Try and Stop Us Digest — October 2, 2026

Must Read

Trump’s Year-Long Hunt For Proof The 2020 Election Was Rigged Came Up Empty

A Reuters investigation found that a Trump administration lawyer ran a sprawling, multi-agency hunt for evidence the 2020 election was stolen — pulling in the FBI, DOJ, DHS and the intelligence community — and came up with nothing. Reuters: Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who represented Kari Lake's failed 2022 election challenge, led the effort from inside the White House, directing a team that inspected a voting machine in Puerto Rico, obtained 2.1 million Maricopa County ballot images via subpoena, and pushed to seize Venezuelan election data before senior officials blocked the trip. Olsen's own operation concluded there was no evidence of foreign hacking or manipulated votes. He told colleagues the "deep state" had thwarted him. His referral led the FBI to raid Fulton County's election office in January and seize 650 boxes of 2020 ballots and records. Olsen stepped down from a separate DOJ "grand conspiracy" probe this week but remains a DOJ employee.

Trump Won't Rule Out Invoking The Insurrection Act Around The Midterms

Trump refuses to rule out ICE at the polls or using the Insurrection Act to declare an emergency near Election Day. USA Today: "I don't rule anything out or in. We'll see," Trump said of the Insurrection Act, adding, "I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes." Trump told Time he "hadn't ruled anything out" on declaring an emergency near Election Day, and when asked specifically about sending ICE to the polls: "Haven't thought of it. "Steve Bannon said in February: "We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November... we will never again allow an election to be stolen."

New polling finds massive opposition to federal interference in elections. Washington Sun: A new iVote survey finds 74% of likely voters oppose the federal government taking over state election administration, 69% oppose a federal national voter database, and 64% oppose ICE agents at polling places.

A top Pentagon official told Senator Slotkin in writing that the military has "no plan" to send troops to polling places — but she says that's cold comfort. Democracy Docket: Assistant Secretary of Defense Mark Ditlevson wrote that DOD has "no plan to deploy active-duty troops or Federalized National Guard to polling sites, nor does it have any plan to interfere with ballots, voting machines, or other election-related materials." Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who requested the assurance: "I take that as a positive sign... [I] still have no idea what Trump will do — I think that's a very different question." Attorney General Todd Blanche, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and FBI Director Kash Patel have not responded to her request.

Democrats Warn Trump's DOJ Is Quietly Preparing To Seize Ballots

Democrats say the Justice Department has quietly abandoned decades of policy against seizing ballots or arresting election officials during an active election, and is laying the groundwork to do just that in November. Zeteo / American Doom: A DNC lawsuit notes DOJ scrubbed its guidance barring "overt" election-related seizures until results are certified. DOJ used the same kind of warrant in January to let the FBI take 650 boxes of ballots from Fulton County, based on claims a judge later called "misleading." DOJ's response to the DNC lawsuit dismissed the entire concern as “impertinent” and never addressed why the guidance was removed. Election law professor Rick Hasen warns seizing ballots now would "cause irreparable harm by breaking the chain of custody and tainting election results." Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.): "Any attempt by the administration to seize ballots and undermine the chain of custody would raise serious legal and constitutional concerns." DNC litigation director Dan Freeman: "Any effort to seize live ballots would fundamentally undermine our democracy and deny voters their First Amendment right to make their voices heard."

Judge Rules The Entire Federal Noncitizen-Voting Law Unconstitutional

A federal judge ruled that the 40-year-old law making it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections is unconstitutional, gutting the legal basis for DOJ's prosecution campaign. NBC News: U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz tossed a case against a Jamaican national, ruling "the Constitution does not authorize Congress to legislate voter qualifications for federal elections" and that power is "reserved for the States." The defendant, Chelsea Michelle Ann Cox, had lived in the U.S. for decades and faced deportation if convicted; her attorney said she was "ecstatic" about the ruling. DOJ has charged 70 voter-fraud cases this administration, out of more than 170 million registered voters nationwide.

Meet The 22 Election Deniers With The President's Ear

A new Media Matters tracker identifies at least 22 election denial activists who claim direct access to Trump and administration officials pushing him toward getting rid of voting machines, banning mail ballots, and declaring a national emergency. Media Matters: Tina Peters, pardoned by Trump after a state election-tampering conviction, says she's met with Trump in the Oval Office six times and gets texts from administration contacts "at 1:30, 3:30 in the morning." Attorney Peter Ticktin, who helped draft a proposed national-emergency executive order, says he "went to Attorney General Todd Blanche's right-hand guy" about seizing voting machines in Pennsylvania: "those machines have now been secured." At least 11 administration appointees have ties to Cleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network alone.

