argument that FEMA exceeded its statutory authority by conditioning the HSGP grant funds on changes to election administration. The court ordered that the election conditions for grant funding are vacated — not just for the plaintiffs, but for every jurisdiction nationwide. FEMA now has to administer the HSGP grant program as if it had never demanded these changes to elections in the first place.

This is a victory worth celebrating.

A “twofer” win for democracy

Like so many of the Trump administration’s abuses, this attack had multiple dimensions of bad and harmful. First, it was an abuse of government resources and authority as part of a direct intervention in the midterm elections. Second, by politicizing anti-terrorism funding, the administration created widespread collateral damage, leaving Americans potentially more vulnerable to future security threats.

That’s why this win is a “twofer” — it cuts off one of the administration’s attacks on the midterms and ensures anti-terrorism funding remains dedicated to keeping Americans safe.

On the elections front, this decision protects the rights of states to administer their elections. It bears repeating that neither FEMA nor the executive branch more broadly has the authority to impose election rules. The authority to regulate elections lies with the states and Congress. The Constitution is clear, and today, yet another federal court has recognized this.

In addition, the court prevented the Trump administration from fundamentally changing how states administer their elections, right before the midterms. The election administration conditions at issue in the lawsuit amount to a FEMA-created nationwide election code, including requirements on how states maintain their voter rolls, who may work at polling sites, how voters may physically vote, and how counties must conduct post-election audits and ballot reconciliation processes.

By blocking these last-minute mandates, the court preserved election stability and spared election officials from an administrative nightmare.

From a public safety perspective, now states and local governments can spend less time having to navigate a political fight that they didn’t ask for — and more time using HSGP grants to protect their communities. Nashville, for instance, uses its grant money to fund detectors of chemical and biological weapons and to provide training to officers on urban search and rescue. Harris County uses some of its grant money to maintain a terror emergency alert system. Columbus uses its grants to supplement overtime pay for extra officers at Ohio State football games and to buy bomb-defusing robots. This is exactly what the funding is meant for — to make American communities safer, not to wage battles over election administration.

As Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said after the ruling:

We rely on HSGP funding to provide the training and equipment necessary for our law enforcement and emergency rapid response teams. The federal government has no right to threaten the public safety or election authority of our county. Today’s decision brings with it a collective sigh of relief among local leaders and residents.

What to expect from here

Now, we’ll be watching to see whether the government appeals. But regardless of where this case goes from here, we hope that our clients have prevented the administration from using anti-terrorism funds to coerce states and counties in this election cycle.

We’re deeply grateful to our clients and partners, who have fought tirelessly in a collective effort to safeguard the security of elections and the safety of Americans.

This case isn’t isolated. Across every page of the Trump administration’s authoritarian playbook, the pro-democracy coalition is pushing back. We are winning.

We are now six weeks from the midterms, and I have good news for you.

Democracy is winning.

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From the moment he returned to the White House, Donald Trump has attempted to turn the entire machinery of the federal government — from the FBI to the Postal Service — against the midterm elections. He sought to do this in four ways:

• Supercharge conspiracy theories and lies — especially around voter fraud — from inside the White House.

• Deploy federal power against opponents, organizations, and officials to intimidate the opposition into compliance.

• Use violence to silence Americans and deter voting.

• Manipulate election rules and try to block eligible voters. (Think gerrymandering, mail-in ballot restrictions, voter registration list shenanigans, and so on.)

And, of course, there is a fifth and final strategy still to come:

• If those four fail to produce the results he wants, seek to overturn them.

It was — and continues to be — up to all of us to stop him. (Here’s how.)

American democracy has never faced the federal government arrayed against it like this. And yet we — the big “we”: you, me, and everyone else in this country committed to protecting free and fair elections — we are winning across the board.

This is absolutely not a reason for complacency. Still six weeks until Election Day (and 14 weeks until the next Congress is sworn in). But this win streak should make us all feel more confident, more optimistic, and more hopeful.

Deceive: Trump has mostly failed to manufacture the pretext for disruption and denial

The president has worked tirelessly to try to convince Americans that elections are not to be trusted.

It’s not working.

Trump hosted a prime-time address (that was not carried on major networks). DHS claimed it found a quarter-million “noncitizen registrants” in four states (but when pressed, every name produced — every single one! — was a U.S. citizen and eligible voter). The Census Bureau put out an “unsigned” report on voter fraud (that was immediately slammed by bipartisan experts). He hired election deniers for various federal roles (several of whom, notably Joe diGenova and Ed Martin, have already quit).

And, of course, the president himself posts election conspiracy theories on social media constantly.

By my non-scientific count, the president has posted about election conspiracy theories, voter fraud, or the 2020 election on Truth Social 153 times so far this year. That’s more than every other day.1

He’s obsessed with the Big Lie and the false specter of fraud. He’s still obsessed with the 2020 election. He seems to hope that by talking even more about conspiracy theories, he can do what he failed to do six years ago: sabotage or overturn an election.

But instead of roiling the fever swamps of anger and discontent, the administration’s all-out propaganda push seems to have had the opposite effect.

For most voters, lies about elections are becoming white noise.

In August, a Navigator poll found that 60 percent of the country (including 61 percent of independents, 49 percent of non-MAGA Republicans, and even 21 percent of MAGA Republicans) think Trump spends too much time talking about the 2020 election.

The same poll found 72 percent of Americans are confident that their ballot will be counted correctly and fairly.

Americans’ biggest concerns about the election aren’t voter fraud conspiracy theories (that’s 29 percent very concerned). Instead, they are — in order — ICE at polling locations (37 percent very concerned), legitimate votes not being counted (35 percent), misinformation about results of the election (35 percent), and Republicans trying to rig election laws (35 percent).

Yesterday, a Wall Street Journal investigation of MAGA commentators found that they too seem to be tuning out the president:

Mentions of Trump’s name per hour on conservative podcasts have fallen nearly 70% from their peak in the run-up to the 2024 election.

Check it out. White noise:

Disrupt: Federal intimidation efforts sputter while election rules remain broadly unchanged

Donald Trump continues trying to disrupt the election by using federal power to intimidate the opposition, using violence to deter voting, and manipulating the rules to block eligible voters.

None of these, so far, have entirely worked. Yes, he has sown chaos and confusion and made millions of Americans rightfully afraid that our voices will be silenced in November. Yes, he has ripped American democracy at its very seams, pushing us to the brink of disaster. Yes, he has positioned the federal government firmly against the right of the people to select their leaders.

But in the face of that onslaught, we — again, the big collective “we” — have had six major wins that block his disruption.

First, the Department of Justice went 0–25 in the courts trying to seize voter data from states. The latest legal loss came on Tuesday when a federal court rejected the administration’s attempt to force Washington state to hand over voter information. (See all the cases via Democracy Docket.)

