The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election

In 2020, 2022, and 2024, our nation held federal elections. Despite the pandemic, threats of violence, denial of results, and extraordinary pressure, these were secure and accurate. Election officials worked together across party lines. The system held.

This year, however, a new threat to free and fair elections has emerged: the federal government itself.

The Trump administration has launched a concerted drive to undermine American elections. These moves are unprecedented and in some cases illegal. They began with the pardon of the January 6 defendants who sought to overturn the 2020 results. They include affirmative attacks on democratic institutions, the repeal and withdrawal of voter protections, and symbolic or demonstrative moves. A clear pattern suggests a growing effort. As the 2026 midterms approach, that effort will likely gather momentum.

This resource offers the first chronicle of the Trump administration’s actions this year to undermine election integrity. They include:

• attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems;
• targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair;
• supporting people who undermine election administration; and
• retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the election process.

Why do we conclude this represents a concerted strategy? Among other things, President Trump tried to do this before. He was the first president to try to overturn the results of a presidential election and used federal power to do so. Institutions and key officials blocked him. These internal checks, however, are now gone, and many public officials will likely carry out the president’s will.

This campaign to undermine elections runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution. Only Congress and the states can set election rules. The executive branch, especially the Department of Justice (DOJ), is charged with enforcing federal laws. But neither the president nor the DOJ has the authority to set rules governing elections or to supervise the state and local officials who run them.

To be sure, previous elections were marred by rules and practices that hindered full participation. Restrictive voting laws (some of which had already been ruled unconstitutional), skewed maps, and bomb threats at polling places impeded the freedom to vote. Federal officials had an important role in countering disinformation and combatting racial discrimination. This federal protection for fair elections may no longer exist.

This unprecedented federal push will place new pressure on American elections and will require vigilance and actions from those determined to defend the integrity of the vote.

In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order that aims to overhaul and exert partial control over significant parts of the nation’s election systems. The order includes several provisions; here we highlight three.

First, the order purports to direct the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — an independent, bipartisan agency that assists states with election administration — to mandate that voters show a passport or other, similar document proving citizenship when they register to vote using the federal voter registration form.

Second, it attempts to force the EAC to amend its guidelines to rescind all previous certifications of voting equipment based on prior standards and, if appropriate, to re-certify voting systems under amended guidelines, which are to include provisions from the executive order. Eleven states and Washington, D.C., require their systems to be federally certified. And even states that do not require federal certification typically incorporate federal guidelines and testing and use voting systems that have been federally certified. Yet currently, just one voting system on the market complies with the standards issued prior to the executive order, and it was only certified on July 7, 2025. Replacing machines could cost states billions of dollars.

The president’s attempt to interfere with voting systems is not novel. In his first term, he tried to direct the attorney general, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize voting machines. He was unsuccessful. Yet now there are signs that the federal government may already be attempting to interfere with voting systems, beyond anything expressed in the executive order. A DHS official and an individual claiming to work for the administration have asked election officials in Colorado for access to their voting equipment.

Third, the order calls on the administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and DHS to obtain state voter files and other records kept by election officials, including voter list maintenance records. The DOJ has already requested voter lists from at least nine states, and at least two have provided them. Unredacted voter files and voter list maintenance records can contain sensitive private information about U.S. citizens. Other records may contain information that is subject to access controls for security reasons. Relatedly, the order mandates that states have access to federal citizenship data for voter list maintenance purposes; DHS recently overhauled and expanded the scope of its program for states to identify supposed noncitizens on the voter rolls.

Each of these provisions is analyzed in turn.

Attempting to Impose a “Show Your Papers” Requirement on Voters

Impact: If implemented, the requirement to show a citizenship document to register to vote when using the federal form would undermine voting and disrupt election administration in multiple respects. The “show your papers” provision, which overlaps significantly with the policy laid out in the deeply unpopular SAVE Act (which has stalled in the U.S. Senate), could block millions of American citizens from voting. According to research by the Brennan Center, more than 21 million citizens do not have a birth certificate, a passport, or naturalization papers readily available.

