NEW: Trump’s team is plotting to declare a fake national emergency to hijack elections.
One top operative says they can “take steps without Congress” and “mandate" election rules for states.
@NYTimes' investigation exposes the operatives and the takeover already underway. ⬇️
Heather Honey (Trump DHS appointee) floated using national emergency powers to mandate election rules for states as early as March.
Honey is part of the Election Integrity Network, a group that spreads disinformation, pressures election officials & pushes to rig election rules.
Honey is well-known for spreading the false claim that Pennsylvania had “more votes than voters” – the same BS that Trump repeated on January 6th.
NYT: "The claim has been repeatedly disputed by election officials who said she was misinterpreting and misusing a state database"
Trump is embedding EIN operatives into the government to push his election takeover agenda, all built on lies about his 2020 loss.
In addition to Honey, Marci McCarthy now serves as CISA’s Public Affairs Director – an agency that helps safeguard U.S. election infrastructure.
EIN is shaping national policy.
Cleta Mitchell, (EIN founder) Trump's lawyer who joined his call to pressure Georgia's Secretary of State to find votes, develop policies that informed Trump’s March executive order and the SAVE Act.
Last month, Honey led a call with election officials from nearly every state.
Instead of offering clarity, officials left alarmed.
Honey echoed debunked conspiracy theories, offered vague, unsettling plans for the federal role in elections & didn't give details on her DHS job.
EIN seems to be using a playbook to decimate the independence and fairness of elections:
– Sow doubt in elections
– Install loyalists in government
– Use doubt sowed to push "emergency"
– Change election rules
It's a federal strategy to control elections and rig our democracy.
Core to EIN's strategy is pushing the limits of executive power.
They’re using executive orders + federal agencies instead of Congress.
Trump in April: “We’re gonna get good elections pretty soon...the states are just an agent of the federal government."
Already this year, courts have reaffirmed what our Constitution makes clear – the president has no legal authority over elections.
Judges have blocked Trump’s March executive order on elections – a move courts called an overreach that belongs to the states, not the White House.
Despite the rulings, Trump allies are pressing ahead.
The DOJ is collecting massive voter roll data, DHS is pressuring states to upload files, and Honey is spreading false claims and framing the directives as “best practices.”
It’s election disinformation rebranded as policy.
Independent elections are the foundation of freedom. If Trump can control our elections, he can dismantle other checks on power.
Protecting free, state-run elections is the firewall between democracy and authoritarianism.
NEW: Tomorrow the Supreme Court will rehear a case that could let the GOP grab 19 new, safe U.S. House seats by gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
I wrote for @Slate about how the far-right justices seem ready to help Republicans lock in one party rule for decades. ⬇️
After a court found Louisiana’s congressional map violated the VRA by weakening Black voters’ power, the GOP legislature was ordered to draw a 2nd majority-Black district.
When they fixed the map, non-Black voters sued, saying fixing the discrimination was itself discrimination.
The argument's logic twists the 14th + 15th Amendments, created to protect voting rights, in an attempt to destroy them. It should've been laughed out of court.
But a lower court embraced it and an appeal was accepted by the Supreme Court.
NEW: Next week, the Supreme Court will re-hear a case that could allow Republicans to create 19 new safe U.S. House seats by gutting what’s left of the Voting Rights Act.
The far-right majority may finally be ready to finish the VRA off.
Here’s what’s at stake. ⬇️
This all started in 2022 when a court found Louisiana’s congressional map violated the VRA by weakening Black voting power.
The court ordered a fix: draw a second majority-Black district.
NEW: Today, the Republican Party is pushing a judge to jail Fulton County commissioners.
Why? They refuse to vote to appoint two far-right election denial activists to the Fulton County Election Board who have a history of undermining elections.
Here's what they had to say. ⬇️
Fulton County Commissioner @TheDanaBarrett:
When I ran for a seat on the county commission I never thought I’d be facing jail time for doing my job – but here we are. Elections are under attack all across this country.
@TheDanaBarrett .@TheDanaBarrett: One of the main reasons I ran…was because I am committed to defend the integrity of our elections in Fulton County -- the largest urban county in a swing state and a critical county in the fight for the future of our democracy.
Trump just announced a new executive order – he wants to use federal power to control elections.
This is a dangerous power grab and part of Republicans’ plan to rig 2026. ⬇️
Here’s what Trump says about the coming executive order:
–Eliminates mail voting
–Bans drop boxes
–Restricts absentee voting
–Strips states of authority to run elections
This puts elections under federal control – opposing the Constitution, which says states run elections.
Putin said you can’t have an honest election with mail voting – Trump said on August 15 when discussing their meeting. (video @atrupar)
Then, Trump announced an executive order to eliminate mail voting.
Reminder: Trump voted by mail as recently as 2020.
But that’s not what the Supreme Court seems to think.
Their next ruling could empower states to block millions of Americans from voting. ⬇️
For generations, courts have been a place Americans can go to block discriminatory voting laws and maps.
But, as @AllegraLawHardy + @JoyceWhiteVance write, the Supreme Court has dismantled the Voting Rights Act – and now may make it harder to even access the courts at all.
The Supreme Court could soon gut the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in a way we’ve never seen before.
A federal appeals court says only the Department of Justice can enforce the VRA’s key protections.
SCOTUS will hear the case. If they agree, most cases disappear where DOJ won’t act.