Second, Trump failed to coerce Congress into passing the SAVE America Act. Had it passed, it would have been, according to the Brennan Center, “the most restrictive voting bill ever approved.” It did not pass.

Third, his sweeping mail-in voting executive order failed at the Supreme Court. The USPS mess may have been a doomed strategy from the start, but still — it failed. Protect Democracy’s litigation against other parts of the order is pending, but we feel confident courts will prevent the worst harms.

Fourth, five states have passed Universal Constitutional Remedies Acts. These landmark measures — signed into law in New York, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts and awaiting the governor’s signature in California — allow private citizens to sue federal officials for violations of constitutional rights. This provides an important new deterrent for federal officials who might consider impinging on constitutional rights.

Fifth, the president’s proposed $1.8 billion slush fund for election deniers sank like a stone in Congress. Remember that? Election deniers may feel a sense of impunity, but at least they don’t stand to profit from potential disruptions and crimes in the future.

Finally, the extraordinary mid-cycle redistricting wars and post-Callais scramble to dismantle Black representation failed to net the system-tilting advantage Trump was expecting. Currently, the Cook Political Report projects a four-seat gain for Trump’s party relative to 2024, far short of the roughly two dozen he had hoped for. Gerrymandering remains an existential threat to democracy — and to minority representation — but it’s not going to stop this particular election from threatening the president’s hold on power.

(An aside: that modest advantage from rules changes came at a catastrophic cost for our democracy. As our report last week found, one in 10 Americans were moved to a new district entirely, and one in five had their districts significantly transformed. Minority voters in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina saw their representation undermined by new racist gerrymanders. Read more: The hidden casualties of the gerrymandering wars →)

Deny: Trump’s election denial is still to come — but on much weaker footing

All that said, we are winning, but we have not won.

The real challenges will come on Election Day and afterward. During the voting period, the counting of ballots, the certification of results, and potentially even the seating of the new Congress, expect the president to meddle. Think ham-handed attempts to seize ballots, threats to prosecute elections officials, and mass challenges to certain categories of ballots. (Isaac Gilles explained eight of the scenarios we’re most worried about here: What Protect Democracy specifically is doing to protect the midterms.)

While all Trump’s failures above mean that he is dramatically less likely to succeed in those attempts, his losing record to date may also make him more likely to try some of the most extreme and dangerous gambits. (Some of his failures — e.g., the inability to pass the SAVE America Act — will also be used as pretext for what’s to come.)

Desperate people do desperate things.

Donald Trump is getting desperate.

Six weeks to go before Election Day.

Two notable movements in the Authoritarian Action Watch this week.

First, Trump’s decision to try to throw reporters out of the press pool for unflattering coverage is pretty much the textbook definition of quashing dissent. But because the media as a whole — including Fox News — is pushing back forcefully, the threat is unlikely to succeed. Quashing Dissent is ESCALATING.

Second, the latest shooting in Austin is a reminder of an unsustainable status quo. The administration’s violence, directed primarily through ICE, grows ever more serious. Stoking Violence is ESCALATING.

Overall: Authoritarian actions are ESCALATING.

See all the developments: Authoritarian Action Watch.

How you can protect democracy #102

Save the Election Protection Hotline 🗳️— Every voter deserves a safe, accessible experience at the polls, and if something goes wrong, you shouldn’t have to figure it out alone. The Election Protection Hotline, administered by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, connects voters with trained volunteers who can answer questions and help resolve problems on the spot. If someone runs into a problem while voting, they can call or text Election Protection for help in real time.

The coalition is a nonpartisan network of more than 300 local, state, and national partners that operates year-round and is available by phone, text, WhatsApp, and Facebook message. Whether you have questions about your registration, run into problems at the polls, or need help understanding your rights, give them a call.

What you can do:

• Save the Election Protection Hotline to your phone and share it with your community. Call, text, WhatsApp, or Facebook if you have questions about your registration, voting options, ID requirements, or what to do if your name isn’t on the rolls. Their volunteers are trained to help with all of it:

  • English: 1-866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683)

  • Spanish: 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (888-839-8682)

  • Asian Languages: 1-888-API-VOTE (888-274-8683)

  • Arabic: 1-844-YALLA-US (844-925-5287)

• Find voting information for your state including registration deadlines, absentee and mail ballot rules, and early voting options.

• Download and share their 2026 Black Voter Survival Guide with your community.

• Use their Social Media Toolkit to share reliable voting information and Election Protection resources with your networks.

• Explore their volunteer options to help protect voters’ rights as a poll monitor or hotline volunteer.

Extra Credit: Share the hotline numbers with at least 5 people in your life before Election Day — save them in your contacts, text them to your group chat, or post them on social media so everyone knows where to turn if something goes wrong at the polls.

There’s over 100 other things you can do in our database. Start checking them off: How you can protect democracy.

Yesterday the White House created a state-run streaming service named after our president, Trump TV. So far, the entertainment value appears to be limited (it’s mostly just reruns of old Trump speeches). Even so, it comes just days after the president banned several prominent news outlets from the White House.

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Trump TV is part of a much larger effort by the White House to distort public perception, bias content, and generally spread propaganda. Every White House wants to persuade the populace that the president is right — but Trump’s goal is not to persuade. Like all authoritarians, he wants to control the information environment and force opposing views out of sight. That’s why, at every turn, this administration has tried to suppress independent journalism and simultaneously elevate regime outlets and allies. (Protect Democracy is litigating to secure records about how the Department of Homeland Security has used this strategy to shape public understanding of its brutal immigration enforcement efforts.)

But this propaganda is not just offensive and anti-American. It’s also illegal and potentially punishable by jail time.

Spending taxpayer money on propaganda is illegal

For 75 years, Congress has banned the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda. This restriction is included each year in the spending laws and applies to all of the spending across all of the appropriations laws.

The current restriction is Section 718 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2026. It states:

No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress.

More about the Anti-Publicity & Propaganda Rider here —>

That means that any agency or employee that uses funds for publicity or propaganda that has not been explicitly approved by Congress spends money that agency doesn’t legally have. This constitutes a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending unappropriated federal funds. (See B-302710, May 19, 2004.)

You would be hard-pressed to find a federally funded agency, resource, or staffer’s time that is not bound by these restrictions.

And that makes sense, right? How could you possibly get the bipartisan votes you need to pass spending laws if the people in charge of agencies could turn around and use that money to talk about how great they are as a person or as a political party? Of course there are laws against that.

When an official uses taxpayer-funded resources — their time, their government computer, their government phone, their government staff — to put out partisan communications, or communications that glorify an agency or official, that is a violation of these restrictions. “Covert communications” also violate the law, as when government money helps produce a video or segment but that government role is never disclosed to the public. (Whether that’s happening at DHS is one of the things we hope our litigation will shed light on.)

Importantly, there is no minimum dollar threshold for a violation. Any use of agency resources counts — even a single dollar or a social media like or retweet.