Why It’s Wrong: A president has no right to rewrite the country’s election rules or regulate federal elections on his own. As a federal court recently put it, “The Constitution vests none of these powers in the President.” In issuing the order, the president claimed extraordinary unilateral authority to regulate federal elections and usurp the powers of Congress, the states, and the EAC, an independent, bipartisan federal agency.

Status: The order was challenged in five lawsuits across the country. Two courts have blocked some provisions while litigation proceeds, including those directing the EAC to add a requirement to show a passport or naturalization document to register to vote in federal elections. The same reasoning — that the president lacks authority to compel the EAC to act — would apply to other parts of the order that have not yet been carried out. Litigation is ongoing. 

Meddling with Election Equipment

Impact: The president’s directive in the executive order undermines faith in elections and voting machines and provides pretext for election deniers to discredit outcomes in the future. Any attempt to access voting machines by the administration makes this risk more pronounced. It may also encourage states to opt for hand-counting ballots, an error-prone process that can cause certification delays.

Why It’s Wrong: The president does not have the authority to regulate elections, including voting equipment guidelines. Nor does he have the power to direct the EAC, an independent agency, in any manner, as a federal court recently affirmed. And though certain federal agencies have authority to offer technical assistance or issue guidelines for voting equipment, none has authority to take exclusive custody of voting equipment for inspection. States also have rules on who can access equipment. In Colorado, for example, once someone other than an election official or other authorized person accesses a voting system, use of the equipment can be prohibited.

Status: Washington and Oregon have challenged the executive order’s provisions purporting to amend voting system guidelines. That litigation is ongoing. And though the EAC has drafted voting system guidelines pursuant to the order, the agency still must follow several steps under federal law before the guidelines can be implemented, including consulting with advisory boards of nonpartisan experts and posting the guidelines for public comment.

Accessing Sensitive Voter File Data

Impact: The administration could abuse voter file access to claim fraud and erode public trust in elections; it could also pressure state officials to target groups of voters and carry out unwarranted voter purges. Any disclosure of sensitive personal information puts individuals and groups at risk of being intimidated or doxed. And mishandling voter file data could expose U.S. elections to political and foreign interference.

Why It’s Wrong: DOGE has a track record of mishandling sensitive data. For example, within minutes after it gained access to the National Labor Relations Board’s systems in March 2025, someone with a Russian IP address made several attempts to access the database using one of the department’s newly created accounts. Those attempts were blocked, but the fact that foreign adversaries were able to immediately make such attempts indicates that election systems and the data they hold risk being compromised when left in the hands of DOGE. And for its part, DHS has previously failed to fulfill its privacy obligations.

Status: Depending on how DOGE or DHS uses or discloses data, it may run afoul of federal law, including the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. In some states, giving voter records to the federal government without written consent from voters would also be a violation of state law; in others, redaction would be required.

The Trump administration, falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, has already targeted organizations and individuals it sees as adverse with baseless or inappropriate retaliatory actions. It now threatens to do the same with certain election officials, civic groups that mobilize voters, and other individuals and entities that protect elections and the rule of law. These kinds of actions can be tools of retribution, intimidation, or coercion. 

Weaponizing Federal Agencies 

A set of new federal task forces — the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office Election Integrity Task Force, and the Washington, D.C., Attorney’s Office Special Unit: Election Accountability — establish a federal law enforcement approach to elections focused on targeting voters, election officials, perceived political adversaries, and journalists. The task forces devote resources to search for supposedly widespread voter fraud — a problem that doesn’t exist — and sanction political targeting.

“They are poised to enable election interference by investigating perceived adversaries, targeting election officials, and casting doubt on election systems.”

