This Week at Democracy Docket: First on Voter Suppression News

This week, Democracy Docket readers were first to learn about three important new developments in Republican voter suppression. 

On Wednesday, Democracy Docket’s Matt Cohen reported exclusively on letters sent by the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) to Ohio, threatening “costly litigation” unless the state stops counting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive a few days later. As Matt noted, GOP lawmakers in the Buckeye State responded by quickly introducing legislation, which is likely to pass, to make the change demanded by DOJ.

Matt followed up with the reaction of one of the country’s leading election administration experts, who called DOJ’s pressure campaign “completely inappropriate.” And since there are 16 other states that offer mail voters a similar grace period, it’s a good bet that Ohio isn’t the only one the administration is targeting. You can count on more reporting from us on this.

On Friday, Yunior Rivas and Jim Saksa published their own scoop on another front in the Trump administration’s voter suppression campaign. The Department of Homeland Security quietly formalized a change to a national immigration database that will allow it to be much more effective as a tool for purging voters from the rolls — and evading federal privacy protections at the same time.

And later that day, we exclusively revealed shocking comments made by a member of a key federal election panel. At an event hosted by a Trump-aligned think tank, Christy McCormick, a GOP member of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, said Democrats oppose stricter voting rules because they “need the votes” of “illegal citizens.” That’s a conspiracy theory that’s common on the far right. But McCormick isn’t some online MAGA warrior — she’s a U.S. official charged with helping states fairly administer elections. No wonder one secretary of state, citing our report, called for McCormick to step down or be removed.

At the same time that we were breaking news on voter suppression, we also were keeping up with Trump’s ongoing power grab directed at Democratic cities. Our most popular story of the week was a report from Democracy Docket’s Jacob Knutson on some crucial errors of fact that Trump’s DOJ admitted to making in the legal challenge to his attempt to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Ore. The false information submitted by DOJ in the case played an important role in an appeals court’s recent decision to allow Trump to take control of the guard — meaning this week’s admission could do serious damage to the government’s case.

And because the national battle over Republican gerrymandering isn’t ending any time soon, we brought you all the news there, too. Jim Saksa provided the play-by-play from Ohio, where the GOP approved a new congressional map that boosts the party’s chances of capturing two more Democratic-held seats next year. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom on the redistricting front this week. The GOP’s gains in Ohio might not pan out if Dems have a good year. And meanwhile, as Democracy Docket’s Jen Rice reported, Virginia Democrats took the first step toward passing their own new map aimed at countering Republican gains in other states. 

In fact, if you’re having trouble keeping track of how the GOP’s gerrymanders in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and now Ohio stack up against Democratic counter-moves in California and Virginia, and where this all leaves the fight for control of Congress — and really, who could blame you? — we’ve got you covered. Democracy Docket’s live redistricting map, published this week, is the best tool available for understanding just how the nationwide battle over congressional maps is playing out, and what could come next.