Slapping Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center, hanging banners of his face on government buildings, the Department of Defense secretly hiring influencers to push positive press, and now the creation of Trump TV all clear it by a mile based on existing precedent.

Jail time? It’s not off the table

The legal consequences for violating this law fall under the Antideficiency Act and include a range of penalties from removal of officials to fines and jail time.

Federal employees who knowingly and willingly spend (or commit the government to spend) beyond available appropriations face up to $5,000 in fines, up to two years in prison, or both. Responsible officials are also supposed to face appropriate administrative discipline, including suspension without pay or removal from office.

For decades, agency and White House lawyers have largely followed these laws, preventing secretaries from making political pitches on government time or naming buildings after themselves.

American taxpayers are paying for Trump TV. They’re also paying for dozens of other efforts that likely violate this rule. The reason this law exists, though, is so that you can have some confidence that the money you give the government is not used to sell some party or candidate back to you. And right now, that’s exactly what this administration is doing.

They have been beyond sloppy at policing their compliance with it, but the laws are still on the books. And the criminal penalties have a five-year statute of limitations. No one is holding their breath on the current Department of Justice prosecuting anyone, but people prepping Trump TV for prime time should be aware that the next DOJ may not feel the same.

Goodness knows there will be plenty of networks interested in covering the fallout.

With less than seven weeks to the midterm elections, a million and a half Missourians spent almost a week not knowing who they would be voting for.

First, the state’s Republican leadership forced through a new, more gerrymandered map that dismantled Kansas City’s district to try to squeeze out another seat. Then the Missouri State Supreme Court struck down the new gerrymander because of a state constitutional requirement allowing a referendum on the change first. Then the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, seemingly preserving the original maps. Then a different federal court ruled in Republicans’ favor on a different issue, allowing them to implement the new gerrymander. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in again and forced Missouri back to the 2024 maps.

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As this partisan legal drama played out, more than 1.4 million Missourians were stuck in the crossfire. Christian Johnson, Drew Penrose, and I looked at the census data, and that’s exactly how many people stood to be moved to a new district under the new maps. That means that not only were they stuck in limbo for any campaigning and organizing, but for months they faced the prospect of picking from entirely new candidates on their ballot.

(In a separate issue, the primaries were held under the new, illegal gerrymander, which means those 1.4 million voters saw different candidates on their primary ballots than they will in the general.)

Many of those voters had been represented by Emanuel Cleaver, a Democratic former mayor of Kansas City, for more than two decades. Untold numbers had relationships with him, campaigned for him, worked with him. And suddenly they weren’t his constituents anymore. And then they were again, and then they weren’t. And then they were again.

Imagine putting up a yard sign for your preferred congressional candidate. Then having to take it down, then put it back up, then take it down again, then back up. All because the gerrymandering wars, kicked off by Donald Trump, had consumed your congressional district.

Talk about whiplash.

In our new paper released on Sept. 17, Christian, Drew, and I find that those 1.4 million Missourians are not alone. Not by a long shot. All told, 34.8 million Americans got booted from one congressional district to another between the 2024 and 2026 elections. Roughly twice that number are now voting in a district that looks little to nothing like the ones they were in two years ago.

Read our paper

If you tabulate all the individual casualties in the gerrymandering wars, it comes out to 1-in-5 Americans. That’s how many people had their representation severed and reassigned as part of the battle to control the maps.

Plus, most disturbing of all, things might only be getting started.

Maximalist, mid-cycle redistricting may be here to stay

When Christian, Drew and I set out to calculate how many people experienced gerrymandering whiplash in the redistricting wars, we also wanted to know why perpetual, mid-decade redistricting is such a real threat — and why it’s so enticing to both parties.

Unfortunately, there’s a grim logic to it. Three dynamics encourage ongoing, mid-decade redistricting:

• Gerrymandering is a time-bound phenomenon. As voter preferences shift over time, the effectiveness of gerrymandered maps will fade. Maps that deliver a clear partisan advantage in one election will not necessarily hold up a decade later. Redrawing maps more regularly will likely be more effective at locking in consistent partisan advantage than gerrymandering once every decade.

• There’s a two-party doom loop to redistricting. Now that both the Republican and Democratic parties have embraced gerrymandering as a political strategy, the logic of escalation implies a trend towards maximalist redistricting. Even if regular re-draws may produce diminishing returns, neither party wants to risk being the one that fails to maximize their advantage.

• Partisan gerrymandering has a margin of error. In the past, partisan gerrymanders have usually included a buffer to protect the party in power from elections that swing against them (otherwise, gerrymanders can quickly become “dummymanders”). But if map-makers only need to account for possible election results six months in the future — instead of six years — they can be much more aggressive with their gerrymandering. Redrawing more regularly with greater confidence about likely election results allows for narrower margins.

So are we stuck? With Georgia, Washington, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey all hinting at or even openly exploring possible 2028 redraws, is this just our life now? Do we live in the United States of Redistricting where every election we wait for the partisan map makers to tell us who we get to vote for?

Maybe. Unless we change it.

Proportional representation prevents gerrymandering whiplash. Period.

Constant, all-consuming gerrymandering is, to put it bluntly, no way to run a democracy. It is and should be a national embarrassment.

But it’s also not the only way. We can demand something far better. And no, I’m not talking about halfway measures like a ban on mid-cycle redistricting or on partisan gerrymandering beyond certain parameters.

If the United States moved from single-member districts to multi-member districts with proportional representation, essentially no American would ever get whiplashed like this ever again.

Proportional representation prevents gerrymandering — but not just legally. Mathematically.

As Grant Tudor, Farbod Faraji, and Cyrena Kokolis explain in When Maps Don’t Matter, multi-member districts and proportional representation make gerrymandering functionally impossible for two reasons:

1. Proportional systems minimize “wasted votes” — the raw material of gerrymandering. Proportional systems use multi-member districts instead of single-member districts and allocate seats in proportion to votes received. This minimizes the wasted votes that make packing and cracking possible. Votes contribute to representation regardless of where those casting them are geographically concentrated, dramatically impairing the ability of district boundaries — or the party drawing them — to distort electoral outcomes.

2. Manipulating multiparty landscapes is too complex. Proportional representation also tends to foster multiparty competition, since the threshold of support needed to win any one seat is reduced. With more parties contesting elections, would-be gerrymanderers are deprived of the predictable two-party landscape that makes electoral engineering easier.

Here’s a visual explanation:

Compare that to what things look like under proportional representation:

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We should pick our politicians. Not the other way around.

Read Christian, Drew, and my paper on the cost of the gerrymandering wars: Gerrymandering Whiplash.

And read Grant, Farbod, and Cyrena on why proportional representation can’t be gerrymandered: When Maps Don’t Matter.

Were you whiplashed in the redistricting wars? Let me know in the comments. How has it impacted your community?

Three updates this week.