DNC Sues Over Pentagon's Last-Minute Change To The Overseas Voter Form

The DNC sued the Trump administration Thursday, arguing the Pentagon illegally rushed through a change to the federal form overseas citizens use to request absentee ballots, cutting out an option that's existed for over a decade. The Guardian: The August change eliminated the checkbox for citizens who've never lived in the U.S. — a group 38 states and D.C. allow to vote — forcing them to sign a form under penalty of perjury that may no longer describe them accurately. The Pentagon claimed the election being under 90 days away justified skipping the normal rulemaking process; DNC lawyers call that justification "pretextual and implausible," noting the government has "at least 15 years of experience" managing this exact form. DNC chair Ken Martin: "Trump and Republicans are so desperate to hang on to power that they are trying to eliminate the way some American citizens abroad register to vote and request mail ballots."

In The States

FLORIDA — A federal judge dismissed a Democratic-aligned group's challenge to Florida's "exact match" voter verification law, ruling the case was "manufactured by meddlers." Florida's Voice: U.S. District Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe found Florida Rising Together and Florida Rising lacked standing because they couldn't identify a single person turned away under the law, which requires voters to verify identity when registration details don't match government records. The RNC and Florida GOP intervened to defend the law; Moe gave the plaintiffs until Oct. 15 to amend their complaint.

GEORGIA — The Georgia State Election Board's executive director asked DOJ to formally declare the state's voting machines illegal.. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: James Mills sent the letters Wednesday to Attorney General Todd Blanche, Harmeet Dhillon and Markwayne Mullin, seeking a federal investigation into Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over alleged record alteration, though the letter offered no specifics. Raffensperger spokesperson Robert Sinners called it "disingenuous," saying the board is "trying to cause chaos at the 11th hour." Board Democrat Sara Tindall-Ghazal: "This is clearly a bad-faith attempt to set up a contest to election results that Republicans do not like."

GEORGIA — Two of the Georgia election board's four Republicans tanked their party's proposed fix for the state's ballot-secrecy flaw, leaving it unresolved less than two weeks before early voting. Associated Press: The RNC and Georgia GOP had asked the board to require counties to shuffle ballots at polling sites to prevent voters being matched to their cast ballots. Board member Janelle King worried the shuffling could cause ballots to go uncounted; Carolyn Roddy called the coercion risk a "small thing" and said the plan "does more harm than good." The board adjourned without a vote.

GEORGIA — A Georgia judge dismissed an RNC-backed lawsuit that tried to block Fulton County from expanding absentee ballot drop-off locations because the county already ended the policy months ago. Democracy Docket: Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled the case moot since the board had unanimously repealed the policy in May, writing that "any affected party retains the ability to effectively pursue injunctive relief should a similar policy re-emerge." The RNC, Fulton County GOP and a Georgia secretary of state candidate had filed the suit in June.

NEW JERSEY — A Trump-pardoned GOP county chair is overseeing a voter eligibility review that targeted Democratic and unaffiliated voters while exempting Republicans in the same situation. Democracy Docket: Ocean County GOP chair George Gilmore, pardoned by Trump after a federal tax conviction, chairs the county election board that mailed "Domicile Questionnaires" to voters flagged by a Bay Head Republican official — a list that allegedly omitted every Republican who matched the same criteria. The ACLU of New Jersey is threatening to sue unless the county halts the review by Friday. ACLU-NJ's Liza Weisberg: "The Board has targeted voters based on their constitutionally protected political association and chilled their participation on the eve of an election with total disregard for the laws that prohibit precisely this kind of interference."

NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina voters are being flooded with confusing registration-repair letters after the state quietly settled a DOJ lawsuit by agreeing to push the burden of fixing incomplete records onto voters themselves. Democracy Docket: Roughly 98,000 voters got an August letter demanding they upload ID numbers by the Oct. 9 registration deadline or risk a provisional ballot; about half have responded so far. Voting rights advocate Terence Everitt: "This is death by a thousand cuts... they just want to find places where people just give up."

TEXAS — Records show Texas state agencies knew about the voter-registration portal error behind this month's 500,000-record backlog as early as March — and told lawmakers it was fixed. Votebeat: DPS told a state senator's office in March that a "programming change" had blocked nearly 1,000 registrations between December and February, and called it resolved; the Texas Civil Rights Project flagged continuing problems again in July and was told the same thing. The real cause, state officials now say, was an October 2025 vendor software update that wasn't caught until August. Voter William Furney, whose provisional ballot was ultimately rejected: "It just kind of illustrates the technical incompetence of Texas state government."