Political appointees who have spread falsehoods about the outcome of the 2020 election, including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, and FBI Director Kash Patel, have empowered and enabled these task forces. Bondi, Dhillon, and Patel have also made clear they are willing to use the federal government to investigate and prosecute people they claim are responsible for supposed election fraud. Patel has stated, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you.” Bondi, in one of her first actions as attorney general, created the Weaponization Working Group, whose purpose is to “review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years.” The administration has instructed the group to investigate some of the president’s perceived enemies, including former Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff for investigating the January 6 riots, the Manhattan district attorney and the New York state attorney general for their involvement in the prosecution of Trump and his businesses, and anyone who investigated or prosecuted the January 6 rioters.

Impact: During President Trump’s first term in office, federal agencies and departments occasionally served as a restraint on his unlawful actions. For example, when the president asked the attorney general to seize voting machines after his 2020 election loss, then Attorney General Bill Barr refused. But in his second term, the president’s picks may not hold the line in the same way. Rather, they are poised to enable election interference by investigating perceived adversaries, targeting election officials, and casting doubt on election systems.

Why It’s Wrong: The DOJ can and should prosecute fraud in U.S. elections, but these task forces are premised on the false notions that U.S. elections are rigged and that there’s rampant voter fraud. Rather than ensuring election integrity, these task forces undermine it, part of the department’s serious shift away from protecting voting rights.

Status: The Constitution and the law serve as a limit on what these political appointees can do. Indeed, courts have already struck down this administration’s attempts to subvert the law. For example, multiple courts have found that the president’s executive orders targeting law firms violate the First Amendment, and two courts have preliminarily stopped the president from unlawfully trying to direct an independent, bipartisan agency to add a citizenship document requirement to the federal voter registration form. 

Penalizing Law Firms

The president issued executive orders revoking the federal security clearances of six law firms and prohibiting the federal government from contracting with them. These firms had been involved in litigation protecting voting rights and are associated with people who challenged the January 6 attack on the Capitol, attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and election interference in 2016. The president specifically cited these associations as justification for targeting the firms. For example, the Paul Weiss order was based in part on the firm employing a lawyer who brought a lawsuit against an individual who had participated in the January 6 insurrection. The Perkins Coie order provided that the firm had represented a political opponent of the president, brought challenges to restrictive voter ID laws that made it harder for eligible citizens to vote, and, as the court enjoining the order stated, brought “election-related lawsuits . . . challenging actions supported by the president or his campaign.” Jenner & Block was targeted because it employed Andrew Weissman, who, as the court enjoining the order stated, “drew presidential disdain” for criticizing the president and participating “in a legitimate investigation of election interference” — that is, the investigation and prosecution of the president’s campaign team for crimes related to foreign interference in the 2016 election. The association with Weissman “extended that disdain to the firm,” the court added. And Covington & Burling, according to the executive order, “assisted former Special Counsel Jack Smith.” The firm had provided Smith with free legal advice when he was investigating the January 6 riots.

Impact: By targeting law firms for providing legal services — including free legal services — to causes the administration disapproves of, including protecting the freedom to vote, the orders have had a chilling effect on firms, including those that have not been directly targeted, diminishing the legal resources available to Americans whose voting rights have been violated. To some extent, the nonprofit sector and state attorneys general have stepped up to provide needed legal support, but gaps remain. This chilling effect extends beyond law firms. For instance, it may compel prosecutors to avoid pursuing charges against election interference. And the administration’s attempt to punish some of the most powerful and well-resourced legal institutions in the country sends a potent message to anyone considering taking a position the administration may oppose.

Why It’s Wrong: As multiple courts have found, these actions are illegal. The First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against protected speech or association, including retaliating against law firms that represent or offer legal services to those engaged in protected speech or association whom the president happens to disfavor.

Status: Four of the targeted law firms challenged their respective executive orders, and judges have permanently blocked the orders for violating the First Amendment. Despite the clear illegality of the orders, nine firms have entered into agreements with the administration. As part of those agreements, these firms said they would provide free legal services for causes that the president approves of. 

