Matt is a senior reporter covering elections, voting rights and threats to democracy. He’s covered far-right extremism, dark money and state and local elections as an investigative reporter at The American Independent and Mother Jones. Prior to reporting on politics, Matt cut his teeth as a local reporter in D.C. at the Washington City Paper and DCist.
Democratic lawmakers sent letters to 15 anti-voting groups, demanding any records that could determine which one signed a ‘voter data agreement’ with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to share private voter data.
Lawyers and legal experts explicitly said that such an order is blatantly unconstitutional.
“Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to nationalize our elections, because he intends to steal them,” Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Joe Morelle said.
Peter Ticktin, the Florida-based lawyer leading an effort to have President Donald Trump issue an executive order declaring a national emergency to enable a federal takeover of the upcoming midterm elections, shared his reasoning with Democracy Docket Thursday.
It was quickly torn to pieces by a leading expert on the president’s emergency powers.
The draft order is said to be based on a conspiracy theory that China interfered with the 2020 election.
“When we asked about state sovereignty and whether they could make public statements reinforcing the state’s authority over elections, there was stunned silence.”
By phone, over Zoom, and in person at a recent Washington, D.C. conference, Democratic state election chiefs have for months been meeting privately for planning exercises, including tabletop simulations, gaming out their response to expected election interference by President Donald Trump and his administration.
The bill comes as elections and voting rights are under severe duress in the Peach State.
Far-right figures and conservative influencers are pushing out false narratives of widespread voter fraud with videos highlighting decrepit and abandoned buildings or empty lots, where they claim people are illegally registered to vote.
The Democratic chief election officials of six states are denouncing two new voter suppression bills making their way through Congress.