Sean Morales-Doyle
@seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social
Director, Voting Rights Program, Brennan Center for Justice
The president thinks it's dangerous to collect even publicly available voter files all in one place. Yet his Justice Department is trying to do just that with confidential personal voter info and entirely inadequate security protections. bit.ly/46tX4nd
“Confidential” Agreements Show Trump Administration’s Plans for States’ Voter Data
At least 10 states have handed over their full voter files to the Justice Department.
brennancenter.org
President Trump has no legal authority over elections and is running out of plays, so he has resorted to rehashing old tropes and nothingburgers. The only way his administration's campaign to undermine our elections works is if voters stay home this fall.
"The point" of the Trump admin's campaign to undermine U.S. elections "is not actually to change policy," @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social told @nytimes.com. "It’s to inject distrust and confusion into our elections" to discourage voters and set the stage for election denial.
The Many Ways Trump Is Trying to Tip the Scales for the Midterms
Here’s how President Trump is using the powers of his office to try to reshape the rules governing the midterms and future elections.
nyti.ms
BREAKING: Today a federal court ruled once again that the President has no authority to make rules for elections and declared unconstitutional his executive order attempting to interfere in mail voting. The USPS can’t decide who gets to vote by mail and the President can’t tell them to.
Brennan Center’s @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social testified before the Illinois Accountability Commission on the ways states can stand up to the threats of ICE at the polls. Watch: bit.ly/4dhUuU5
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has completed its decades-long project to destroy the Voting Rights Act. It has blessed racial discrimination and further encouraged partisan gerrymandering in the Callais ruling. 1/2
In today's disastrous opinion in Callais, SCOTUS essentially rewarded the despicable "Southern Strategy" with a free pass to engage in race discrimination so long as the perpetrators call it partisan gerrymandering. Read this excerpt from page 27:
![Second, a full-blown two-party system has emerged in the
States where §2 suits are most common. Gingles arose in
the context of a one-party system in which black and white
voters had starkly different voting patterns despite their af-
filiation within the same party. 478 U. S., at 59. In the
area involved in Gingles, an overwhelming majority of
white voters did not vote for any black candidate in the
Democratic party primary elections, which for all practical
purposes selected the candidates who would ultimately ob-
tain office. Ibid. And in general elections, white voters in
heavily Democratic areas often ranked black candidates
last among Democrats. Ibid. Such intra-party disparities
showed that black voters had less opportunity to elect their
preferred candidate because of their race, not because of
their partisan affiliation.
When the vast majority of voters, regardless of race, fa-
vors the same political party, a map that is disadvanta-
geous for members of one racial group cannot be explained
on the ground that it was drawn to favor a particular polit-
ical party. But in a State where both parties have substan-
tial support and where race is often correlated with party
preference, a litigant can easily exploit §2 for partisan pur-
poses by “repackag[ing] a partisan-gerrymandering claim
as a racial-gerrymandering claim.” Alexander, 602 U. S., at
21.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f7nmfnzyumexdbejb6x4aqky/bafkreib3uhozh7iafrswjczgtnmcf7xrj22khvwfqhzssevikpcidzsv64)
TODAY: Brennan Center’s @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social testifies before the Illinois Accountability Commission on the ways states can stand up to the threats of ICE at the polls. Watch live at 1 p.m. ET:
Illinois Department of Human Rights
The Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) administers the Illinois Human Rights Act. The IL Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination in Illinois with respect to employment, financial credit, pub...
youtube.com
Please join me @velshimsnow.bsky.social 10a-1p w/ Mary McCord @gtconway.bsky.social Ron Insana @radiofreetom.bsky.social @jeisinger.bsky.social @adamsmith.house.gov @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social @errinhaines.bsky.social #Velshi 1/2
This order came almost exactly a year after Trump issued another EO that purported to require Americans to show a passport or other citizenship doc to register using the federal voter registration form. Multiple courts blocked the first order as an impermissible use of power. Yet here we are again.
This order is an illegal and dangerous attempt to rewrite election rules and eliminate accessible voting options that millions of Americans rely on—including older voters, voters with disabilities, active-duty military, and Americans living overseas.
And there’s more. The order directs DHS to create a citizenship list for every state based on several incomplete and outdated databases. If created, this list would be error ridden, and compiling it would itself violate federal privacy law.
The president can’t decide who votes or how they vote, and this attempt to use the post office as way to do just that is plainly a pretense for acting on longstanding lies about mail voting. All evidence shows mail voting is safe and secure.