Threatening Election Officials and Nonprofits

The president and his DOJ appointees have repeatedly threatened to prosecute the election officials who administered the 2020 election. In a March 14, 2025, speech, President Trump stated, “What a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country. And the people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail.” The president has also threatened to target nonprofit advocacy groups that play an important role in voter engagement, election monitoring, and litigation to protect the freedom to vote.

These threats roughly track a proposal in Project 2025, the controversial conservative policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, to prosecute people who protected the 2020 election with federal crimes. Project 2025 proposed charging election officials with criminal conspiracy to injure civil rights for their alleged misapplication of state law to help voters cast ballots during the 2020 election.

“Federal and state law prohibits anyone, including federal officials, from intimidating voters and those, like election officials or civic engagement organizations, who assist or encourage them to vote.”

The extent to which the administration will follow through on that plan is unclear, but it has already begun to target officials involved in protecting the 2020 election and build an infrastructure of task forces and working groups that heightens the threat of criminal prosecution. In one executive order, the president directed the DOJ to review the actions of Chris Krebs, whom the president appointed to lead the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in 2018, because he “denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.”

In addition to its Weaponization Working Group, the DOJ is reportedly exploring ways to criminally charge election officials for failing to maintain proper cybersecurity — based not on evidence but on assumptions driven by false claims of rampant voter fraud.

Impact: Criminal investigations and prosecutions would impose a severe personal and financial toll on election officials or nonprofit employees for simply doing their jobs to help keep elections free and fair. But beyond that, the harms that stem from targeting the officials and civil society groups that make our elections work are manifold.

Even if the administration never charges any officials, the threat alone of criminal investigation or prosecution will likely exacerbate the exodus of election officials from their jobs. In 2024 33 percent of local election officials knew at least one colleague who resigned at least in part due to fear for their safety, of increased threats, or of intimidation; 21 percent stated that they were unlikely to continue serving in their role for the 2026 midterms. In 2025 59 percent of officials reported fear of political interference in their ability to do their jobs. And 46 percent were very or somewhat concerned about potential politically motivated investigations of themselves or their peers. Ultimately the drain of experienced officials from U.S. elections will hurt voters.

The threat of criminal investigation may also prompt civil society organizations to retreat from their work to engage voters. When Florida recently passed a law threatening organizations conducting voter registration drives with civil and criminal penalties for violating a slew of new restrictive regulations, some organizations curtailed their work or stopped registering voters altogether.

The administration may also use the threat of criminal prosecution to pressure election officials to comply with unreasonable or unlawful requests. It may already be engaging in similar quid pro quo arrangements, as evidenced when the DOJ dropped corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in the spring of 2025. Though the court ultimately ordered the case dismissed with prejudice (i.e., barring a future claim on the same facts), the DOJ had sought dismissal without prejudice, which would have left open the opportunity for the case to be refiled at a later time, and thus would have allowed the DOJ to hold the threat of prosecution over Adams should he not acquiesce to any requests the administration may make. The U.S. attorney responsible for the prosecution, who had been appointed by the president, resigned in protest, alleging that the decision was motivated by a desire to procure political cooperation from Adams on unrelated matters.

An election official fearful of criminal charges might succumb to pressure to aggressively purge voters from the rolls or to engage in outright election subversion. When the president tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, he and his associates put pressure on state and local election officials — including, famously, in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — to assist his efforts. Raffensperger and other officials refused to subvert the results, but an election official facing the prospect of prosecution now might not take the same principled stand.

Why It’s Wrong: Threats of criminal charges based on lies about the 2020 election have no legal or factual basis. There is no evidence that the 2020 election was tainted by any kind of fraud or impropriety in election administration. Project 2025 proposes to use a law designed to protect civil rights, including the right to vote, to prosecute state officials for aiding in the exercise of that right, a legal theory that will likely struggle in court.