First, the Supreme Court did not allow the Trump administration’s U.S. Postal Service rule affecting mail voting to go into effect, the latest in a chain of losses for them around election interference. For that reason, Corrupting Elections is IMPROVING.

Second, and less positively, the Trump administration continues to target ABC and Jimmy Kimmel in particular, this time over an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Because of those ongoing attacks, and their apparent effectiveness, Quashing Dissent is ESCALATING.

And finally, the Trump administration has continued to obscure its AI framework from the public, so Aggrandizing Executive Power is RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

See all the updates in the Authoritarian Action Watch here.

How you can protect democracy #102:

Voting rules vary by state, and knowing the details before Election Day keeps you one step ahead. Protect Democracy has put together clear, accessible voting guides for six key states ahead of the midterm elections. Whether you’re voting for the first time or just want to make sure you have the latest information, each guide covers everything you need to know — from registration deadlines and ID requirements to early voting periods and mail ballot rules.

What you can do:

• Find your state’s guide and share it with friends, family, and community members — especially students, first-time voters, and anyone who has recently moved or changed their name:

  • Arizona

  • California

  • Georgia

  • Iowa

  • North Carolina

  • Texas

• Don’t see your state? Use the Fair Elections Center’s interactive map to find your state’s voting guide.

See all of the more than 100 ways you can protect democracy.

Last month, I traveled to Brasília, the capital of Brazil, as part of a delegation of American democracy advocates. We were there to study and learn from the Brazilian lawyers, judges, and activists who participated in the movement to oppose Jair Bolsonaro and reverse Brazil’s turn towards authoritarianism.

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Why Brazil? There are strong points of correspondence between Brazil’s experience with Bolsonarismo and our ongoing struggle with MAGA Trumpism. To name a few:

• Like Trump, Bolsonaro promoted traditional gender roles and conservative religion, and opposed LGBTQ+ rights, affirmative action, and abortion rights.

• Bolsonaro used his time in power to purge the civil service and appoint loyalists to key positions.

• Bolsonaro and his allies spread disinformation about Brazilian voting machines to fuel distrust in the integrity of the election system during the 2022 election.

• After he lost the 2022 election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro attempted to spur a military coup d’etat by instigating his supporters to ransack the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace in Brasília.

Unsurprisingly, diving deeper into the Brazilian experience complicated the picture. Brazil’s relatively recent experience with military dictatorships and different institutional arrangements stood out as particularly significant to Bolsonaro’s defeat in 2022 and the country’s successful pursuit of accountability for the January 8 attack on democracy.

But despite those differences — or maybe because of them — I think we all left with new ideas, perspectives, and questions to bring to our work on democracy issues here at home.

Here are my three:

One: Democracy seems more valuable when you’ve lived without it

Compared to the U.S., Brazilian democracy is younger and more unstable. The Brazilian monarchy was overthrown and replaced by a constitutional republic (albeit one with highly limited voting rights) in 1889, but the country returned to dictatorship twice more in the next 100 years. The modern Constitution was enacted in 1988, three years after a two-decade military dictatorship was finally overthrown.

When Bolsonaro came to power, he did so in alliance with key factions in the military. He also moved to increase the military’s domestic power. He appointed military officials to major roles in the civilian government, and under the auspices of crime control, he sent federal forces into Rio de Janeiro. (Sound familiar?) And after he lost his reelection campaign in 2022, he collaborated with military leaders to stage a coup and overthrow President Lula. The attacks on the Supreme Court on January 8, 2023 were done in collaboration with some military forces and intended to spur a broader military intervention in the country. (Importantly, the coup plot fell apart because several key military leaders refused to go along.)

All of those developments resonated differently with a population with direct experience with military dictatorship. The movement against Bolsonaro could draw on those experiences in advocating for democracy and the rule of law.

The U.S. doesn’t have a similar recent, universal experience with authoritarianism to draw on. But make no mistake — Jim Crow and segregation were our own form of authoritarianism. And that may explain why Black-led civil rights organizations have been at the forefront of opposition to Trump. Authoritarianism has been overthrown in America in living memory, and that struggle should inform the one we’re living through, even as the Trump administration tries to tell a different story about the past.

Two: Institutional arrangements won’t save democracy on their own

After Brazil’s military dictatorship was overthrown in the 1980s, the drafters of the new Constitution were determined to inoculate it against future attempts to overthrow democracy. Key features of the Constitution were designed with that purpose in mind, and played an important role in slowing authoritarian consolidation during Bolsonaro’s term:

• The Constitution forbids amendments to its key democracy provisions: those establishing the federal structure of the country; direct secret elections; the separation of powers; and individual rights. (Otherwise, Brazil’s Constitution can be amended much more easily than the U.S. Constitution.)

• Questions of constitutional law can be taken directly — and swiftly — to the Brazilian Supreme Court by any active political party. During Bolsonaro’s time in power, the Supreme Court heard hundreds of challenges to Bolsonaro’s executive orders and other actions, and acted as a major check on unlawful actions.

• The Supreme Court has the power to investigate and prosecute attacks on itself as an institution. This enabled the Supreme Court to move aggressively to investigate and prosecute disinformation campaigns against the court during the Bolsonaro regime as well as the attempted coup of 2022-23.

So institutional design was key — and yet Brazilian experts emphasized it was insufficient. The institutions only worked because the people inhabiting those institutions were determined to protect democracy.

That won’t necessarily be true forever. Because appointments to the Brazilian Supreme Court are part of a political process — they work similarly to appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court — its institutions are ultimately also susceptible to political capture. If Flávio Bolsonaro wins the presidential election next month and is able to appoint a few more justices, the Supreme Court may be a much less effective check on future bids for authoritarian consolidation. (And what happens when the Supreme Court tends to be aligned with the authoritarian agenda? Read Justin Florence and Erica Newland on the two-branch doom loop here at home.)

What does that mean for the U.S.? If the elections in 2026 and 2028 create a window to rebuild our democracy, we shouldn’t think that minor institutional reforms alone will be enough to shore up our defenses against another episode of backsliding. Even the most robust checks and balances can fall apart when enough levers of power are controlled by an authoritarian faction.

Rather, permanently closing the door on authoritarianism requires a sweeping program of political, systemic, and democratic change that reorients politics, revitalizes democratic culture, and empowers a new generation of pro-democratic leadership.

Three: A lasting democratic U-turn requires real reform

If there was one essential lesson I took away from the Brazilian experience — and the U.S. one — it’s this: Aspiring authoritarian leaders don’t come out of nowhere. They take advantage of underlying weaknesses in the democratic political system to convince a segment of the population that a different approach is needed. And if we don’t fix those underlying weaknesses, we won’t see a durable return to a fully democratic form of governance (sometimes called a “U-turn”).

Recent research suggests that the vast majority of so-called “U-turns” are relatively short-lived: More than 90% of countries that have bounced back from authoritarian rule have experienced another period of democratic decline within five years.