Our lawsuit explains how the order violates the foundational principle of separation of powers. The Constitution gives authority to run elections to the states and Congress, not the President. Period. Full stop. End of story.
The order would turn the postal service into a decider of whose ballots get delivered and whose don’t. By law, the postal service must deliver all mail, not just the ballots the President has declared eligible for delivery. No one, including the President, has authority to overrule this law.
This is an unconstitutional abuse of power and its drafters seem to not understand how elections actually work. Courts blocked implementation of the president’s last unconstitutional effort to take over elections, and we expect more of the same here. www.brennancenter.org/media/15454/...
brennancenter.org
This morning, the Brennan Center and co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of several voting rights organizations. We are challenging President Trump’s new executive order that would prevent American citizens from voting by mail. 🧵 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...
Voting Rights Groups Challenge Executive Order on Mail-In Ballots as Illegal Interference in Elections
President Trump’s unlawful executive order would take control of mail-in ballots from the states and create an unvalidated, error-prone system that would risk disenfranchising eligible voters. The pre...
brennancenter.org
As of this morning, we've sued the President over his 2nd executive order. We sued him last year over his 1st order and we won. He has no more authority over elections now than he did then. And this order is no less of a train wreck. So, we expect the same result. brennancenter.org/our-work/analy…
brennancenter.org
Brennan Center@brennancenter.org · 5mo agoPresident Trump has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern U.S. elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him, and we won. We expect the same result this time.
Like we said: President Trump tried an executive order on voting before, we sued him, and we won. He tried again this week. This time his focus was restricting mail voting. So we just sued him again. We expect the same result.
brennancenter.org
Brennan Center@brennancenter.org · 5mo agoBreaking: The president has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result. 1/2
President Trump has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern U.S. elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him, and we won. We expect the same result this time.
"The president doesn't have any authority to write the rules that govern our elections. The Constitution gives that power to Congress and to the states, not to the president." — @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social on Trump's new mail voting executive order.
Trump Signs Order Seeking Federal Control of Mail Voting as He Promotes False Claims
nytimes.com
Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck. 2/2
Breaking: The president has signed an executive order on mail voting. He has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections. He tried a year ago; we sued him; we won. A year later, he has tried again. He can expect the same result. 1/2
Somehow, the SAVE Act might get worse. It already requires a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, which would block millions of American citizens from voting. The new substitute amendment (#4420) would end vote-by-mail as we know it (& more)!
punchbowl.news
As I told @velshi.com recently, the administration is turning us into a "show your papers" country. I carry around a copy of my passport these days. But millions of Americans don't have ready access to their papers. The SAVE Act would block them from voting.
MSNBC - Deadline: White House - MS NOW Breaking News 02/25/2026 | FULL
YouTube video by C Fiebig
youtu.be
Today @washingtonpost.com reported activists are urging Trump to declare an emergency based on claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election and use emergency powers to dramatically alter election rules. Trump has no power to run elections, even in an emergency. 🧵
Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency
Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
washingtonpost.com
Media Matters is fighting the Federal Trade Commission's retaliatory investigative tactics. This week, a slate of amici from across the political spectrum filed briefs supporting Media Matters' suit. The highlights (plus the full briefs) @brennancenter.org ⬇️ www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
Annotated Guide to Friend-of-the-Court Briefs in the Media Matters v. FTC Retaliatory Investigations Case
Seven briefs challenge the FTC’s use of its investigative authority to retaliate against a media nonprofit.
brennancenter.org
The SAVE Act is an attack on the freedom to vote that would block millions of American citizens from voting. #SOTU #SOTU2026
New SAVE Act Bills Would Still Block Millions of Americans From Voting
The “show your papers” requirement is an attack on the freedom to vote.
brennancenter.org
President Trump's administration “has taken dozens of actions to undermine elections that, together, show that an attempted election ‘takeover’ may be underway,” Sean Morales-Doyle writes.
Opinion | Trump Can’t Cancel Elections. He Could Undermine Them.
Mr. Trump’s attempted election takeover is already underway.
nyti.ms
From the DOJ's attempts to access sensitive voter info to dismantling CISA and pardoning the people responsible for Jan. 6, the Trump administration's campaign to undermine elections is underway. But we can fight back. — @seanmorales-doyle.bsky.social in @nytopinion.nytimes.com: nyti.ms/4rLg4WD