The First Amendment protects election officials and pro-voter groups from retaliation based on their speech and association, just as it protects the speech and association of law firms. If the administration targets officials or groups for publicly declaring elections to be legitimate, safe, and secure or for registering and engaging voters, the targets may be able to block any investigation or prosecution in court before it proceeds, just as those law firms have succeeded in blocking the executive orders leveled at them.

Moreover, federal and state law prohibits anyone, including federal officials, from intimidating voters and those, like election officials or civic engagement organizations, who assist or encourage them to vote. And though voters rarely do so, they are able to sue DOJ officials under anti-intimidation law in federal court.

Status: Thus far these threats have remained just that. For example, DOJ lawyers tasked with finding ways to prosecute election officials for allegedly failing to maintain proper cybersecurity are reportedly struggling to find any criminal statute that will allow them to do so. 

The federal government has rewarded people who peddle conspiracy theories about voter fraud and continue to deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election, including by resorting to violence. Many of this administration’s political appointees have continuously challenged the results of the 2020 election or otherwise undermined elections. At least four members of the president’s cabinet are election deniers.

Pardoning January 6 Rioters

The January 6 rioters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to keep President Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. On the first day of his second term, the president pardoned approximately 1,500 individuals who had been on trial and commuted the sentences of 14 people who had been convicted for their participation in that attack.

Impact: The move green-lights future vigilante efforts to overturn elections, including efforts by the January 6 rioters themselves, by indicating that those who engage in political violence and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power may not only avoid legal consequences but also be treated as heroes. The president and others have cast the rioters as “warriors” and “political prisoners.” Republican Party events around the country have honored the rioters. Some of the insurrectionists have discussed or publicly stated plans to regroup following the pardons, and some have attempted or are considering runs for public office, including seats in Congress.

Why It’s Wrong: The pardons and commutations are a misuse of the president’s clemency power and an attempt to rewrite one of the most public crimes in U.S. history.

Status: The president cannot pardon people convicted of crimes under state law. While the events of January 6, 2021, took place in Washington, DC, under federal jurisdiction, similar acts anywhere else in the country would be governed by state laws, which prohibit violence, insurrection, and intimidation of voters and election officials.

Indeed, in part as a response to recent instances or threats of political violence, several states have strengthened such laws. For example, since 2020, 13 states have passed laws banning guns or expanding prohibitions against them in and around polling places or ballot drop boxes. In addition, local election officials have partnered with law enforcement to form the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections to protect voters and election workers from violence, threats, and intimidation. While the president is sending the message that his administration will reward those who undermine elections, states and local leaders are taking such threats seriously and have shored up the safety and security of elections.

Undermining Prosecution of Election Subversion

In 2021 Tina Peters, a Colorado election clerk, gave a man unauthorized access to voting equipment; that man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a leading proponent of false conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged. She was convicted of four felonies under state law and sentenced to nine years in prison. The Trump administration is trying to get her out. In March 2025, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in support of her habeas corpus petition, a federal suit seeking her release from prison while she pursues an appeal. The filing states that the DOJ is evaluating whether the state prosecution, led by an elected Republican prosecutor, was politically motivated. On May 5, the federal court hearing Peters’s habeas petition held that a number of her claims were premature and suggested that it might dismiss her entire case. On the same day, the president took to social media to describe Peters as an “innocent Political Prisoner” and to direct the Justice Department to “take all necessary action to help secure” her release.

Impact: These actions could embolden rogue election officials to threaten elections from within. The president and the DOJ are sending a clear message that they will support such officials when they engage in subversive behavior. By announcing a review of a state prosecution, the DOJ is also indicating to state prosecutors that bringing charges against election officials who support Trump’s attempts at election subversion will subject them to scrutiny.

Why It’s Wrong: Neither the president nor the DOJ has the power to overturn a state conviction. Peters broke multiple state laws in support of a conspiracy theory. A jury found her guilty. President Trump undermines that finding by publicly declaring that Peters is innocent.

Status: Despite such threats, state officials continue to stand by their prosecution of Peters in court and in the media, and Peters continues to serve her sentence. 