And it’s unclear whether Brazil will beat that statistic. As of now, President Lula appears to be in a tight race against Flávio Bolsonaro, running on behalf of his father’s far-right party. Even if Lula wins another term this year, our Brazilian colleagues emphasized that 2030 will be another pivotal year. Lula will be term-limited and 84 years old, and he doesn’t have a natural political successor within the Workers’ Party.

In other words, Brazil might be in a situation a bit like the U.S. in summer 2024: With an aging leader unable to run for reelection, few major reforms to the political process completed, and no united pro-democracy coalition ready to block another bid by an authoritarian-minded candidate. And we all know how that ended.

Does that mean we’re doomed?

I don’t think so. But it does mean that if the U.S. successfully makes its own U-turn in 2026 and 2028, there won’t be time to waste: We’ll need to be ready to make meaningful changes, quickly. And that means talking about big reform ideas now, from proportional representation to meaningful court reform. We shouldn’t count on having another chance.

Authoritarian Action Watch updates

Two other Western Hemisphere stories in our Authoritarian Action Watch updates this week.

First, the president’s announcement that the Pentagon now owns a stake in an obscure Venezuelan oil company — without any consultation with Congress — takes us back to an age of imperialism, and then some. Aggrandizing executive power is RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

Second, Haitian deportees are arriving back in Haiti after the end of Temporary Protected Status for many living in the U.S. The stories are heartbreaking. Targeting Vulnerable Communities is RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

See all the updates in the Authoritarian Action Watch here.

How you can protect democracy #48:

Share global success stories: Around the world, autocrats seek to sideline pro-democracy voices to consolidate and hold onto power. These leaders work tirelessly to project a veneer of invincibility and inevitability to convince the public that resistance is futile.

These stories of autocratic consolidation are just part of the story. We must continue to elevate and share positive examples of democratic “comebacks,” where democracy has won out against autocracy through sustained and creative participation. These wins demonstrate political outcomes are not fixed and that continued civic engagement can shape change over time, encouraging democratic resilience and hope.

This year, Hungarians ousted longtime strongman Viktor Orbán at the ballot box, demonstrating that even after 16 years in the wilderness, pro-democracy forces can stand up and stand firm against seemingly entrenched autocrats.

Start the conversation:

• Sharing stories of global democratic resilience — like Hungary’s recent pro-democracy victory — flips the script on the autocrat’s preferred narrative of “invincibility.” These stories are powerful tools to encourage those on the sidelines to get in the fight.

• Talk to friends and family members who feel disillusioned by the current state of U.S. democracy, and remind them how pro-democracy movements around the world have stood up to corrupt, entrenched leaders — and won.

Check out these resources:

• Is Budapest the bellwether?: A closer look at Hungary’s recent election and what it may suggest about changes in democratic trends, along with context on what the results could mean for the future of democracy.

• How democracy survives around the world: A broader look at how democracies persist and recover under pressure, drawing on examples from different countries. It highlights patterns, strategies, and conditions that have helped democratic movements remain resilient over time.

• The Hope for Democratic Resilience: A data-driven global analysis showing that democratic decline is not always permanent, highlighting cases where countries have reversed backsliding and moved toward more democratic governance with sustained effort.

• Stories of Democratic Resilience: A collection of real-world stories showing how communities around the world, from Ukraine to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, have strengthened democracy at the local level, even in challenging conditions. It highlights how participation, collaboration, and local action can help democratic systems endure over time.

There are over 100 more ways to help: How you can protect democracy.

In Franz Kafka’s classic The Trial, the protagonist is arrested, tried, and imprisoned for an unspoken crime.

The conceit of the novel — and of its alienating bureaucratic absurdity for which Kafkaesque is now shorthand — is that neither the reader nor the main character ever knows what law was ostensibly broken. The entire process of judgement and punishment happens within a black box.

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Of all the rules in America today, the ones governing artificial intelligence may be the most important and consequential. While we can anticipate some of the possible risks of this new technology, it’s not an exaggeration to say that no one knows for sure what tail risks AI may bring.

In this context, the Trump administration claims to have set up a system of processes to evaluate new AI models and either approve or quarantine them. But here’s the Kafkaesque twist: No one outside the White House — and possibly a small group of AI companies — knows what these rules and processes are.

It may be the most important rule in America today. And it’s a black box.

Are their criteria sufficient to seriously evaluate and prevent the worst risks of AI? Is Donald Trump making these decisions personally or are there, you know, real AI experts involved? Are they taking into account risks of things like mass surveillance, job displacement, and propaganda? (We can probably guess on that one.) Do specific rules or criteria even exist — or is the White House just winging it?

I don’t know. Almost no one does.

And, somehow, it gets worse than that. Because not only was this secret purported regulatory process set up without any legislation or specified legal authority, but it also presents a world-historic opportunity for abuse and corruption.

The biggest technology power grab in American history

Over the summer, the Trump administration rolled out an ostensibly “voluntary” framework to review certain AI models before they are released to the public. So far, the administration has described the framework only in general terms and has not disclosed any details.

But is this process really voluntary?

Short answer, as Deana El-Mallawany and Justin Florence explained last month, is no.

On June 2, 2026, the White House issued Executive Order 14409, “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security,” which claimed to create a “voluntary” pre-release review program for frontier models. In reality, it established what Dean Ball, former Trump administration AI policy advisor now leading frontier AI policy at OpenAI, described as “a de facto involuntary licensing/preapproval regime.” And one that operates behind closed doors pursuant to undisclosed terms and murky legal authority.

The administration’s subsequent actions pursuant to the EO proved this to be true.

On June 12, 2026, the Department of Commerce ordered Anthropic to suspend worldwide access to two of its AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, within ninety minutes, citing export-control authority in an unprecedented context. The Commerce Department later restored access to Mythos 5 for only a select list of undisclosed “trusted partner” organizations, before lifting the export controls entirely on June 30, 2026.

Then, on July 14, 2026, the White House, Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Pentagon jointly launched “GOLD EAGLE,” a standing industry-government coordination body with undisclosed power “to collectively identify risks, prioritize action, and strengthen the resilience” of AI systems, resting on no new statutory authority. Separately, OpenAI has agreed, through informal negotiation rather than any public order, to limit distribution of its own forthcoming models to government-vetted partners.

[O]n August 1, 2026, the White House stated that it had finalized a “voluntary” framework for reviewing advanced AI models before their release, while declining to disclose the framework’s contents, which companies have agreed to participate, or when the process will take effect.

[Read their whole piece: Autocratic capture comes for AI.]

Paying the mafia for protection is voluntary — you can absolutely choose not to, but there will be consequences.

Plus, this black box was set up without any public legislative or rulemaking process. Congress didn’t pass a law, no court ruled, there wasn’t even an administrative process. The president has simply asserted the right to approve new models, in secret, if submitted for review — or to block them if not.

