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Donald Trump and his administration haven’t hidden their desire to use the power of the executive branch to manipulate the system to favor Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.
The president recently called for Texas to gerrymander its voting districts to net Republicans an additional five GOP-friendly districts ahead of next year’s elections, and a new report from The Washington Post shines a light on other actions Trump officials and allies have taken recently that could threaten free and fair political races in 2026 and beyond.
As the Post reports:
The Trump administration and its allies have launched a multipronged effort to gather data on voters and inspect voting equipment, sparking concern among local and state election officials about federal interference ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The Post reports one of these “unusual” efforts has been led by a pro-Trump consultant named Jeff Small, a former chief of staff to Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who has claimed to be working with the White House as he’s reached out to county election officials to ask whether they would let the feds physically examine their election equipment. Multiple Republican clerks in Colorado have expressed outrage at Small’s request and said it would be improper. (Small did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment on his reported work on behalf of the Trump administration.)
Colorado was the site of some of the MAGA movement’s most intense efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, and one of the key figures behind those efforts, convicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, has been portrayed as a martyr by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, the Post also reports that the Justice Department has asked “at least nine states” for copies of their voter rolls, a move that could grant the department access to nonpublic information about voters.
“Federal law gives the Justice Department the ability to ensure states have procedures in place to remove ineligible voters and otherwise properly maintain their rolls,” the Post reported. “It does not expressly give the agency the authority to review the voter rolls themselves.”
Given that Trump and company have repeatedly lied about faulty voting machines and unlawful voters costing him the 2020 election, it’s not a stretch to worry that any information his administration (or people acting to further its agenda) can acquire from the states could be used to advance election conspiracies or provide a pretext to pressure states to alter their election systems.
The report adds to the evidence that the Trump administration and its adherents are taking unprecedented, illiberal steps to impose their will on elections — steps so glaringly unethical that even some Republicans have to cringe.