The Trump administration is retreating from its responsibility to protect U.S. elections. State and local election officials no longer have a reliable partner in the federal government. And voters should not expect to have their voting rights vindicated by the DOJ. 

Dismantling CISA

CISA is a component of the DHS responsible for helping to protect the cybersecurity and physical security of the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems. The agency provides voluntary, low-cost, and no-cost services, training, and assessments for state and local election officials across the country and helps these officials better understand the security threats their systems face.

The Trump administration severely undermined the structure and purpose of CISA in the president’s first few months in office. In February 2025, CISA put 17 of its election security staff on administrative leave. Additionally, DOGE fired 130 people from CISA; a judge later reinstated those employees to their positions, but they were immediately placed on administrative leave.

That same month, CISA paused all election security activities pending an internal review. The review was completed in March, but the Trump administration has refused to release the findings. It is unclear which CISA services have been restored, if any, despite repeated requests for information from members of Congress responsible for agency oversight. Reporting from April suggests that CISA is planning massive additional cuts.

In March 2025, CISA cut about $10 million in funding to the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit with programs that benefit state and local election officials. As a result, funding was eliminated for the Election Infrastructure Information Analysis Center, a network that facilitates information sharing about security risks and best practices between election vendors and state and local election officials, and was reduced for the Multi-State Information and Analysis Center, a similar network that serves all state and local government entities.

Impact: Scaling back the expertise at CISA and cutting the critical funding it delivers to state and local officials for election security expose U.S. election infrastructure to cyberattacks and physical attacks, leaving election officials with less support to anticipate or recover from these attacks and to run safe and secure elections.

Why It’s Wrong: CISA’s dismantling occurs at a time when there are aggressive threats to our election system from foreign and domestic actors. Cyberattacks may also become more effective with the evolution of artificial intelligence.

Additionally, a federal judge found that the firing of CISA employees was illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act for failure to follow federal law and regulations. The employees were reinstated. Despite the ruling, however, CISA managed to accomplish the same outcome, a diminished workforce, by immediately placing those reinstated employees on administrative leave.

Status: In the absence of federal assistance, state and local officials can set up new interagency working groups on election security — initiatives that states have taken in past election cycles — as well as expand interstate information-sharing networks. States can also pass and enforce laws to protect election workers and infrastructure.

Directing the DOJ to Endanger Voting Rights Rather Than Protect Them 

Shortly after being appointed to run the DOJ’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Dhillon announced and implemented a “paradigm shift” that shirks the department’s responsibility to protect voting rights. While Dhillon describes the “usual approach” of previous Republican administrations as working to “slow the train down,” she envisions the division “turning the train around and driving in the opposite direction” under her leadership. Shortly after taking the helm, she also issued new mission statements that signal the division’s move away from protecting the rights of marginalized groups and toward efforts such as rooting out voter fraud, which is actually extremely rare. Project 2025 had proposed such a shift, also reflected in the president’s executive order on elections.

“The Trump administration has signaled that it is unlikely to enforce laws to protect voting rights.”

The DOJ has since dropped every voting case in which it had been a plaintiff at the start of this administration, and it has withdrawn its involvement in several other voting and redistricting suits. It also gutted the civil rights division of its career staff. By the end of May 2025, an estimated 250 attorneys making up approximately 70 percent of the division’s lawyers had left the department. The staff of the division’s voting section dwindled from approximately 30 lawyers down to about 6. But the division has begun hiring new attorneys. The voting section is now led by Maureen Riordan, a longtime DOJ lawyer who rejoined the department after a stint at the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a conservative organization that has for years sued election officials to try to force aggressive purges of the voter rolls.