Perhaps this outside-the-law secret rule is a good faith effort to manage fast-moving AI risks and a reasonable negotiated settlement between government and technology companies. Perhaps it isn’t. Without transparency, it’s impossible for us to know.

There are, however, very real risks that this black box could be easily abused:

• The White House could use the secret process to exert enormous leverage over decisionmaking by AI companies, including over decisions like autonomous weapons and mass surveillance that were the subject of previous clashes.

• The president could personally extort certain investors and employees for political and financial support — or punish others for perceived political opposition.

• The administration could force AI companies to incorporate politicized stances into models, as Elon Musk’s apparent “white genocide” Grok manipulations famously demonstrated. As Amanda Carpenter put it: “They’re gonna ‘Truth Social’ AI.”

Yesterday, my colleagues filed suit to try to force the White House to open the black box. We’re asking the courts to force the administration to turn over basic information about their process and participants. Read more about the lawsuit here: Uncovering the Trump administration’s secret rules for AI model release.

To get a sense of the importance of the case, check out the declarations from various tech luminaries and policymakers.

Maybe there’s nothing in the box. But I doubt it. That’s not how Kafkaesque tends to go…

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The broad appeal of proportional representation

Most people think about electoral reform as a path to systemic change — and I think it is — but in America as it is today, there’s also a strong case for proportional representation from a basic governance point of view. Proportional representation could provide small-c conservatives and others with alternatives to the status quo, with surprising benefits.

I loved how Jen Dresden, one of Protect Democracy’s resident political scientists, explained the appeal on Linda Chavez’s podcast this week:

Three notable shifts in the watch this week.

Considering everything above about AI, we rate Aggrandizing Executive Power as RAPIDLY ESCALATING.

In Quashing Dissent, Donald Trump’s attempt to send the FCC after Meet the Press host Kristen Welker — after she suggested on air that the president has a mixed endorsement record in Republican primaries — was one of the more egregious instances of press censorship yet. We rate it ESCALATING.

Corrupting Elections is also ESCALATING as DHS attempts to build a massive database of all “citizens” for the purpose of disrupting the midterms. (Read more: Trump’s master database of “citizens”)

See all the ratings on the Authoritarian Action Watch.

How you can protect democracy #81

Understand how AI affects our democracy: Artificial intelligence is changing nearly every part of daily life, including how we get information, how governments make decisions, and how democratic institutions function. Most people encounter AI through chatbots, search results, or social media feeds — but AI is also quietly reshaping the conditions that make democracy work.

AI makes it easier to create and spread convincing fake content, like fabricated videos or AI-generated news stories, that can mislead voters and erode public trust. It can also be used to surveil and target communities in ways that chill free expression, and justify replacing the human oversight and institutional checks that keep power in balance. But AI also holds genuine promise by helping people identify false information faster, strengthening election security, and making it easier for citizens to engage with their government.

The question is not whether AI will shape our democracy. It already is. Protect Democracy’s AI for Democracy Action Lab works to defend against AI’s risks while finding ways to put it to work for civic good — and there are concrete steps everyday people can take to stay informed and engaged.

What you can do:

• Read our article, Democracy in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, for a look at how AI is already affecting democratic life, with real examples from the U.S. and around the world.

• Review the Brennan Center’s explainer on how to spot AI-generated election misinformation while reading news online.

• Explore our AI for Democracy Action Lab to see the work underway to hold AI accountable in the public interest.

• Share what you learn with people in your life — understanding AI’s role in democracy is something everyone has a stake in.

Extra Credit: Want to go deeper? Explore our Shortlist: Generative AI Platform Recommendations to see what guardrails AI platforms should have in place to protect elections.

There are dozens more ways to help: How you can protect democracy.

With nine weeks until the midterms, here’s the bottom line from our team at Protect Democracy: everyone can and should participate in our democracy this fall with confidence.

That’s not to ignore how acute and alarming the dangers are. But we have an extensive toolkit, a track record to back it up, and our ecosystem is prepared and well-coordinated. We’ve survived assaults on our elections before and we’re going to do it again.

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When read individually, the eight threats below can feel overwhelming. But when we understand them as part of the Deceive, Disrupt, Deny playbook, we can channel our energy into deploying a stronger playbook of our own. That’s why our team is partnering with organizations across the ideological spectrum and key sectors — labor, faith, business, public health, Gen Z, national security — to prepare their members to respond to each of the threats below. We’re also utilizing our own communications strategy for reaching and educating voters, including on the digital platforms where most Americans now get their news, so that all of us recognize the election interference playbook and understand how we can respond.

Read on for a closer look at the scenarios we’re preparing for and why we’re confident that our movement will rise to the challenge. Of course, this isn’t everything that our 125+ experts are working on — and it’s a tiny portion of what all of us, the pro-democracy majority in this country, are doing together.

Threat one: The Justice Department may attempt to seize ballots and voting machines

Starting in January, when the FBI relied on baseless claims of fraud in 2020 to raid an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, the Trump administration has laid the groundwork to try to disrupt the election by seizing materials or otherwise messing with election administration.

We’ve seen equally worrisome investigative actions in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California. As our friends at Just Security put it: “For the first time, the country faces the possibility that the DOJ may attempt to take over polling places, seize ballots during an election, or threaten to prosecute voters or election officials to interfere in the administration of an election.”

How we’re responding: Since an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, Protect Democracy and our peers are producing materials for the judges who evaluate these seizure warrants to raise the odds that they reject deficient and politically motivated applications.

And if seizures do happen, we’re making sure election officials have the protocols and resources in place to minimize harm to election operations and vote counting. With the Brennan Center, we’ve published and widely distributed guidance on lining up counsel before the pressure hits, maintaining redundancies of records, documenting everything if federal officers show up, and being prepared to file for emergency relief. This includes state-specific guides we’re producing to help officials create personalized plans of action.

We’re also coordinating with national peers as well as state and local organizations to ensure that, if election officials or other actors need to file emergency litigation to halt blatantly illegal attempts to seize election materials or interfere with election administration, they have the support to do so rapidly and forcefully.

Threat two: The president is actively seeking to seize state voter files and impose barriers to the ballot

The president is pursuing a sweeping campaign to try to seize control of who gets to vote and how. Trump has issued executive orders requiring documentary proof of citizenship on federal registration forms and directing DHS to dictate to USPS which voters can receive a mail ballot. The Justice Department has demanded that every state hand over its complete voter rolls — data which could be used to force purges based on bad matches and manufacture doubt about results. DHS and FEMA are attempting to condition billions in counterterrorism funding on states turning over that same data. DHS is also invading the privacy of millions of Americans to assemble and compile a massive, inaccurate master “citizen list” which it now plans to pressure election officials to compare against state voter rolls. And the administration has renewed its push for the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship nationwide (but which fortunately does not have the votes to pass the Senate).

