THE BLOCKADE BRIEF: October 7, 2026

THIS WEEK’S BLOCKADES

Election Deniers Want the Trump Administration to Seize Voting Machines

With Election Day less than a month away, anti-voting lawyer Cleta Mitchell and convicted election denier Tina Peters are pushing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to seize voting machines. Peters even met with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday to pitch the scheme in person. The whole plan rests on debunked conspiracy theories, plus a 2019 executive order on U.S. technology that, in reality, gives Lutnick zero power over elections. States and counties run elections under our Constitution. Lutnick has no authority over voting machines, and if he tried to seize them, states would dismiss the order, and courts would strike it down as unconstitutional.

Trump’s DHS Is Investigating 150+ Groups That Help Americans Register to Vote

Homeland Security officials have investigated more than 150 voter registration organizations, and considered sending undercover agents to disrupt their work. DHS combed through 82 groups in Pennsylvania, and about 44 in New Jersey, where it found nothing. The data driving the hunt is just as shady: Heather Honey, the 2020 election denier now serving as DHS’s election integrity point person, handed investigators tens of millions of records without saying where they came from. Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, and when Nevada checked 185 names DHS swore were noncitizens, every single one was a citizen.

MALLY SMITH, Try And Stop Us Senior Adviser:

“Cleta Mitchell, Tina Peters, and Heather Honey spent years spreading lies about 2020, and now they’re helping Trump try to rig the midterms. They want to seize voting machines and send undercover agents after the volunteers who help people register to vote. None of it changes the facts: states and counties run our elections, our voting systems are among the most secure in the world, and every eligible voter has the right to cast a ballot. Trump and his traveling circus of conspiracy theorists are scrambling because they know Republicans are headed for a wipeout, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”