Try and Stop Us Digest — September 29, 2026

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Federal Efforts To Locate Non-Citizen Voters Continue To Be A Massive Failure

In Arizona, Maricopa County's Republican prosecutor confirmed the SAVE database's supposed noncitizen-voting hunt failed 87% of the time — flagging 60 voters, only 8 of whom turned out not to be citizens. Arizona Mirror: Nearly all eight were mistakenly registered while renewing a driver's license, not because anyone tried to vote illegally. Heap referred these voters for review back in the spring; prosecutors are still working through 147 more of his referrals, and early signs from the state's parallel review point to the same pattern — mostly citizens.

Georgia's numbers tell the same story: after subpoenaing voter records and reviewing hundreds of names, prosecutors managed to charge just three people. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: That's three prosecutions out of roughly 430 flagged in the state's citizenship review — most of which never amounted to anything. One of the three, a 65-year-old Dawsonville woman accused of using a passport application from 2018, was granted bond by the judge hearing her case.

Trump Wanted All Mail Ballots Sent By Certified Mail.

A ProPublica investigation reveals the Trump administration's original mail-voting plan was far more extreme than the executive order that eventually reached the Supreme Court — and the Postal Service's leaders stayed silent about it out of fear. ProPublica: The White House initially floated requiring every ballot to go by certified mail, forcing voters to be home to sign for delivery — an idea postal officials called "a terrible idea" before it was dropped. Even after that plan died, USPS lawyers were blindsided by the final March order, which put Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — who has no authority over the Postal Service — in charge of implementing it. Postal Service Board of Governors members found the order alarming but stayed silent, one source said, "knowing that it might be its last action" if Trump tried to fire them for resisting. American Postal Workers Union president Jonathan Smith: "The ultimate goal was to create chaos and doubt in the vote-by-mail process... You're creating a rule to solve a problem that doesn't exist."

White House Quietly Moves To Cut Off Voter Registration Funding For Disabled Americans

A new Office of Management and Budget rule would ban federal grant money from being used for any voter registration drive, cutting off funding that helps disabled and elderly Americans vote. ProPublica: The rule would hit the Help America Vote Act's $10 million annual grant program, spread across 57 nonprofits covering every state, Puerto Rico, Native American communities and U.S. territories. OMB Director Russell Vought, who once called a similar Biden voter-access order a "power grab," didn't respond to questions about the proposal. Former OMB general counsel Samuel Bagenstos: "This is not even a surgical power grab. It's just a massive across-the-board power grab." During the 2024 election, disabled voters reported registration difficulties at more than twice the rate of nondisabled voters.

Trump Plots Record Federal Presence At The Polls. Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose It.

The Justice Department is deploying what it calls the "biggest DOJ election observer effort in history" — more than 1,000 monitors, hundreds more than Biden's administration sent in 2024. CNN: Some monitors sent to this year's primaries previously worked to challenge Trump's 2020 loss, and one pleaded guilty in 2016 to illegally hacking a county elections website. In Wyoming, DOJ attorneys showed up unannounced and questioned staff about voting machines, drawing complaints from Republican officials; the Republican elections director there warned other red-state clerks, "don't think this won't happen to you." The RNC is separately training "special monitors" in at least 22 states to scrutinize voting machines and file public-records requests against clerks who resist.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose sending federal force to the polls, no matter which agency does it. Strength In Numbers: A new poll finds voters oppose sending ICE agents to the polls by 30 points, National Guard troops by 17 points, and the military taking custody of ballots by 27 points.

Two Courts Rein In DOJ's Election Tactics

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding counterterrorism grants from cities and counties that refuse to adopt new voting restrictions. Associated Press: Judge Amir Ali found FEMA had no authority from Congress to tie anti-terror grants to demands like verifying every voter's citizenship or switching to hand-marked paper ballots. The plaintiffs, including Nashville, Columbus, and four Texas counties, called it "a gross abuse of power.” 25 state attorneys general or governors had filed a similar suit.

A federal judge ordered DOJ to give 30 days' notice before releasing any voter citizenship lists, meaning the earliest it could do so is Oct. 28 — six days before the election. Democracy Docket: Judge Paula Xinis issued the order after a DOJ attorney repeatedly refused to say whether the administration planned to launch its citizenship-list portal before the midterms. The attorney bristled even at the notice requirement, telling the judge, "If you want to enjoin us, enjoin us" — to which Xinis replied she was "not doing anything to enjoin you," just "asking for information." DOJ has a history of defying similar notice orders in related cases.

In The States

CALIFORNIA — A Moms for Liberty activist who ran for local office on an "election integrity" platform now faces up to eight years in prison after being convicted on nine counts of election fraud. The New Republic: Gaea Powell lied under oath about living inside Arroyo Grande's city limits while running for mayor there in 2022 and 2024, and illegally raised and spent campaign funds without disclosure. She's refused to accept the verdict and plans to appeal: "I have maintained from the beginning, and I maintain today, that I did not knowingly deceive anyone."

GEORGIA — Georgia's State Election Board voted along party lines to ask the Trump administration to help pressure the state into updating its voting machine software, over objections that it invites unprecedented federal intervention. Georgia Recorder / Democracy Docket: The resolution, from GOP board member Carolyn Roddy, cites a Mullin letter alleging the state's QR-code voting machines might violate federal law, and directs the state to share election-system data with DOJ and DHS. Board Chair John Fervier (R), Gov. Brian Kemp's appointee, opposed it: "I have a fundamental issue with the federal government becoming involved in Georgia elections." The board's lone Democrat, Sara Tindall Ghazal, called it "federal overreach" and noted the software fix "cannot be done" before the midterms despite the resolution's framing. Board member Salleigh Grubbs voted for it while insisting she opposes federal intervention.