Try and Stop Us Digest — September 17, 2026

Must Read

PA Documents Call BS On DHS Voter Fraud Claims

DHS finally told Pennsylvania how it flagged 14,576 voters as potential noncitizens – and the claims don’t add up. Votebeat: In July, DHS claimed it had identified more than 250,000 potential noncitizens across California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — a number the states immediately disputed. DHS originally implied it used Social Security numbers to make the matches, even though Pennsylvania never gave the administration a voter list containing them. A Sept. 9 email to Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt quietly walked that back, saying DHS instead compared name, date of birth, phone number, and address — and that some of the 14,576 flagged voters are far shakier matches than others. DHS still hasn't confirmed whether it's actually sent Pennsylvania the list it says officials should "carefully review." Schmidt's office previously recapped an August call in which DHS admitted it lacked "high confidence" in its own numbers; DHS called that recap a "blatant mischaracterization" in its Sept. 9 letter. Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson Matt Heckel: "Voters can be confident that eligible Pennsylvania citizens will not be disenfranchised by faulty methodology or unreliable data."

DHS Knew It Might Be Breaking The Law — And Told Officers Not To Worry About It

Whistleblower disclosure spells out how DHS pressured officers to search state voter databases using other people's data and to keep going even when the department's own records didn't match. The Guardian: Officers were told to run DHS-compiled voter data through state lookup portals — several of which, including Virginia's, require an attestation that the user is looking up their own registration. DHS's general counsel called the practice "permissible," but also told officers they personally wouldn't be liable, language the whistleblower's lawyers say shows DHS knows the activity may be illegal. In California, officers were frequently unable to find any matching state record at all — and were told to create a file anyway in TECS, a DHS law-enforcement database, potentially generating "thousands or tens of thousands" of records on Californians built on data DHS's own officers doubted. Officers got a single training session Aug. 21 and four days to prepare before being expected to review five people an hour.

The Mail-Ballot Fight Isn't Over. It's Just Getting Started For 2028

The Supreme Court's order blocking Trump's mail-ballot plan settled nothing about the legal principles at stake, and Kavanaugh's concurrence leaves the door open to reviving it. CNN: Monday's order was two sentences with no legal reasoning — a ruling on emergency-relief factors, not a decision on the merits of whether USPS can control ballot delivery at all. Kavanaugh's concurrence said there's "at least a fair prospect" the rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority, a signal he could side with Trump's plan the next time it comes up, potentially for 2028. Former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli predicts "a lot of turbulence around these issues" through this cycle and into the next presidential race, despite no evidence mail-ballot fraud is a real problem. Alito's dissent — joined only by Thomas — compared the challengers' case to a "Hail Mary pass," while echoing the administration's unsubstantiated fraud claims almost verbatim.

Poll: Fewer Than Half Of Americans Expect A "Free And Fair" Midterm

A UC San Diego survey finds trust in the vote count has collapsed since 2024 — and the drop is bipartisan. LA Times: Only 49% of respondents expect the midterms to be free and fair; 23% don't, and 28% don't know. Confidence that ballots will be counted accurately has cratered across party lines since 2024 — from 82% to 58% among Republicans, and from 77% to 63% among Democrats. Voters of color are about four times as likely as white voters to expect ICE intimidation at the polls: 49% of Black respondents and 45% of Hispanic respondents said they expect it, versus 11% of white respondents. Co-director Thad Kousser: "Nobody has loved the redistricting wars that have been a big story throughout this year."

Watchdog Sues USPS: How Far Were They Willing To Go?

American Oversight is suing USPS after the agency ignored FOIA requests for records on its now-blocked mail-ballot portal — built, a whistleblower says, in defiance of court orders. Democracy Docket: Even with the Supreme Court putting the portal on hold for this fall, the group says USPS's blueprint for reviving it in future elections remains "uncertain and opaque." Executive Director Chioma Chukwu: "The public deserves to know who approved this, how far USPS was prepared to go, and what else may be underway."

The FEC Is About To Sit Out The Entire Midterm

The agency that's supposed to police campaign finance law hasn't had a quorum since May 2025 — and the Senate has run out of time to fix that before Election Day. Washington Sun: Two GOP nominees have been stalled for months by "paperwork issues" and Sen. Mitch McConnell's medical absence; even with McConnell back this week, no hearing is scheduled before the Senate's early-October recess. The commission's enforcement backlog has ballooned to 307 cases. With no quorum, the FEC can't investigate complaints, issue fines, or offer legal guidance — leaving private lawsuits as the only real check on campaign-finance violations through November.

In The States

MISSOURI — Local election officials are racing to finalize ballots after a year of gerrymandering chaos blew past their legal deadline. Democracy Docket: Kansas City's election board had to prepare two full sets of ballots while courts fought over which map applied — about 40% of the city's voters ended up moved to a different district. Officials now face a Sept. 19 deadline to get ballots to military and overseas voters. GOP election director Shawn Kieffer: the chaos is "something that we have never seen before" in nearly four decades on the job, and he hopes "to never see again."

NEW HAMPSHIRE — A federal appeals court rejected New Hampshire's bid to quickly kill the DOJ's voter-roll lawsuit. Democracy Docket Secretary of State David Scanlan (R) argued the case was too weak to need full briefing; the 1st Circuit disagreed, teeing up a decision that could also affect DOJ's parallel losses in Maine, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

NORTH CAROLINA — A divided appeals court let the GOP's takeover of state elections administration stand.. WRAL: The 2-1 panel found the 2024 law stripping election oversight from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and handing it to Republican Auditor Dave Boliek doesn't violate the state constitution, since the power stayed within the executive branch. Dissenting Judge John Arrowood called that reasoning hollow, pointing to board actions that appear aimed at suppressing turnout among Black and younger voters — groups that tend to vote Democratic. Arrowood: "None of these actions appear designed to promote boards of elections free from political influence or interference."

WISCONSIN — The state Supreme Court's liberal majority signaled openness to redrawing the GOP's 6-2 congressional map. Wisconsin Public Radio: Chief Justice Jill Karofsky dismissed the "least change" precedent Republicans are leaning on: "We are going to bake in whatever the political motivations were of that 2011 Legislature... and we continue to follow least change in 2021 and in 2031 and 2041 and 2051." Plaintiffs' attorney Abha Khanna argued the current map is "resting on legal quicksand" now that the court's conservative-era precedent has been overturned elsewhere. Republicans warned the court against "wading into the political thicket" of policing partisan advantage.