This week at Democracy Docket: On the ground in Chicago to bring you exclusive election news

Unlike a lot of media outlets that cover politics, at Democracy Docket we invest in original reporting. This week was a great example of why.

Reporter Jacob Knutson spent the week in Chicago, as one of only a tiny number of journalists to cover meetings of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a key federal voting panel. Jacob heard directly from the people who run our elections — from federal officials to secretaries of state to local administrators — as they made decisions that will help determine how free, fair and accessible the midterms and future contests will be.

And he uncovered several key stories that would otherwise have stayed behind closed doors.

In a Democracy Docket exclusive, Jacob revealed that the Trump administration is blocking expert appointments to a key federal committee that helps create standards for voting machines — creating a risk that insecure or inaccessible machines will be approved for use. It’s the latest example of President Donald Trump trying to assert control over elections, while undermining a fair vote.

Jacob also exclusively reported on a troubling new proposal to create a massive system, inside the federal government, for sharing state voter data — at a time when the Trump administration is already trying to create a nationwide voter database to help purge the rolls. After our story exposed the plan to scrutiny, it was quietly tabled.

And Jacob asked a GOP federal election official about some she made last fall, reported exclusively by Democracy Docket, accusing Democrats of wanting the votes of “illegal citizens.” In response, she revealed that the comments, which led to calls for her resignation, are under investigation. (Watch Jacob recount the exchange here.)

Finally, Jacob got to talk to Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read (D), who called Trump’s recent order restricting mail voting “totally unserious,” and said his state would defeat it in court. (Read also dropped a nice Princess Bride reference, calling Trump’s monster voter suppression bill, the SAVE America Act, “mostly dead.”)

Our reporters were on top of plenty of other news, too. Jim Saksa covered a federal court ruling rejecting the Trump Justice Department’s lawsuit targeting Rhode Island’s voter rolls, which the Trump-appointed judge called a “fishing expedition”. That makes DOJ 0 for 5 in voter roll cases, if you’re scoring at home. 

Democracy Docket Legal Researcher Maya Bodinson noticed a revealing admission by DOJ in another of the voter roll cases that’s still ongoing. As Maya explained, the department acknowledged it has no evidence at all that Vermont is violating federal voting laws — something it’s legally required to provide if it wants access to the state’s rolls. The Rhode Island case and others were thrown out in part over the same issue.

Meanwhile. Jen Rice and Matt Cohen kept digging into the recent seizure of ballots by a GOP sheriff in California. Jen explained that many local election officials are in the dark about what to do if law enforcement demands access to ballots or election records — an issue that, thanks to the spread of false conspiracy theories, a growing number are being forced to confront. And, speaking of false conspiracy theories, Matt revealed that the anti-voting group whose claims helped spur the California seizures was trained by a far-right national organization that has filed scores of lawsuits promoting lies about mass voter fraud.

Finally, Yunior Rivas brought us some good news: A federal court blocked a restrictive Indiana law that for no good reason barred the use of student IDs for voting, finding it likely unconstitutional. It means Hoosier State students will be able to vote this year with their student IDs as they’ve been doing for years, rather than having to contend with a new hurdle.