Try and Stop Us Digest — October 23, 2026

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Todd Blanche Says He Works For Trump And Won't Rule Out Meddling With Certification

Todd Blanche won't rule out DOJ action to block states from certifying the midterm results. NBC News: Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday that DOJ could seek to block states from certifying votes, telling reporters he couldn't say there were zero circumstances in which it would: "Of course, I'm not going to say that." His comments come as DOJ is weighing more election lawsuits against states after suing California. No law gives DOJ the power to challenge ballots or delay certification, which belongs to state and local officials. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Senate Democrats "have been preparing for this for months and will be ready for whatever" the administration tries.

Blanche says he works “for President Trump” and rejects the idea that DOJ should be independent of the White House. The New Republic: Attorney General Todd Blanche said on the New York Post podcast Wednesday that he works “for President Trump,” and he dismissed the idea that DOJ operates separately from the White House. “There was this misperception that there’s this separation and independence between the Department of Justice and the White House, and everybody likes to champion that, and they accused me of not suffering from independence,” Blanche said. “I don’t.” DOJ is supposed to be free from presidential interference, a norm that has held since at least Watergate.

DOJ's California Noncitizen List Doesn't Hold Up

US Attorney Bill Essayli keeps telling the public 20,000 California voters are noncitizens, while DOJ tells judges only that they're "likely" noncitizens. Democracy Docket / Fox News: Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has called the people on DOJ's California list "confirmed" and "verified," writing that "At least 20,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in California,” and is now claiming investigators have determined that all 20,000 people on DOJ’s list are noncitizens and he expects thousands more names. DOJ's court filings are far more cautious, describing the same people as "highly likely" or "suspected" noncitizens. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter has admitted "We're not perfect." DOJ is still suing to stop California from counting any ballots those voters return, and has threatened state election officials with criminal liability.

Los Angeles County’s spot check contradicts Essayli’s claim that all 20,000 people on DOJ’s California list were mailed ballots. NPR / Fox News / Democracy Docket: Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of the names on DOJ’s list and found it unreliable, even though federal prosecutor Bill Essayli says investigators have evidence that all 20,000 people received mail ballots this month. Of 200 sampled records with county addresses, 112 were canceled or inactive registrations, so no ballot was mailed to those voters for November, according to assistant registrar-recorder Monica Flores. Among records that listed a birthplace, 38.9% said the person was born in the U.S., which Flores called “strong evidence of citizenship.” DOJ has never said where the list came from. Its filings say only that HSI “received what appeared to be the California voter roster,” and DOJ didn’t answer California’s July question about how it reached its earlier claim of 190,800 noncitizens until Oct. 14, after voting had begun.

Judge Blocks Trump's Voter Hunt From Reaching U.S. Citizens

A federal judge barred DHS agents from interviewing people they suspect are U.S. citizens in the hunt for noncitizen voters. New York Times: Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin ruled Wednesday that DHS can't carry out field interviews that involve or are likely to involve people agents "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect" are citizens, largely blocking the operation hundreds of agents have been running in nine states: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. She found the government's "target lists" already contained errors and included naturalized citizens. According to agency memos, DHS "surveils, covertly infiltrates and interrogates the staff of nonprofits and churches conducting voter engagement," and had targeted nearly 150 such groups. The public interest in elections "free from interference or intimidation," the judge wrote, "far exceed[s] defendants' purported interest in combating unlawful voting by non-U.S. citizens." The order is paused until Friday evening so the government can appeal.

Mail Ballots Face New Risks, And Voters Are Switching To Drop Boxes

Postal Service cuts are getting ballots from Trump’s rural base thrown out. ProPublica: A ProPublica analysis found that the rate of mail ballots rejected for arriving late doubled or tripled this year in counties where the Postal Service cut mail pickups, compared with the 2022 primary, and that across the five states it examined, the delays hit hardest in areas that voted for Trump in 2024. In Stevens County, Washington, where Republican Auditor Lori Larsen oversees voting, 8% of ballots were rejected for late postmarks, up from 1%. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said he doesn’t think the Republican appointees running the Postal Service “realized how much it was going to affect their voter base,” noting his state has “a lot of rural Republican voters.” At least seven closely contested House districts, including Washington’s 3rd, California’s 22nd and North Carolina’s 11th, are in areas affected by the service changes in the primary. Tammy Patrick of the National Association of Election Officials says some ballots will be rejected in November: “It isn’t a question of ‘if,’ but a question of ‘how many.’”