How we’re responding: Our ecosystem is making good progress already. First, pro-democracy actors have blocked core provisions of both of Trump’s anti-voting executive orders (and as we explained here, the Supreme Court USPS ruling is almost certainly noise, not substance). Second, the Justice Department is 0-23 in its lawsuits against states that have refused to hand over their voter rolls; Protect Democracy also filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department with co-counsel at the ACLU, ACLU-D.C., Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Democracy and Rule of Law Clinic at Harvard Law School to block the Justice Department’s illegal attempts to compile a national voter database. Third, a coalition of state Attorneys General sued to block DHS and FEMA from conditioning counterterrorism funding on states adopting federally dictated election administration conditions; and with the Jacobson Lawyers Group, Brennan Center, and Public Rights Project, Protect Democracy just filed a related lawsuit against DHS to ensure the relief applies to as many jurisdictions as possible. Fourth, along with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and The Electronic Privacy Information Center, Protect Democracy just filed a lawsuit to prevent the administration from pressuring states to make last-minute changes to their voter rolls based on DHS’ erroneous master “citizen list.”

Threat three: ICE/DHS deployments may seek to intimidate or suppress voters

Administration actors and allies have long hinted at DHS/ICE presence during the midterms. Steve Bannon called ICE deployment to airports a “test run.” Former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that she “can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November,” and Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly asked, “Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?”

Blanche later refused to explicitly rule out deployments at poll sites. Meanwhile, when the DNC sued for records of any plans to deploy agents to polls, ICE told a judge no records exist — and then reversed course and admitted to having more than 11,000 potentially relevant pages; CBP found nearly 117,000. Bottom line, we have to prepare for ICE/DHS to be used as a tool for election interference, whether through deployment at polling places, or more likely, through surges of federal presence in competitive districts under the pretext of routine immigration enforcement.

How we’re responding: Here, both litigation and legislation are potentially effective.

On the legal front, we’re preparing for emergency litigation if federal agents are deployed in ways that intimidate voters or suppress participation. We are ready to seek emergency relief and can build on our work in Arizona in 2022, when we persuaded a Trump-appointed judge to strictly limit armed vigilantes’ behavior at ballot drop boxes.

Meanwhile, on the legislative front, five states have passed legislation based on a model bill that our team crafted to let people sue federal officials who violate their constitutional rights — with California the most recent to cross the finish line on August 27th. Once the California bill is signed by the Governor, more than 70 million Americans will live in a state with this kind of legal protection. As voting begins, these laws can be used to challenge actions that deprive people of the right to vote, including intimidation and violence at poll sites. Agents who know their actions carry personal liability are also less likely to commit abuses.

Threat four: Surveillance and policing by ICE and DHS may put a chill on First Amendment activity

Surveillance, intimidation, and overzealous law enforcement have the potential to chill Americans’ exercise of their rights to protest and observe government action.

Consider a growing trend: an investigation by ProPublica and PBS identified more than 300 people arrested at anti-ICE protests and charged with crimes like assaulting or interfering with federal agents — and found that more than a third of those cases have collapsed, either through acquittals or dropped charges once officers’ claims didn’t hold up.

Our team spoke to NPR in a similar piece about the free speech and First Amendment implications of how the Justice Department is weaponizing criminal conspiracy charges against protesters. In addition, The Wall Street Journal has reported on how ICE has built a $258 million surveillance operation scanning over 200 websites for critical speech and issuing hundreds of subpoenas to de-anonymize posters.

How we’re responding: We’re working to rein in the government’s surveillance and intimidation tactics through litigation and legal advocacy.

In February, we sued DHS on behalf of Maine residents who were told they were being added to “domestic terrorist” watchlists for lawfully filming ICE operations.

At a March hearing, the government’s lawyer couldn’t tell the judge what the government is doing with our clients’ personal information, including where it’s being kept and how it’s being used. As Time Magazine wrote, the case gets at a question “never supposed to be this difficult to answer: how is the government treating ordinary citizens with whom it disagrees?”

Meanwhile, we just filed a brief from prominent First Amendment and rule of law organizations — including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Society for the Rule of Law, and the Cato Institute — in a criminal conspiracy case against Minnesota activists. The brief urges the court to order the government to turn over documents that could demonstrate political motivation behind the prosecution; it also criticizes the government’s surveillance tactics and argues that the scale of this assault on free expression has “not been seen since the Second Red Scare.”

As the government’s data-gathering against critics and observers expands, this work can help keep it in check. And in addition to the privacy of our data, we’re also working to uphold the privacy and sanctity of our homes. In April, we brought a lawsuit against DHS to strike down the agency’s warrantless home entry policy, under which armed, masked agents are entering and searching homes without a judge’s permission.

In each of these cases, we can build precedent to constrain lawless behavior and deter similar election-related overreach.

Threat five: Government sources are working to corrupt the information ecosystem and seed propaganda

This is two threats in one. Our colleague Rachel Goodman summed up the first:

Trump FCC Chair Brendan Carr has wielded “public interest” to threaten and investigate broadcasters for speech as core to the First Amendment as editing an interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris; reporting on local ICE operations; covering the Iran war in ways that the President dislikes; and continuing to air Jimmy Kimmel’s comedy in the face of White House opposition… And Carr’s threats run not only to broadcast licensees, but to the media companies that own and operate them…

The second threat centers on whether the federal government has used public money to produce and distribute favorable content about its own immigration operations, and whether it has granted access to commentators who cover it favorably while excluding independent journalists. For instance, in Portland, Oregon, the government has not disputed deploying chemical munitions in a way connected to creating content, including staged video, to support a false narrative about the city. Elsewhere, agencies have invited favorable commentators on immigration ride-alongs and into facilities while turning away reporters who requested the same access.

How we’re responding: On the first front, in July, we brought a filing from a bipartisan coalition of former FCC officials opposing FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s latest effort to revoke the licenses of broadcasters whose speech the Trump administration dislikes — in this case, ABC. We brought a similar filing in 2025 in connection with the FCC’s highly unusual proceedings against CBS. Our latest filing received widespread coverage, including from unlikely validators like Newsmax.

We also recently won a preliminary injunction in our lawsuit against a Trump administration immigration policy that targets tech researchers, content moderators, and trust-and-safety professionals whose work counters election misinformation.

On the second front, we’re working to force the release of the information we need to know whether the federal government used public money or special access to create favorable coverage of its immigration operations. As our colleague Katie Schwartzmann put it:

“Americans have a right to know whether our tax dollars are funding a propaganda effort — one that distorts the news, pumps out flattering coverage, and freezes out reporters who would scrutinize the Administration’s narratives.”

In response, Protect Democracy filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking relevant records from ICE, CBP, and DHS. The government failed to comply with our requests by the deadline set by law, so we brought a lawsuit asking a court to compel disclosure of the requested records.

