Top election denier wants Congress to give Trump DMV data

 

Wednesday, August 20

Cleta Mitchell and a right-wing anti-immigration group are pushing a dangerous new idea: Requiring states to give the federal government DMV data and photos to make it harder for people to register to vote. Also in this week’s newsletter: DOJ escalates its hunt for states’ private voter data, right-wing activists will rally in D.C. to urge the Senate to pass the SAVE Act, and more.

 

As always, thanks for reading.

Matt Cohen, senior reporter

Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to undermine future elections. Reporters like Matt work every day to expose their every move — state by state, case by case. Power fearless journalism with a $10/month membership today.

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A prominent election denier is pushing Congress to make states give DHS access to DMV data and photos

• Cleta Mitchell, a prominent anti-voting lawyer who played a key role in President Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, is pushing a dangerous new idea: Congress should add a provision to the anti-voting SAVE Act requiring states to give the federal government access to DMV data and photos, to help it hunt for illegal voting.
  
  
• The idea comes from the right-wing Immigration Accountability Project, which wants the Department of Homeland Security to use DMV data and photos in the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, to make it harder for people to register to vote in federal elections.

Far-right figures heap praise on Trump’s unconstitutional plan to end mail-in voting

• After Trump announced his plan to issue an executive order as part of a “movement to get rid of” mail-in voting, far-right anti-voting figures cheered the move, which also would crack down on voting machines.
  
  
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said of mail voting: “[E]lections have been stolen for decades with this practice that is ripe for fraud.”
  
  
• Election denier and MyPillow mogul Mike Lindell, who has waged a campaign to hand-count ballots, called the proposed executive order a “HUGE step towards securing our elections and saving our country.”
  
  
• Far-right activist and informal Trump advisor LOONEY Laura Loomer praised Trump’s announcement on X and said “Election integrity matters!!”
  
  
• They can heap as much praise on Trump as they want, it still won’t change the U.S. Constitution, which in no way grants the president the authority to regulate elections. But go off, I guess!

Tea Party Patriots will rally for the SAVE Act in D.C.

• The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House in April, but the sweeping anti-voting bill faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Still, that isn’t stopping the far-right group Tea Party Patriots, who just announced the “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” to urge the Senate to pass the bill.
  
  
• Throughout August, the bus tour will stop in more than a dozen states across the country collecting signatures for a petition urging the Senate to pass the restrictive bill by attaching it to must-pass legislation, to prevent a Democratic filibuster. One leading historian called the measure “the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history.”

An election denier facing felony charges is running for attorney general — again

• If the name Matt DePerno sounds familiar to you, it should: The Michigan prosecutor is an avowed election denier who is facing felony charges for tampering with a voting machine in the 2020 election. And now he’s running for Michigan attorney general, for a second time.
  
  
• DePerno reportedly filed paperwork to run for the post in the 2026 midterm elections; he previously ran and lost in 2022 to Michigan’s current attorney general, Dana Nessel, by about 8 points.
  
  
• Last year, DePerno dropped out of the Michigan state Supreme Court race, about two months after announcing his bid.

Exclusive: DOJ escalates hunt for states’ private voter data, threatens legal action

In new letters to California, Illinois and Pennsylvania election officials, obtained by Democracy Docket, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is escalating its effort to pressure states to hand over sensitive voter data, including by threatening legal action. The letter to California’s top election official, sent by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, threatened the state with legal action if it did not provide DOJ with full access to its voter registration list within seven days. In an interview with One America News Network last week, Dhillon explained how the DOJ is weaponizing federal voting laws to “clean up” states’ voter rolls. Dhillon said that "too many millions of Americans today don't feel confident, and in part they don't feel confident because we have sloppy voter rolls, we have sloppy maintenance requirements in these different states."

