Friday, May 2

THIS WEEK Is an independent elections panel boosting Trump’s war on voting? Senate Dems take GOP to task on ‘radical’ push to ‘make it harder for eligible Americans’ to vote GOP gains control of North Carolina election board

VOTING Is an independent elections panel boosting Trump’s war on voting?

When the U.S. Election Assistance Commission was established in 2002 as part of the Help America Vote Act, Congress designed it to operate as an independent entity with partisan balance to ensure its decisions are fair and unbiased. Lawmakers also designed the commission to give the president very little legal authority over it.    But in recent weeks, the panel has at times seemed to put itself in the service of President Donald Trump’s bid to radically tighten voting rules.   In his sweeping anti-voting executive order, Trump called on the EAC to help facilitate a push to require eligible voters to show proof of citizenship when using a federal form to register to vote or update registration info. Several voting rights organizations, including the Brennan Center for Justice and the ACLU, urged the EAC not to comply with Trump’s order, calling it illegal. But the commission, so far, has appeared to play ball with the Trump administration — albeit cautiously.   On April 11, EAC executive director Briannna Schletz sent state election officials a letter “seeking consultation” on how they would apply Trump’s proof of citizenship demand if his order ultimately stands — and how the new requirement would affect voter registration in their states. (After a federal judge blocked it from carrying out the citizenship provisions in Trump’s order, the commission said it was pausing its call for public comments on changing the form.)   Then on Tuesday, EAC chair Donald Palmer weighed in on another provision in Trump’s voting order. Asked during a House hearing how states could reduce the time it takes them to count ballots, he said he believes states should no longer accept ballots after Election Day — a change that would lead to numerous votes being rejected in multiple states that currently allow these ballots.     “There should be a deadline for absentee or mail ballots prior to Election Day and then they should be returned by Election Day,” Palmer told lawmakers.   Palmer made clear in his testimony that he was speaking for himself, not the commission. Still, it was an unusual expression of opinion on a contested policy question from an EAC commissioner — especially given the wider context. Not only does Trump’s order aim to ban late-arriving ballots, the issue is also the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Republican Party which the Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on.   Also last week, the EAC published a set of funding guidelines that cited a different Trump order, this one cracking down on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. The commission threatened to withhold election security funds from state election offices unless they drop any such policies.   Several state election officials were critical of the demand. Read more about the EAC’s recent actions here.

SAVE ACT Senate Dems take GOP to task on ‘radical’ push to ‘make it harder for eligible Americans’ to vote

For more than an hour Wednesday, a handful of Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), held a floor block to push back against the GOP-backed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.   Earlier this month, the U.S. House passed the SAVE Act, which voting rights experts and scholars, in interviews with Democracy Docket, called the “most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history.” Among other restrictions, the measure would require all Americans to provide citizenship documentation, like a birth certificate or passport, in order to vote in federal elections. That would risk disenfranchising some 69 million women who changed their names when they married, as well as millions of overseas voters — including military service members and their families.    Padilla led the Dem’s charge on calling out not only the SAVE Act but the broader GOP’s assault on voting rights.    “In the Oval Office, the radical Republicans are actively working hard to make it harder for eligible Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote,” said Padilla, a former California secretary of state. “We see it in the endless lies and conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud. We see it in the new barriers being erected that would make it harder for eligible Americans to simply register to vote. And we see it in the Trump administration’s firing of the hardworking and dedicated security officials who are tasked with protecting our elections.”   Although the bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate — it would need 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster — it’s part of a broader assault on voting rights that the senators called attention to. Trump’s recent anti-voting order would vastly expand the executive branch’s power over elections and potentially disenfranchise millions of voters. A judge recently blocked federal agencies from implementing key components of the order.   “What’s happening is simple,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said. “Some people don’t want some people to vote.”   Klobuchar pointed out that the attack on voting rights isn’t just coming from the White House and congressional Republicans, but also from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which through its civil rights division has historically been the federal government’s chief enforcer of voting rights.    Trump appointed notorious anti-voting lawyer Harmeet Dhillon as the assistant attorney general to lead the DOJ’s civil rights division. Recently, the DOJ reassigned the managers of its voting section and changed its longtime mission to protect voting rights, to instead “ensure that only American citizens vote in US federal elections and do so securely. Other section priorities include preventing illegal voting, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error.”   Dhillon “said that the Voting Rights Act ‘was once necessary to push back on Jim Crow laws,’” Klobuchar said during Wednesday’s floor speech. “At her hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee, I asked her if she will enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act… she didn’t answer.” Read more about the Senate Democrats’ floor block against the SAVE Act here.