Democrats are shifting from mail ballots to drop boxes and in-person voting after Trump's attacks on mail voting. Washington Post: Early voting data shows Americans, especially Democrats, moving away from mailing ballots and toward in-person voting and drop boxes. Mail ballot requests are down from the last midterm in six of eight states analyzed by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, including Georgia, where they're down 40% while in-person early voting is "through the roof." In North Carolina, just over half of Democrats who voted by mail in 2022 switched to early in-person voting this year, while 61% of Republicans stuck with the mail. Experts say part of the drop may be the decline in mail voting since its 2020 peak, but the shift is driven by Democrats.

Democrats Warn Trump Could Claim Foreign Hacking To Contest The Midterms

Top Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees say Russia is running an online misinformation campaign targeting Democrats in the midterms. Reuters: Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes said Wednesday that a classified election security briefing showed Russia waging the same kind of campaign U.S. intelligence tracked in 2016, 2020 and 2024: "Russia, similar to prior occasions, is going after Democrats," Warner said. He noted news reports that AI-generated fake ads are hitting Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, and Himes said Moscow is "throwing everything out there," including "don't trust your voting machines." The lawmakers said they worry Trump could try to contest the results by claiming foreign hacking of voting systems, though Himes emphasized there is no evidence any country could penetrate U.S. election systems and change results.

The Trump administration is stoking fears about Chinese-made voting machine parts that experts say pose little risk to vote counts. Votebeat: The Trump administration and some conservative activists are arguing that foreign-made parts in voting machines are a national security risk, and some Trump allies want the president to ban voting machines altogether. The voting technology companies that serve about 85% of registered voters all confirmed they use some Chinese parts, as does critical infrastructure from ports to the electrical grid. Experts say layered safeguards make a successful attack unlikely: the machines aren’t connected to the internet, nearly all now produce a paper trail, and every state requires some post-election audit of paper ballots. A declassified 2024 intelligence assessment found “no indication” that China, Russia or Iran tried to alter vote counts in the past two election cycles, and concluded they were more likely to run disinformation campaigns to cast doubt on the results.

Trump's Allies Float Refusing To Seat Democrats In The House

A think tank founded by Trump's budget director argues the House can refuse to seat newly elected members.. Democracy Docket: The Center for Renewing America published a "primer" this month arguing that Congress can and should refuse to seat members who can't legitimately swear to "support and defend the Constitution," and it singles out Democratic Socialists of America members and "other Communist, Marxist, Muslim or other anticonstitutionalist movements." Reps. Don Bacon, a Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat, have asked colleagues to sign a letter pledging to accept the midterm results, but so far only Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Lawler and independent Rep. Kevin Kiley have signed. Election law professor Brian Kalt says he doesn't expect it to happen, but warns: "don't rule anything out when the stakes are this high."

In The States

ARIZONA — Arizona's attorney general sued Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap to restore 25 U.S. citizens he's blocked from voting. KNXV: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes sued Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap to restore the registrations of 25 voters he flagged as possible noncitizens. A county attorney’s investigation found they are U.S. citizens, but their registrations are still marked “not eligible” less than two weeks before Election Day, including 17 voters on the Active Early Voting List who should have received mail ballots earlier this month. Heap said Sept. 3 that if investigators found any of the voters were citizens, “we’ll clear that up and get them back on the voter rolls,” yet his office has updated only 27 of the 52 voters found to be citizens. Two of the four Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors say the registrations should be restored. Mayes asked the court to act by Thursday afternoon.

FLORIDA — Federal agents turned up outside early voting sites in two Florida counties this week, and local election officials call it intimidating and illegal. The Washington Sun: Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley said Monday that two Customs and Border Protection vehicles were parked outside the county's busiest early voting site in Tallahassee for about 10 minutes, and he has lodged a formal complaint with the FBI. In Monroe County, masked federal agents were seen making an arrest at an intersection near an early voting site in Key Largo, with "Go Vote" and "Vote Here" signs in view. Supervisor of Elections Sherri Hodies said she was "stunned" and that "it's hard to take these phone calls from voters who are frightened. Their voices are shaking."

MICHIGAN — A Republican county clerk elected on a promise to clean up the voter rolls tried to purge more than 1,600 voters, some wrongly, before the state stopped her. Bridge Michigan: Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop took steps this year to remove more than 1,600 of the county's 21,000 registered voters, sometimes on inaccurate grounds. She changed the registration records of at least 123 voters, mostly marking them dead or no longer living at their address, and mailed notices to at least 1,577 more warning that their registrations would be canceled, including voters who hadn't moved. Township clerks, largely Republicans themselves, flagged it to the Michigan Bureau of Elections, which revoked Bishop's access to the state voter file in June and reversed her changes in July, so the affected voters can vote in the midterms. Bishop still hasn't answered the state's questions or regained access, and a bipartisan recall campaign is underway.

