National

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has spent months investigating the results of the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost, according to White House officials, a role that took her to a related FBI search of an election center in Georgia on Wednesday. Gabbard is leading the administration’s effort to re-examine the election and look for potential crimes, a priority for the president, the officials said. The national intelligence director is usually focused on ensuring the president has the best intelligence available to make national-security decisions. Gabbard has been sidelined from some of those deliberations, including the Venezuela operation earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Read Article

National: New GOP anti-voting bill may be the most dangerous attack on voting rights ever | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

Republicans in Congress have unveiled a new bill that would impose the most extreme voting restrictions ever proposed at the federal level. The new bill goes far beyond even the SAVE Act, which the House passed last year and which one historian called “the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history.” It’s being unveiled at a time when GOP anti-voting legislation has been steadily gaining GOP support in the Senate, after a push by President Donald Trump and anti-voting groups. Introduced by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.), the chair of the House Administration Committee, the proposal is called the Make Elections Great Again Act, or MEGA Act — a name deliberately echoing President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Read Article

National: CISA chief uploaded sensitive government files to public ChatGPT | Gyana Swain/CSO Online

The acting director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency uploaded sensitive government contracting documents to a public version of ChatGPT last summer, triggering automated security alerts and raising questions about AI governance at the agency responsible for defending federal networks and critical infrastructure. Madhu Gottumukkala, who has led CISA since May 2025, uploaded at least four documents marked “for official use only” to OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform between mid-July and early August, Politico reported. The documents contained contracting information not intended for public release. Cybersecurity sensors detected the activity in early August, generating several alerts in the first week alone, according to the report citing four Department of Homeland Security officials. Read Article

National: DHS’s Data Grab Is Getting Citizens Kicked Off Voter Rolls, New Complaint Says | Vittoria Elliott/WIRED

Even before winning reelection, President Donald Trump and his supporters put immigration at the center of their messaging. In addition to other conspiracy theories, the right-wing went all in on the false claim that immigrants were voting illegally in large numbers. The Trump administration has since poured billions of dollars into immigration enforcement, and in March, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that states have “access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered.” In May, DHS began encouraging states to check their voter rolls against immigration data with the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). SAVE now has access to data from across the federal government, not just on immigrants but on citizens as well. Experts have warned that using disparate sources of data—all collected for different purposes–could lead to errors, including identifying US citizens as noncitizens. According to the plaintiffs in a new legal complaint, it appears that it’s already happening. Read Article

National: Trump regrets not calling up troops after the 2020 election. What stops him in 2026? | Nathaniel Rakich/Votebeat

Regrets — we’ve all had a few. One of President Donald Trump’s, apparently, is not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election in search of evidence of fraud. That revelation, part of a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Jan. 7, commands particular attention in a world where Trump has already sought to push the boundaries of his power, deploying the National Guard to multiple U.S. cities to crack down on protests and crime. The November midterms will be the first federal general election with Trump as president since that 2020 contest, and even before his comments to the Times, plenty of people were already worried that Trump would attempt to deploy the National Guard around the 2026 election. The National Guard isn’t necessarily the problem here; the Guard actually has a history of helping with election administration, such as when troops in civilian clothing helped fill in for absent poll workers during the pandemic in 2020. But many Democrats and election officials are worried that Trump could, say, send them to polling places to interfere with voting on Election Day. If troops were to take possession of voting machines or other equipment, it could break the chain of custody and invalidate scads of ballots. And if troops just show up outside polling places, even if they don’t try to impede the administration of the election, their presence could still intimidate voters. Read Article

National: How Trump intends to hijack the midterms | Chauncey DeVega/Salon

Donald Trump’s authoritarian chaos machine is running amok. Pro-democracy Americans — and those simply hoping for a return to normalcy — are pinning their hopes on a Democratic victory in November’s midterm elections. But that salvation will not be easy or cheap. Their hopes will face a coordinated effort by Trump and the anti-democracy right-wing to secure victory before a single ballot has even been counted. As the Washington Post reported on Monday, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were a trial run. Then, he “pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers, and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast.” These strategies include “challenging long-established democratic norms” and making “unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.” Read Article

National: Jack Smith Says He Expects to Be Prosecuted Under Trump | Sadie Gurman/The Wall Street Journal

