Try and Stop Us Digest — September 9, 2026

Must Read

Show Me Chaos: Missouri's Redistricting Fight Now Has Two Directly Conflicting Court Orders

Hours after Justice Kavanaugh refused to revive Missouri's gerrymandered map, a different Trump-appointed judge ordered the state to use that map anyway. The state Supreme Court has now ordered Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to show cause why he shouldn't be held in contempt. Law Dork / New York Times: "This court cannot and should not reward the secretary's scheme to outsmart Missouri voters, Missouri law and the Missouri Supreme Court," argued lawyers for Richard von Glahn, whose group won the Kavanaugh ruling. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins called the conflicting federal ruling something that "halts a full-on constitutional crisis" — even as the state Supreme Court views him as the one facing contempt. The Missouri Supreme Court has ordered Hoskins to show cause why he shouldn't be held in contempt, with oral arguments in that court set for Thursday morning and Hoskins ordered to appear in person.

Trump's Mail-Voting Order Fight Is Escalating In Court On Multiple Fronts

DOJ's final filing to the 1st Circuit conspicuously never mentions the still-nonexistent ballot portal. Pro-voting groups countered with a brief invoking the Founders' fear of "the Crown's discretionary control over the mail." Democracy Docket / Democracy Docket: DOJ called the rule "modest" and said the requirements are "much more akin to requiring postage." A coalition of 24 Democratic attorneys general shot back that USPS is "regulating well 'outside its wheelhouse’” and that allowing the rule to take effect would be "an unmitigated disaster."

More than 250 sitting and former lawmakers told the Supreme Court the mail voting order is unconstitutional. MS Now: "A naked power grab by a historically unpopular President — who himself regularly votes by mail — to inject confusion and chaos into our elections in a last-ditch effort to keep his party in power," said Rep. Jamie Raskin. Rep. Joe Neguse warned the order would "disenfranchise millions of Americans, silencing an untold number of citizens that rely on mail ballots to make their voices heard."

DOJ Also Wants SCOTUS To Revive A Voter Database Two Lower Courts Already Blocked

DOJ asked the Supreme Court to let DHS use a citizenship and Social Security database to screen state voter rolls — a tool two lower courts already ruled unlawful. Wall Street Journal: Solicitor General John Sauer argued the lower courts made it "harder to detect ineligible voters, undermining the integrity of federal elections." A federal judge already ruled the system unlawful in June; an appeals court agreed last week.

Ballot Rejection Rates Are Already Surging In Vote-By-Mail States — And Republican Voters May Be Hit Hardest

Late ballot rejection rates jumped in Washington and Oregon after USP policy changes. AP: Oregon's late-postmark rejection rate jumped from 9.5% to 13% in a single cycle and two reliably Republican Washington counties saw over 4% of primary ballots rejected; Stevens County's rate quadrupled. "The Postal Service is disenfranchising voters... with a ballot that was cast, but never counted," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, calling it ironic that Trump's own most reliable supporters could be among the hardest hit.

A Growing Coalition Of Legal Veterans — Including Conservative Former Judges — Is Mounting What One Calls The "Full-Out Assault" Response

Groups like the Democracy Defenders Fund, ACLU, and Campaign Legal Center have already won 23 of 26 legal challenges to the administration's voter-data grabs — and they're only accelerating. The Guardian: "The DoJ's slapdash effort at getting the Supreme Court's blessing to turn the USPS into a gatekeeper for mail would be a farce, if it didn't put our fundamental right to vote in the crosshairs," said Anna Baldwin of the Campaign Legal Center. Washington AG Nick Brown put it bluntly: "The chaos that would cause is exactly what Trump wants." Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich called it "the full-out assault on democracy."

In The States

GEORGIA — Seven months after the FBI's dramatic raid on Fulton County's election warehouse, the investigation has produced no indictments, no arrests, and no new evidence. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "This is the most poked, prodded, reviewed election in American and world history and no one's found a thing," said the secretary of state's office's Gabriel Sterling. "Because nothing is there to find." The DNC has since sued for records on any future planned seizures of ballots or voting machines.

MINNESOTA — A state Supreme Court justice openly questioned whether a city's bid to ditch electronic poll books — driven by a conspiracy theory — would actually disenfranchise more voters than it claims to protect. Democracy Docket: Justice Sarah Hennesy cited Shasta County, California's similar switch, which resulted in longer wait times and lower turnout. Oak Grove's own election administrator warned a last-minute switch would be especially disruptive for the roughly 49,000 absentee ballots the county has already received.

PENNSYLVANIA — An attorney who represented a county's 2020 election "audit" now faces possible disbarment for what the state Supreme Court called bad-faith litigation tactics. Spotlight PA/Votebeat: The disciplinary board alleges Thomas Carroll violated 11 separate rules of professional conduct, including filing a motion to delay depositions by citing a technical outage that had already been resolved three days earlier. Carroll called the complaint a "weaponized" attack for "exposing national security evidence."

WISCONSIN — Nearly 50,000 mail ballots are already headed to voters — even as Trump asks the Supreme Court to upend the rules governing exactly that process. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Solicitor General Sauer's own filing warned that "once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them" — an argument for urgency that also underscores the risk of getting this wrong. Wisconsin's Republican elections chair, Don Millis, warned the rule could backfire on his own party nationally: "It's going to be Georgia in 2020 all over again, where the national party ended up giving two Democratic seats in the Senate to Georgia."

What Experts Are Saying

An Ohio elections board chair and law professor did the actual math on what USPS is asking of local officials — and calls it "nothing short of insanity." "USPS has said that could take up to one minute per envelope... a mailing of 10,000 would take over 80 hours... It should be borne in mind that in relatively unpopulous jurisdictions, board staffs are extremely small, sometimes just two or four full-time employees." — William D. Rich, Chair, Summit County (Ohio) Board of Elections; Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Akron, The Democracy Project (NYU Law)