Try and Stop Us Digest — September 24, 2026

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Show Me Chaos: The Third Trip To SCOTUS Awaits A Verdict

Missouri's congressional map fight is now fully briefed at the Supreme Court again and awaiting a verdict. KMBC: Missouri referendum proponents made their final pitch to the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, arguing that lower federal courts cannot sidestep the justices’ previous order halting use of the state’s Republican-drawn 2025 congressional map — especially now that voting is underway. In a reply brief, People Not Politicians and executive director Richard von Glahn* accused Missouri officials and Republican candidates of largely ignoring their central argument. On the other side, Florida, Texas, and 20 other states are urging the Court to let the 8th Circuit's Monday order stand, arguing a map switch now would confuse voters who already cast primary ballots under the 2025 lines.

Meet The People Pushing Trump To Declare Martial Law Over The Midterms

A circle of Trump allies are openly pushing the idea that Trump could declare martial law or a national emergency if he doesn't like the midterm results. The Atlantic: Attorney Peter Ticktin, a Trump friend since military school, says the choices this fall are a smooth election he insists won't happen, Trump acting to "prevent cheating" beforehand, or martial law. The White House says these outside advisers "play no role in election policy," but even Trump's inner circle reportedly admits the scenario remains possible. Brennan Center's Elizabeth Goitein: a national-emergency declaration "is not a blank check" and gives Trump no actual power to seize control of elections.

Newly obtained emails show a Trump-appointed federal election official was privately coordinating with Cleta Mitchell's election denial group while the EAC considered adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the voter registration form. Democracy Docket: Then-EAC Vice Chair Christy McCormick didn't rebuff an offer from Mitchell's Election Integrity Network to brief commissioners using the group's “data scientist,” even though such coordination could violate the agency's nonpartisan rules. It's at least the second known instance of EIN coordinating directly with EAC officials on the citizenship-proof push.

The Paper Trail Behind Trump's Attacks On Voting

DOJ is racing to expand its voter-citizenship data hunt to passport records even as it asks courts to slow-walk the lawsuits trying to find out what it's actually planning. Democracy Docket / Democracy Docket: A court filing reveals the State Department will propose sharing passport records — covering everyone who's ever applied for one — with other agencies as soon as Oct. 22, a major expansion after Social Security and DHS data-matching efforts ran into legal trouble. Meanwhile, judges have twice rejected DOJ's attempts to buy more time in related cases: refusing to push back a FOIA deadline over potential ballot seizures to a week before Election Day, and refusing to delay a hearing on DHS's citizenship lists, which DNC lawyers say DOJ is using to "nullify the Freedom of Information Act through persistent delay."

The Real Election Day Risk Might Be A Month Later

A single county commissioner refusing to certify results has never overturned an election — but with distrust higher than in 2020, election-law experts warn a certification standoff could still throw the midterms into chaos. Democracy Docket: New Mexico's Vickie Marquardt, who refused to certify in 2022, says she'd do it again "if I felt strongly about it." At least 17 certification-interference attempts happened in 2024 alone, and every one was eventually forced through by courts — but Voting Rights Lab's Charley Olena says the damage to public confidence is already done once officials cast doubt on their own election.

Republicans Are Losing Faith In USPS Delivering Ballots

Trust that USPS will deliver mail-in ballots on time has dropped 13 points since 2024, according to a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll — even after the Supreme Court blocked Trump's plan to restrict mail voting. NPR: Confidence fell from 71% to 58%, back to pandemic-era lows, despite USPS reporting a 97.94% on-time rate for election mail this year. Republicans (70%) are far more likely than Democrats (18%) to believe mail voting is rife with fraud, even though most voters overall (55%) say they see little to none.

Turns Out Most "Noncitizen Voters" Are Just DMV Errors

A Reuters review found more than 30,000 noncitizens have been mistakenly added to voter rolls since 2000 nationwide — in both red and blue states — almost entirely due to driver's license and ID application errors, not fraud. Reuters: The errors span a dozen states including Texas, Iowa, and South Dakota, and experts say the numbers are too small to affect any election outcome. Even a Heritage Foundation election-integrity fellow attributes the mistakes to sloppy DMV processing, not organized fraud — and experts say proof-of-citizenship laws like the SAVE America Act wouldn't fix the underlying error, since the people involved did everything they were asked to do.

In The States

NEW JERSEY — The RNC sued New Jersey's top election official again, demanding records on how thousands of noncitizens ended up on the state's voter rolls after a Motor Vehicle Commission software error. New Jersey Monitor: Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell's office sat on the RNC's records request for six weeks before mostly denying it, the suit claims. The RNC is represented by lawyers from Harmeet Dhillon's old firm; a Trump-appointed judge already dismissed a similar federal lawsuit against the state in July.

OHIO — A divided federal appeals court let Ohio start enforcing a new law requiring proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote at the DMV, just before the state's Oct. 5 registration deadline. Bloomberg Law / Democracy Docket: The 2-1 6th Circuit panel found a lower court likely erred in blocking the law, which a district judge had ruled requires more documentation than federal law allows. The dissenting judge, a Biden appointee, noted that voters who register any other way still just have to sign an attestation, not produce documents — arguing the law works against the very registration law it's supposed to comply with.