This Week at Democracy Docket: Yet Another GOP Gerrymander, While DOJ Moves to Gain Control Over Elections

Another week, another Republican gerrymander rammed through at the expense of minority voters.

This time it was North Carolina, after Texas and Missouri already completed their own mid-decade redistricting efforts in response to pressure from President Donald Trump. In the Tarheel State, GOP lawmakers openly admitted that the goal was to gain another seat for their party in Congress — but already, the new congressional map is being challenged in court as racial discriminatory. Democracy Docket reporters Jen Rice and Yunior Rivas kept readers updated every step of the way.

Meanwhile, Maine voters are weighing a GOP-backed ballot measure that would take numerous steps to restrict voting in the state, despite the total lack of voter fraud as a problem. Although the measure’s supporters are focusing their campaign on its in-person voter ID provisions, much of the proposal targets mail-in voting, which is increasingly popular among Mainers.

Robert Conlin, a veteran Maine-based journalist, spoke to some of the many voters — including seniors and those living with disabilities — who would find it much harder to cast a ballot should the measure be approved.

We also kept you up to date on new anti-voting steps taken by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). On Friday, as Democracy Docket’s Matt Cohen reported, DOJ made the alarming announcement it would monitor voting in several California counties, as well as in Passaic County, N.J. For months, as we’ve told you, Democrats and democracy advocates have been warning about potential efforts by the administration to take control of elections, perhaps by putting federal agents at the polls.

Now, some fear this year’s votes are being used as a dry run. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) noted that his state’s election, to approve a new congressional map, isn’t even a federal contest, it’s a state one, giving the Trump administration no legitimate authority to intervene.

“Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing.” Newsom warned. “Suppress the vote.”

Democracy Docket’s Yunior Rivas introduced readers to a DOJ official worth keeping a close eye on: Mac Warner, a former West Virginia secretary of state who’s now reportedly part of a dangerous inter-agency task force working to exact retribution against Trump’s perceived enemies. Warner, who had a radically anti-voting record as a chief election official, has used his DOJ post to try to seize voting machines used in the 2020 election, and has lent support to Trump’s push for documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration.

We also brought you the latest on Heather Honey, the extremist election denier and Cleta Mitchell-ally now serving as a voting official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As Matt Cohen reported exclusively, Honey is now claiming that DHS isn’t using any of the state voter data being collected by DOJ — which flatly contradicts what DHS told us, and others, last month.

“I don’t know if she’s stupid or lying,” one election official told Matt.

As if fair elections weren’t facing enough threats, Democracy Docket’s Jim Saksa dug deep to bring you another reason to worry. A U.S. Postal Service cost-cutting measure implemented by Trump’s Postmaster General has some election officials in states with contests this year warning voters that ballots returned through the mail could be delayed, especially in rural areas — and the problem is likely to get much worse for 2026. Along with the GOP’s efforts to ban late-arriving mail ballots and to crack down on mail voting generally (remember that Maine ballot measure?), the change could put millions of voters at risk of disenfranchisement in the midterms.

Finally, Democracy Docket’s Jacob Knutson has been tracking Trump’s attempt to use the National Guard to take over Democratic-led cities. When two Trump-appointed appeals court judges gave him a green light to use the Guard in Portland, Jacob laid out the outraged reactions from legal experts, one of whom called the decision “dangerous and legally flawed.”

Jacob also teamed up with Democracy Docket Researcher Adeline Tolle and Design Lead Madison Coviello on a map and accompanying explainer that lays out this part of Trump’s authoritarian takeover with stark clarity. showing exactly where he has sent Guard troops, where he has threatened to do so, and where those troops came from.