Threat six: State officials are likely to face pressure to subvert the certification process

Election certification is a mandatory duty for the officials involved — and one that they have no option to refuse. But local and state officials are increasingly facing intense pressure to withhold their signatures until conspiracy theories are “investigated” or results are overturned.

There’s the infamous example from 2020, when President Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.” Days earlier, Trump had personally pressured two Wayne County, Michigan canvassers not to certify results showing he’d lost the county. By our count, at least 21 counties in eight states have seen attempts to refuse to certify since 2020; we know that the certification process is a likely target, especially since many of the officials who have upheld their oath in prior cycles have been replaced with more pliable actors.

How we’re responding: We’ve built and refined an effective certification protection strategy in past cycles. Our in-state advocates have built strong bipartisan working relationships with election officials in key states, which allow us to share resources like these explainers with these actors to reaffirm their constitutional requirements.

Recognizing that these officials are facing tremendous pressure, we’ve also mobilized public and private support — for instance, by running radio and TV campaigns in their districts explaining that certification is mandatory, and by organizing outreach from influential community members like business executives and faith leaders to provide them with direct encouragement to hold the line.

Lastly, if needed, we can apply counterpressure, for instance by ensuring that state officials are prepared to seek court orders to force local bodies to certify, and by contributing to media coverage that deters officials from abuses by reminding them that they could face criminal liability for failing to follow the process.

Threat seven: Litigation may seek to change the rules of the game and/or flip the results

Election deniers have developed a specific playbook for this: the “zombie lawsuit.”

These are cases filed prior to the election, not with the goal of winning beforehand, but instead with the intention of planting a complaint that “rises from the dead” so that a court or Congress has a pretext to overturn results if the litigants’ preferred candidate loses.

In 2024, we tracked dozens of these across swing states, including suits attempting to disqualify military and overseas voters’ ballots in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina, and challenges to routine voter list maintenance in Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin. All of them failed, but we can nevertheless expect to see these kinds of claims rise from the dead (again) this fall.

How we’re responding: The good news is that we’ve defeated this threat before. Consider the most serious of the post-2024 zombie lawsuits: in North Carolina, Justice Alison Riggs won her Supreme Court race against Judge Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes, which was confirmed by two recounts. Griffin then tried to throw out roughly 65,000 votes and the state Supreme Court initially sided with him.

We used a broad toolkit in response. Our in-house data experts helped identify voters who lawfully cast their ballots and were at risk, including many who voted for Griffin. We worked with partner organizations to place these voters’ stories in coverage across the state. We also helped organize a rebuke from 200+ former Republican elected officials and conservative members of the bench and bar. Lastly, after the state Supreme Court issued its opinion in Griffin’s favor, we filed a class-action lawsuit of impacted voters in federal court.

In May 2025, a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the state Board of Elections to certify the actual result. Griffin then conceded the race. We’re prepared for this kind of post-election litigation in key states this cycle, building on what we learned from this win.

Threat eight: Members of Congress could try to refuse to seat the duly elected winners in January

As Molly Roberts and Lawfare explained here, the process for seating members of Congress could become a target for bad actors seeking to override the rightful results.

It’s a remote possibility, but the stakes are high, so we have been preparing for scenarios where duly elected candidates could be denied their seats. This could play out in a number of ways: bad actors trying to manipulate the roll of members allowed onto the floor during the seating process; members-elect exploiting a tradition that allows any member to object to another’s swearing-in; and state-level certification delays or false certificates that muddy who the “rightful” winner is. As an example, Senator Tommy Tuberville has already previewed the kind of baseless claims that could fuel these tactics, saying without evidence that “We probably have four or five senators that didn’t legally win. They shouldn’t be up here.”

How we’re responding: It’s first worth noting how exceptionally difficult it would be for bad actors to pull this off. As Prof. Derek Muller explains on the Election Law Blog:

In short, most scenarios get basic facts or law wrong, and the most complicated scenarios require a unique convergence of factors that have never existed, a unique level of coordination that seems very unlikely, docile political opposition, and a judiciary willing to acquiesce to all these moves–and all working simultaneously. Even then, most of these scenarios could, at most, delay some organization of the House by a matter of hours or days.

That said, there are congressional, legal, and public readiness strategies we’re deploying. We’re in the weeds of the state-by-state and procedural vulnerabilities and solutions, including working with right-of-center partners to ensure that enough House Republicans are ready and willing to oppose any attempt to manipulate seating.

We’re also working with partners to train congressional staff on vulnerabilities and procedural steps for resolving election disputes. And, as reported by NPR, Politico, and The Guardian, we’re helping key members, including Democratic leadership, prepare decisive responses to various potential crises well before any of them could play out.

Lastly, on the public readiness front, we’re helping assemble the broad, cross-sector relationships to mobilize a rapid response should there be a credible attempt to overturn the results.

Bonus threat: President Trump could invoke emergency powers, the Insurrection Act, or some other pretext to interfere with voting and election administration

Trump has several tools he could reach for — he could declare a national emergency, which unlocks a sprawling set of statutory powers; he could invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows military deployment for domestic law enforcement; or he could try to federalize the National Guard through other statutory authority. Even a legally doomed attempt at using any of these could do damage before a court steps in, by creating chaos and confusion, intimidating voters, and handing Trump a story to tell about how he tried to secure elections and the courts undermined him.

How we’re responding: The good news is that as scary as they sound, these scenarios are a bit of a red herring.

None of these paths actually get Trump what he would need to interfere with voting and election administration. Congress gave control of elections to the states, and no emergency declaration or statutory invocation changes that — or converts otherwise illegal actions into legitimate ones.

We’ve already seen how this plays out in practice: throughout 2025 and into 2026, courts blocked Trump’s attempts to federalize and deploy the National Guard into several cities. (Protect Democracy filed briefs repeatedly on behalf of former senior military leaders explaining that these deployments are dangerous and illegal.) In short, this is mostly about optics and political theater; in 2025, Trump declared more national emergencies in his first 100 days than any president managed in a full year, but this hasn’t changed who actually runs elections or how courts have ruled when he’s tried to stretch these authorities past their limits.

Combine that with his public unpopularity and polling data that shows domestic deployments are deeply unpopular, and any attempt along these lines seems more likely to backfire than to provide him any meaningful gains.

So what does this all mean for November?

The threats are real and alarming, but we should be confident in our collective ability to participate freely and fairly in our democracy this fall.

That word — participate — is the key one. Collective action is the only way out. Thousands, if not millions, of Americans are hard at work in ways big and small to defend the midterms.

We all have a role to play in upholding the foundations of our democracy.

If you’re wondering how to get involved, what more you can be doing personally, and which actions you can encourage your friends and families to take, we’ve got you covered. This playbook is updated weekly: How you can protect democracy.

We all need to do our part — not just by taking all the actions on this page, but also by sharing them with our communities.

Together, we can ensure that our movement for freedom and democracy prevails.