NORTH CAROLINA GOP gains control of North Carolina election board

After North Carolina’s second-highest court upheld a Republican effort to gain control of the state’s election board, state auditor Dave Boliek (R) appointed a new GOP majority to the State Board of Elections.   The court ruling and subsequent new GOP majority of the state election board could complicate the effort by state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs (D) to hang on to her narrow victory in the state’s 2024 Supreme Court race. The state election board has five members — with a current makeup of three Republicans to two Democrats. Until Wednesday’s ruling, the system allowed the party that holds the governor’s office to appoint all five state board members. But a law passed in 2024 by the state’s GOP supermajority changed the rules so that all members would be appointed by the state auditor. The law also transferred power to appoint the chairs of all 100 county election boards from the governor to the auditor.   North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) sued Republican legislative leaders over the measure, arguing that it violated principles of separation of powers in the North Carolina constitution. Last month, a lower court blocked the GOP effort to seize control of the state election board, only for the North Carolina Court of Appeals to grant the GOP’s request to stay the lower court ruling.   A day after the appeals court ruling, Boliek appointed three new members to the election board, all Republicans: Stacy Eggers, former state Sen. Bob Rucho and Francis De Luca.    Stein warned that the new GOP majority could help the Republican effort to overturn the results of the 2024 election, won by Riggs.   “I fear that this decision is the latest step in the partisan effort to steal a seat on the Supreme Court,” Stein said. “No emergency exists that can justify the Court of Appeals’ decision to interject itself at this point. The only plausible explanation is to permit the Republican State Auditor to appoint a new State Board of Elections that will try to overturn the results of the Supreme Court race.” On X, the North Carolina Democratic Party called Boliek’s appointments “an unconstitutional power grab.” “We fervently believe that established precedent and our constitutional allocation of powers has given our elected Governor the right to name the members of the Board of Elections,” the party said in a statement. “Republicans’ passage of an unconstitutional bill wrenching that power from the Governor’s office and giving it to you is an abuse of power and a disservice to the people of North Carolina.” Read more about the GOP’s effort to seize control of the North Carolina election board here.

OPINION One Hundred Days of Republican Complicity

In just 100 days, Trump has decimated the federal government and launched an all-out attack on democracy. “While it is understandable to focus attention on Trump’s attacks on democracy and the rule of law, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is the Republican Congress enabling his authoritarianism,” Marc writes in his latest. “Ignoring their complicity in Trump’s actions is a mistake—both legally and strategically.” Read it here.

NEW VIDEO Sen. Chris Murphy: This is a "Dire" Moment for Democracy

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy joins Marc Elias to discuss Trump's first 100 days back in office, the threats facing democracy and what Senator Murphy is hearing from voters in deep-red districts across the country. Watch on YouTube here.

What We’re Doing

One of the most consequential Supreme Court rulings in the past 20 years is undoubtedly 2010’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The ruling, along with several similar ones during the same period, together reversed a century of campaign finance restrictions to allow corporations and other outside groups to drop unfettered amounts of money on elections. The result has been to open the floodgates for dark money to influence how campaigns are run. Senior Reporter Matt Cohen is enjoying famed documentarian Alex Gibney’s latest for HBO, The Dark Money Game, which looks at the catastrophic impact of the Citizens United ruling 15 years later.