Try and Stop Us Digest — September 8, 2026

Must Read

DOJ Goes To The Supreme Court For The Third Time To Force Through Trump’s Mail-Voting Restrictions

A federal judge has now blocked Trump's mail-voting order three separate times. DOJ keeps going over her head instead of accepting the ruling. New York Times / AP / Politico: The judge wrote the rule "threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail." Solicitor General Sauer called her reasoning "baseless." The Supreme Court gave opponents until Wednesday at 4pm to respond.

States aren't waiting to find out how it ends — North Carolina and Wisconsin are already mailing ballots under the old rules, and New Mexico is exploring using FedEx and UPS instead of USPS. Washington Post: Wisconsin's Republican elections chair, Don Millis, warned the rule would actually backfire on his own party — rural, GOP-leaning counties lack the staff and budget to pivot to expanded early voting the way Democratic-leaning cities can. New Mexico's Secretary of State said the state is treating private carriers as a real contingency plan, not a bluff.

The whistleblower’s most alarming claim still hasn’t been denied. . Democracy Docket / Democracy Docket: USPS's inspector general has now opened a formal investigation. In every court filing since the claims went public, the administration has never directly disputed that one bad barcode could reject an entire batch of up to 10,000 ballots. "I can't tell you how an internal discussion at the Postal Service could possibly have resulted in the idea that a single typographical error on a single ballot would result in the rejection of an entire batch," said David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. The Postmaster General issued a statement defending the system but didn't address that specific claim either.

Another Court Is Keeping DHS's Voter-ID Data Tool Offline

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 to keep DHS's voter-ID data tool offline, with the Trump-appointed judge dissenting. New York Times: The tool lets states compare voter rolls against federal citizenship and Social Security data. "The public interest does not favor interim restoration of a system the government has not made a strong showing it may lawfully operate," the majority wrote. A full decision is expected within 10 days.

Markwayne Mullin Is Going After Voting Machines And A Pro-Voting Research Group

Mullin asked DOJ to investigate whether common ballot-marking devices are trustworthy. New York Times: Election security experts say there's no known instance of the targeted devices being hacked in an actual election. Mullin's letter appeared aimed at laying groundwork to challenge the validity of electronically cast or counted votes.

In the same letter, Mullin accused CEIR — a nonpartisan voter-registration research nonprofit — of violating privacy law over a study from five years ago. Washington Examiner / Democracy Docket: CEIR's David Becker — who also co-founded the voter-list-sharing consortium ERIC — called the accusations baseless: "DHS did not contact CEIR for any information or clarification before Mullin issued his letter."

Trump’s Fraud Crusade Keeps Producing Almost Nothing

Georgia got a subpoena for 13 people. Washington, 2. Wisconsin, roughly 15 — a far cry from the tens of thousands DHS has publicly claimed. MS Now: "The small numbers of subpoenas that they've issued show that this is not the widespread phenomena they wanted the public to believe it could be," said Andrea Flores, a former DHS official under Obama and Biden. DHS's own claimed number has already dropped from 250,000 to 24,000 "potential" cases.

When DOJ actually brought charges, the total nationwide came to just five people. Votebeat: The cases span Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Jersey, covering four noncitizens and one U.S. citizen combined — out of an electorate of roughly 240 million registered voters nationwide.

Officials Say The Confusion Around Mail Voting May Be The Point

From an 83-year-old Arizona retiree who won't use drop boxes to a Florida elections supervisor whose court-compliant envelopes just got rejected anyway, voters and officials are already dealing with real chaos — regardless of how the legal fight ends. New York Times: "This White House is making it so hard for people to participate in the democratic process," said Hector Sánchez Barba of Mi Familia Vota. Florida's Leon County had its Postal Service-compliant envelope design rejected days before ballots were due to go out, with no time left to redo it.

House Democrats' Top Election Watchdog Has Gamed Out 150 Different Ways Trump Could Try To Disrupt November

Rep. Joe Morelle says his two biggest fears are ICE or troops at the polls and a federal seizure of ballots. Politico / Politico: "I have deep concerns about [Postmaster General] Steiner and his conduct over the Postal Service," Morelle said. He's urging states to staff up and count faster to avoid opening the door to conspiracy theories about delays, and confirmed Democrats' New Battlefield Project will train tens of thousands of poll observers nationwide.

In The States

NEVADA — The Secretary of State's office has quietly received seven DOJ subpoenas for voter data over the past three months — a dramatic escalation state officials hadn't previously disclosed. Nevada Independent: Cisco Aguilar had already accused the administration of trying "to intimidate us into turning over protected voter data." DHS previously claimed 15,903 potential noncitizens were on Nevada's rolls; it has since acknowledged confirming just 185.

NEW HAMPSHIRE — An appeals court kept a block on the state's 2024 anti-voting law in place just days before the Sept. 8 primary, preserving an affidavit option for voters who lack citizenship documents. Democracy Docket: The 1st Circuit found state officials moved too slowly to claim they'd suffer "irreparable harm," and warned that abruptly reversing course now "would potentially prevent some voters from participating."

NORTH CAROLINA — Hours before the state's first mail ballots went out, its elections board passed new rules on a party-line vote making it easier to disqualify a mail ballot over an unsealed envelope or a signature mismatch. Raleigh News & Observer: Gov. Stein called it "a slap in the face to voters" and "a blatant circumvention of the law." The rules were passed as memos specifically because a legislative-review requirement had already blocked them as permanent rules.

What Experts Are Saying

A leading election law scholar says this should be an "easy" case for the Supreme Court — and that Trump's solicitor general's argument accidentally proves the stakes. "I have never in over thirty years of teaching and studying election cases ever seen an attempt like this one to roll out a major change in election administration against the will of state and local election officials... This is not a rollout that hurts Democrats and helps Republicans; it's a rule that threatens mass disenfranchisement of voters across the political spectrum and in red and blue states." — Rick Hasen, UCLA School of Law, via Law Dork

A legal analyst says Trump's mail-voting scheme is illegal, unconstitutional, and unlikely to succeed — but the damage from the attempt is still real. "This is a blatant attempt at mass disenfranchisement by bureaucratic obfuscation... [But] just because the scheme is illegal, unconstitutional, incompetent, and unlikely to succeed in disenfranchising voters does not mean it won't do damage. Judging it by its competence rather than its character undersells it." — Andy Craig, The UnPopulist

Headlines

Trump's Attacks on Voting

CNN: Will the Trump administration send federal officers or troops to the polls? Here’s what we know

Financial Times: ‘Sowing doubt’: Trump’s attempt to change voting causes chaos for state officials

New York Times: Maria Bartiromo's Downfall at an Increasingly Cautious Fox News

Democracy Docket: Blue states urge Supreme Court to sit out Trump's anti-mail voting order fight for now

Votebeat: How a contested statistical model fueled doubts about the 2024 election

In The States

Votebeat: Arizonans receive confusing notices amid flawed implementation of new law

Democracy Docket: Gerrymander foes urge Supreme Court not to revive GOP map in Missouri