This week at Democracy Docket: We caught DOJ in a glaring double standard on its voter rolls crusade

Ever since the Trump administration started demanding state voter rolls last year, Democracy Docket has tracked this dangerous campaign more closely than any other news outlet. 

That’s what allowed us to produce the reporting we published this week.

Yunior Rivas took a close look at records of communications between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the states, as well as public statements from each. He found that some states handed over their publicly available voter rolls, and were said by the department to have “cooperated.” Others, meanwhile, were sued for offering the same thing. 

DOJ has told courts that only states’ unredacted rolls, containing sensitive personal information, are sufficient to verify compliance with federal voting law. The double standard Yunior exposed badly undermines that claim. 

In related news, New Jersey became the 18th state to beat DOJ in court on the voter rolls issue, with zero wins for the department (Illinois has since become the 19th). The Garden State’s victory was especially notable because it came after it admitted that a software error led to around 6,600 noncitizens being mistakenly registered. That might have given DOJ a stronger case than in any other state — but the judge found the episode had “no bearing” on whether DOJ had a right to the rolls. 

Still, the Trump administration and the GOP have seized on New Jersey’s software error to fuel their lies about rampant noncitizen voting, and to push the SAVE America Act, President Donald Trump’s voter suppression bill. Yunior compared the frenzy over fewer than 400 illegitimate votes in New Jersey to the almost total lack of interest in the news that California rejected nearly 150,000 mail ballots, nearly all likely from eligible voters. 

After all, if every illegitimate vote cancels out a valid one, shouldn’t we care just as much about the far higher number of legitimate votes that go uncounted?

It isn’t just the GOP whose priorities are out of whack, though. As I wrote, it’s also an indictment of the legacy media, which has covered the New Jersey episode as if it were Watergate, publishing story after breathless story on it. 

One of the most misleading was from Politico, which quoted a GOP consultant saying the state’s error highlights how there are people “intentionally trying to game or cheat the system,” (it doesn’t) — although, he allows, “probably not” at a scale of half a million votes.

It’s no wonder Republicans are still pretending that illegal voting exists at significant levels — after all, they keep getting the media to buy into it.

At the same time, Trump is still doing everything he can to crack down on mail voting in the midterms. As Jacob Knutson reported, his administration this week asked the Supreme Court to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in 23 blue states from implementing his executive order targeting mail ballots. 

In a separate challenge to the order, a federal appeals court allowed Trump’s scheme to go forward, for now, Jim Saksa added. But, more promisingly, the court implied it could reverse that decision once it considers some recent steps taken by USPS to implement the order. 

Still, we’re less than two months before voters start getting their ballots in the mail, and we still don’t know whether millions of people will be prevented from having them delivered. Whatever the courts decide, that very confusion and uncertainty was undoubtedly part of the order’s purpose.

Meanwhile, Jen Rice reported that North Carolina’s GOP-controlled Senate passed a measure that makes it easier for election officials to purge voters from the rolls, imposes stricter requirements for registering to vote, and cuts early voting days for primaries. It’s just the latest step taken by Republicans in the state — chronicled by Jen — to restrict access to the polls.

A version of the new measure is likely headed to the desk of Gov. Josh Stein (D), who is likely to veto it. It’s unclear whether GOP lawmakers would be able to override his veto.

But whatever happens, it’s a reminder that it isn’t just Trump and his administration that don’t like people voting. It’s also Republican leaders in states around the country. 

That may sound overwrought — but unfortunately, it’s the reality. Whether the legacy media want to tell you about it or not.