Across the country, millions of Americans are already voting, midterm election ballots are in the mail, and these elections are nearing their end. Rather than address voters’ concerns about the war with Iran or high prices, though, the Trump administration continues its obsessive campaign to interfere in the voting process and undermine election results. Through threatening letters and pursuing suspect litigation, the Justice Department is harassing California officials who are busy ensuring Americans can vote.
This week the DOJ gave California officials 48 hours to review a list of 20,000 names, which the federal government claimed were registered voters and “likely noncitizens.” When state officials did not meet that deadline, the administration sued, asking a judge to prohibit California from counting mail-in ballots from those voters until their status can be verified.
The White House’s approach is rushed and based on faulty data, and already has led to gross inaccuracies.
As the former chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, I can characterize the DOJ’s demand in one word: absurd. It ignores both the law and the basic processes and procedures for running elections in the United States. As the California Secretary of State noted in response, the DOJ is “demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide.”
The real work of maintaining voter lists is already subject to specified legal provisions, not the flawed list-matching the administration keeps pushing. State list matching is part of that maintenance, but like all parts of the process takes time and resources, given that Americans are constantly moving, changing their names or otherwise affecting their voter eligibility. The White House’s approach is rushed and based on faulty data, and already has led to gross inaccuracies.
The administration’s pressure on California is the latest and most extreme in a series of efforts by the Trump administration attempting to undermine Americans’ confidence in the voting process. It has repeatedly made exaggerated claims about noncitizens on the voter rolls that are not backed up by the evidence. In so doing, the Trump administration is dusting off and federalizing an old voter suppression technique.
The playbook starts by trumpeting an eye-catching number of supposedly fraudulent voters – say, 20,000. This usually generates headlines and feeds an impression of widespread fraud to scare Americans about the integrity of elections. When these allegations are scrutinized or when the administration finally provides supposed evidence, the number quickly dwindles. What is left are a small number of exceedingly rare cases – exceptions and outliers. But the debunkings often fail to dispel the original efforts promote a narrative that our elections are not trustworthy and that reforms or actions making it harder to vote are needed.
This pattern is not new. For at least a decade, President Trump has been spreading misinformation about widespread noncitizens voters.
Earlier this summer, in a primetime address, President Trump made outrageous claims about noncitizens on the voter rolls. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quickly tried to support these numbers, but as was expected, the claims were baseless. As an example, DHS claimed nearly 16,000 non-citizens were on the voter rolls in Nevada. Yet when pressed for specifics, DHS provided the Nevada Secretary of State with a list of just 185 individuals in question. An investigation revealed that all were U.S. citizens.
This pattern is not new. For at least a decade, President Trump has been spreading misinformation about widespread noncitizens voters. In 2016, he falsely claimed that he would have won the popular vote if it were not for the alleged non-citizens voting, including in California. He tried to find evidence to support this claim by creating a “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity,” which was ultimately dissolved after finding no such evidence.
In the current Trump administration, the DHS, the DOJ, and even the Census Bureau are being politicized and pressured to support these baseless claims. The result is manufactured chaos and confusion meant to undermine confidence in elections.
If voters hold President Trump accountable for his administration’s failures at the ballot box in November, it is predictable this narrative will serve as the basis for additional DOJ litigation and additional conspiracy theorizing from the president and his allies. The Trump administration is weaponizing the federal government, at taxpayer expense, to undermine the will of the voters if the results are not helpful to the administration.
Rather than directing DHS and DOJ resources toward finding the “worst of the worst,” as Trump promised during his campaign, the administration is wasting taxpayer dollars on political theater—or worse. It does so at its own peril: Americans are frustrated and want leaders to address the real issues affecting their lives. We choose those leaders at the ballot box. Our democracy is stronger when every eligible American who wants to vote can make their voice heard, regardless of which candidate they support. If you have not done so yet, make your plan to vote and show up for our democracy.
The post The DOJ is harassing California officials who are protecting the right to vote appeared first on MS NOW.
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