Try and Stop Us Digest — August 3, 2026

Sludge: Cleta Mitchell's “election integrity” charity tripled its spending to $4.5 million — and cut a check to the consulting firm of the DHS official now running the government's noncitizen voter crackdown. Mitchell's charity bankrolled ads warning Latino voters that casting a ballot could get them deported. Heather Honey — paid $72,000 through her firm, now a deputy assistant secretary at DHS — is the same person who misrepresented Pennsylvania voter data in 2020, in claims Trump repeated moments before the January 6 riot.

Media Matters: Tina Peters is pitching Trump on a midterm “election security plan.” Peters and her network say they've pitched CISA on a formal plan to eliminate voting machines entirely and delay certification until every ballot is hand-counted — a method studies show produces more errors, not fewer.

NPR: DHS quietly told states the real number is 118,003, less than half of what Trump bragged about publicly, and still won't say where even that number came from. “These numbers, until they're backed up by any kind of clear, transparent methodology, should be considered made up,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “There's no credible way to do this without creating an ungodly number of false positives,” Becker said.

Democracy Docket: A federal judge dismissed DOJ's Illinois lawsuit Friday with prejudice — the 19th time DOJ has lost in court. “Congress did not confer a general auditing power to the DOJ over state election officials,” the judge wrote. No court, anywhere, has ever ordered a state to hand over its unredacted voter database.

CNN: A year after gutting its own most experienced election-security staff, CISA now promises states a security plan in 30 days. “Some duct tape and, you know, maybe a bungee cord or two,” is how Vermont's Secretary of State described what states are left holding. A former CISA election security official put it bluntly: “We have a gap of information of 14 to 18 months.” Nevada's Cisco Aguilar noted taxpayers are now paying twice for a service the federal government used to provide free.

Bolts: Virginia was the only state in the country enforcing a lifetime felony voting ban. Spanberger called the old system “a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past.” Voters will decide in November whether to end the governor's discretionary power over the process entirely.

Democracy Docket: The RNC is trying to reopen a 2019 court order in one of the closest Senate races in the country, making it easier to toss mail ballots over signature mismatches. “We won't stop fighting until this critical election integrity measure is back in place,” said RNC Chairman Joe Gruters.

NBC News: “In Vermont, I would have to say, mail-in ballots are popular. Who are they popular with? Republicans,” said Gov. Phil Scott. North Carolina's Josh Stein, sharing the stage with him, called it “offensive” for the administration to condition emergency funding on states' election policies.

Fox News: House panel demands classified briefings on noncitizen voting, alleged Chinese election interference

Democracy Docket: Legacy media's embarrassing feeding frenzy on New Jersey voter registration error