Under Riordan, the DOJ sued election administrators in North Carolina in an apparent attempt to prompt a purge of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls. The department also sued an Orange County, California, election official for failing to provide the department unredacted private information concerning voters he had removed from the rolls; the official had previously provided redacted records to ensure voter privacy, but the department did not agree with the redaction. The DOJ also filed statements of interest in Oregon and Illinois in support of another conservative activist organization’s lawsuits seeking more aggressive voter roll purges. And it issued letters to state election administrators in at least six other states —Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — identifying purported failures to satisfy federal laws governing voter list maintenance.

Impact: The Trump administration has signaled that it is unlikely to enforce laws to protect voting rights. That leaves voters particularly vulnerable in the seven states in the middle of the country that make up the Eighth Circuit, where the court of appeals recently ruled that only the DOJ can bring suits to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s central prohibition against discrimination against racial and language minorities. The ruling bars private plaintiffs such as voters and advocacy groups, who have historically brought the vast majority of these cases, from filing suit. Unless the Supreme Court overturns that ruling, voters in these seven states (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) will essentially be left without the primary protections of the landmark civil rights law.

At the same time, the department’s new focus on litigation to press for more aggressive purges poses a threat to election administration and voters alike. Aggressive purges risk disenfranchising eligible voters, as evidenced by the department’s suit in North Carolina. As many as 200,000 North Carolina voter registration records are missing a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number, a result of the state voter registration form’s poor design and likely mistakes in data management. These are errors by the state, not the voters themselves; moreover, the omission of these numbers from voter records indicates nothing about the eligibility of these people to vote. But the DOJ’s suit against North Carolina purportedly aimed at fixing the state’s mistakes asks for relief that would result in the removal of many of these voters from the rolls.

PILF and other groups have tried to force voter roll purges through lawsuits, and they have been unsuccessful in court time and again. That is because while federal law requires election officials to conduct “reasonable” voter list maintenance, it does not mandate a particular program for removing voters, nor does it require the removal of voters for mistakes in their records that are no fault of their own and indicate nothing about their eligibility.

Successful or not, these suits also feed a false narrative that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and provide fodder for attempts at overturning results. The DOJ’s suit in North Carolina follows a months-long attempt by a losing North Carolina Supreme Court candidate to reverse his defeat by using the same missing information in the state’s rolls to justify throwing out the validly cast votes of tens of thousands of eligible voters. The DOJ’s pursuit of cases like this one could lend legitimacy to similar election subversion efforts in the future.

Such suits also could provide cover for election officials to take bad-faith actions that would disenfranchise voters. Dozens of election officials around the country are themselves election deniers. They could use a suit by the DOJ as justification for purging thousands of voters from the rolls or applying a fringe legal interpretation to a federal law.

Why It’s Wrong: The DOJ has statutory duties to enforce federal laws that ensure greater access to the ballot box for all eligible Americans, including duties set out in the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Voting Accessibility for Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Status: The administration is still bound by the Constitution and the law. The abovementioned laws remain in full effect, and, despite the Eighth Circuit’s rogue ruling concerning the Voting Rights Act, many of them allow private enforcement through suits by voters and advocates. Private plaintiffs can and should bring legal challenges under federal law. Additionally, none of the new cases filed by the DOJ’s voting section have advanced to a decision in the courts, but organizations like the Brennan Center are seeking to intervene where appropriate to ensure that, when the courts do rule, voters’ interests are represented.

The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances to ensure free and fair elections. The power to regulate elections lies in the hands of states and Congress. Courts and advocates complement this system to uphold the Constitution and federal law.

U.S. election infrastructure leaves no room for the president to insert himself. Yet that is exactly what he purports to do now: directing, dismantling, and weaponizing agencies so that the Trump administration can evade its responsibility to ensure the security of elections and the freedom to vote. Instead, the administration is setting the stage for election subversion. This power play poses a grave threat to the future of U.S. election infrastructure. It is also, in many respects, illegal. The various institutions and actors that operate the constitutional checks and balances safeguarding U.S. elections — including the courts, Congress, independent federal agencies, state legislatures, state and local election officials, and the people themselves — must prevent the Trump administration’s power grab from succeeding.