NEW HAMPSHIRE — The Supreme Court is letting New Hampshire refuse student IDs as proof of identity at the polls, a win for Republicans less than two weeks before Election Day. CNN: In an unsigned order Thursday, the Supreme Court sided with Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan and the Republican National Committee, saying a lower-court ruling against the state came too close to Election Day. New Hampshire’s new law bars student IDs from being used on their own to verify identity, and the state read it to also bar them as one factor alongside other evidence, a reading a federal judge blocked on Oct. 2.

NORTH CAROLINA — A federal judge refused to block North Carolina’s new rule that has election officials rejecting mail ballots over unsealed inner envelopes. New York Times: Common Cause North Carolina and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice tracked 27 of the state’s 100 counties and found about 3% of mail ballots rejected statewide, mostly over unsealed inner envelopes, and two or three times that in some larger counties. The Republican-majority State Board of Elections ordered the rejections in a Sept. 4 memo, even though counties had accepted such ballots in past elections as long as the outer envelope was sealed. “They’re just tossing ballots with no evidence of a security issue,” said Hilary Harris Klein of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Judge Thomas Schroeder declined Monday to block the memo, calling that “infeasible at this stage in the midst of voting.” Voters whose ballots are rejected can still vote in person or with a new mail ballot, but advocates worry they won’t find out in time.

TEXAS — Ken Paxton has spent six years trying to overturn elections and go after the people who run them, and now he could do the same in his Senate campaign. New York Times: After the 2020 election, the Texas attorney general led a failed Supreme Court suit to throw out other states’ results, then told the crowd at the Jan. 6, 2021, rally “We kept fighting in Texas.” He has since sued Beto O’Rourke over his voter registration group, tried to indict a county election administrator and tried to shut down a Latino voter registration group. In 2022 he sought to have Houston-area provisional ballots thrown out, and the Texas Supreme Court ordered them counted. A new state law gives him authority to prosecute election crimes, which he hasn’t yet tested.

UTAH — DOJ is sending election monitors to Utah, where the Republican lieutenant governor defied Trump’s demand for the state’s voter rolls. Democracy Docket: Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah’s top election official, said Thursday that DOJ notified her it is sending monitors but hasn’t said where or how many. DOJ sued Utah and opened an investigation into Henderson after she refused to hand over unredacted voter rolls, which include Social Security numbers. The monitors are part of a planned deployment of 1,000 nationwide, and NPR reported that DOJ has also begun notifying counties in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Washington. Henderson says they “won’t speak to or approach voters” and will “not be armed or carrying concealed weapons.” Utah is a frequent Trump target because it is one of a handful of states that mails ballots to every voter.

WISCONSIN — Wisconsin's elections commission says ICE and FBI agents can observe voting like anyone else. Dane County officials say that could get armed agents into polling places. Votebeat: The Wisconsin Elections Commission's new guidance tells poll workers that federal agents who want to observe must check in like regular observers, without distinguishing armed from unarmed agents until two pages later, where it explains the federal law barring armed federal personnel from the polls. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, a Democrat, called the guidance "inaccurate," and county attorney David Gault wrote the commission: "There is no legitimate reason for ICE to be at a polling place. Everyone there is presumptively a US citizen." The commission's attorney, Angela O'Brien Sharpe, says the guidance doesn't authorize armed agents and that federal law enforcement is permitted to observe under Wisconsin's observer rules.

WISCONSIN — Wisconsin Republican Tom Tiffany defended his role in Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election at Wednesday's governor's debate. Associated Press: Tom Tiffany, a congressman endorsed by Trump, supported Trump's failed 2020 attempt to disqualify 220,000 absentee ballots from Milwaukee and Dane counties and voted against counting electoral votes in Pennsylvania and Arizona. Asked about it at a debate, he said his reasons included "Zuckerbucks," a reference to grants from the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life that went to more than 200 Wisconsin communities to help run elections during the pandemic. His Democratic opponent, David Crowley, said Tiffany "didn't say anything nefarious was going on with our elections," adding that he "just didn't like the fact of how money was being spent." Crowley said Tiffany can't be trusted to certify the 2028 presidential results.