The redistricting war of 2025

 

Friday, August 15

THIS WEEK The Redistricting War of 2025 started in Texas Red states and blue states are readying to fight

TEXAS The Lone Star State is leading the redistricting war

As Democracy Docket readers know, we’ve been warning anyone who will listen: with President Donald Trump in the White House, Americans are going to have to fight tooth and nail for free and fair elections in 2026. That might sound abstract, but we’re tracking signs of trouble across the country, from the GOP takeover of North Carolina’s election operations to red states eliminating grace periods for late-arriving ballots and the Georgia GOP appointing conspiracy theorists to local election boards.   But in the weeks since the White House asked Texas to redraw its congressional map to add more GOP seats in Congress – a possible violation of the Hatch Act – the Republican strategy to rig the 2026 election has become so brazenly obvious that it’s now top mainstream national news.   Texas Republicans quickly abandoned Gov. Greg Abbott’s original pretext for putting redistricting on the legislative agenda – he had cited a U.S. Department of Justice letter claiming four Democratic districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders – and they’ve switched to a different script, telling Texas Democrats, who are trapped in some kind of surreal Twilight Zone episode, that they decided to do unusual mid-decade redistricting for no reason other than because Abbott put it on the agenda. The Texas House redistricting committee chair admitted he hadn’t even looked at any Census data, in an astonishing mockery of a normal redistricting process.   Republicans have filed every conceivable legal challenge (and some inconceivable ones) to punish a group of Texas House Democrats who left the state Aug. 3 to block a vote on the map. They’ve issued civil arrest warrants, requested FBI assistance to return Democrats to the state, petitioned courts in Illinois and California to enforce the arrest warrants, filed two separate lawsuits to remove Democrats from office and declare their seats vacant, asked state law enforcement to investigate Democrats for bribery, accused Beto O’Rourke of bribery and threatened to jail him.    The Texas Senate passed the redistricting map this week. Unlike Texas House Democrats, Senate Democrats were unable to break quorum because of members who refused to participate. For now, it’s still unclear where this conflict is headed, but we’re updating you on every development. Read more about Texas here.

This isn’t just a Texas story. It’s a warning for democracy nationwide. Our readers have told us they want more facts, more clarity and more ways to take action.   Upgrade today to power fearless reporting and in-depth coverage of redistricting battles in Texas and beyond — because what happens here affects us all.

JOIN THE FIGHT

NATIONAL     What happens in Texas isn’t staying in Texas

What we do know for sure is that the redistricting chaos won’t stop with Texas. Democracy Docket reporter Jim Saksa put together a helpful guide to everything we’ve heard about blue states that could redistrict in response to Texas and red states facing pressure from the White House to redraw their maps, as well. 

 

Republicans have defended their redistricting plan by arguing blue states are just as gerrymandered as Texas. (Jim’s story provides the numbers so you can decide for yourself, by the way.) Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, is using the same talking points. She warned in a weekend interview that “there will be consequences” for California and New York should they redistrict because they are already “gerrymandered to the hilt.” 

 

As Jim wrote: “Democrats may be abandoning the moral high ground in the gerrymandering wars, but Republicans have long enjoyed control of the strategic high ground.”

 

For now, we’re keeping an eye on Florida, Missouri and Ohio, as well as California, New York, Illinois and Maryland. Read more about the redistricting war here.

FEATURE Texas GOP redistricting plan courts Latino voters while cutting their growing political power

Democracy Docket reporter Yunior Rivas took a closer look this week at how Latino voters could be particularly impacted by Texas redistricting.  

 

The GOP’s proposed congressional map targets districts represented by Latino Democrats – so even as Republicans are courting Latino voters symbolically, they’re cutting off their actual electoral power.

 

And Republicans are making no secret about their strategy.

 

“We have three Hispanic-predominated districts in South Texas that we believe we can carve out for Republican leadership,” State Rep. Mitch Little (R) admitted on CNN. “It’s good for our party. It’s good for our state. And we need to ensure that Donald Trump’s agenda continues to be enacted.”

 

The bottom line is, if Republicans enact their new map in Texas, the number of districts where Latino voters can effectively elect their preferred candidates is projected to shrink. Read more here.

NEW VIDEO The Texas GOP Loves Their "Commander-in-Cheat" | Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer left Texas to deny Republicans a quorum and block their gerrymandered map. He sat down with Marc to discuss the threats to him and his colleagues, Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton's internal battle, and what’s next in the redistricting fight. Watch it on YouTube here.

What We’re Doing

When News Editor Sally Holtgrieve is not helping report on all of the above, she likes to go wander around nature to decompress. Frogs and newts have shown no signs of pond redistricting. Thus, Sally was thrilled to learn about the recent launch of Save Our Parks, an accountability initiative aimed at informing, exposing, and combating Trump and his cronies’ systematic dismantling of America’s national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and public lands.   Parks, a tip line AND Trump accountability? Hooray!