Former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers Thursday that he thought Trump-era Justice Department officials would “do everything in their power” to prosecute him “because they have been ordered to by the president.” Shortly after the congressional hearing wrapped up, Trump said he wanted just that. During the daylong hearing, Smith’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill, the former prosecutor issued his strongest defense yet of the two criminal cases he brought against Trump in the lead-up to the November 2024 election. One alleged Trump unlawfully retained classified documents after his first term, and another focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Both were brought in 2023, ahead of the 2024 election. Neither went to trial, as Smith dropped both after Trump was re-elected, citing longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president. Read Article

National: Alarm as Trump DoJ pushes for voter information on millions of Americans | US voting rights | Sam Levine/The Guardian

The justice department is undertaking an unprecedented effort to collect sensitive voter information about tens of millions of Americans, a push that relies on thin legal reasoning and which could be aimed at sowing doubt about the midterm election results this year. The department has asked at least 43 states for their comprehensive information on voters, including the last four digits of their social security numbers, full dates of birth and addresses, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Eight states have voluntarily turned over the information, according to the Brennan Center, and the department has sued 23 states and the District of Columbia for the information. Many of the states have faced lawsuits after refusing to turn over the information, citing state privacy laws. Some of the states have provided the justice department with voter lists that have sensitive personal information redacted, only to find themselves sued by the department. Nearly every state the justice department has sued is led by Democratic election officials. Read Article

National: Trump administration concedes DOGE team may have misused Social Security data | Kyle Cheney/Politico

Two members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to “overturn election results in certain states,” and one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter rolls, the Justice Department revealed in newly disclosed court papers. Elizabeth Shapiro, a top Justice Department official, said SSA referred both DOGE employees for potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from using their official positions for political purposes. Shapiro’s previously unreported disclosure, dated Friday, came as part of a list of “corrections” to testimony by top SSA officials during last year’s legal battles over DOGE’s access to Social Security data. They revealed that DOGE team members shared data on unapproved “third-party” servers and may have accessed private information that had been ruled off-limits by a court at the time. Read Article

National: DHS’s Data Grab Is Getting Citizens Kicked Off Voter Rolls, New Complaint Says | Vittoria Elliott/WIRED

National: Congressional appropriators move to extend information-sharing law, fund CISA | Tim Starks/CyberScoop

Congressional appropriators announced funding legislation this week that extends an expiring cyber threat information-sharing law and provides $2.6 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), including money for election security and directives on staffing levels. The latest so-called “minibus” package of several spending bills to keep the government funded past a Jan. 30 deadline would extend the Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 through the end of the current fiscal year, Sept. 30. Industry and the Trump administration have been seeking a 10-year extension of a law that provides legal protections for sharing cyber threat data between companies and the government, but a deal on Capitol Hill has proven elusive. The package, announced Tuesday, also would extend the expiring State and Local Cybersecurity Grants Program through the end of fiscal 2026. Both laws temporarily expired during the government shutdown before being included in broader government funding legislation that extended them through Jan. 30. The House Homeland Security Committee has approved legislation on a long-term extension of the grants program, but the Senate hasn’t taken any action on it. Read ‘Article

National: How ‘chain of custody’ helps make elections secure | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

In any given election, a whole lot of people handle the ballots and voting equipment. So how does a ballot stay secure and countable after it’s left the voter’s hands? That’s possible thanks to a critical safeguard in election administration called the chain of custody. The chain of custody is a huge part of why voters can trust that their ballots are counted exactly as they intended. Voters may not give much thought to this process, but if you’re concerned about the security of your ballot and the integrity of your vote, here’s a full explanation of how the chain of custody works. Read Article

North Carolina: ‘Fat-finger mistake’: State, county elections officials tussle over Wilson County sheriff’s race | Will Doran/WRAL

State elections officials voted to allow Bobby Knight to run for Wilson sheriff after his candidacy was challenged by competitors in the upcoming GOP primary. Party affiliation was at the center of the case. Knight has been a registered Republican for years — except for about five hours on the morning of Dec. 1, 2025, when he was a Democrat. An errant tap on his phone while updating his voter registration address accidentally changed his affiliation, he said. State law says someone must be a member of a political party for at least 90 days to run for election as a member of that party. And due to the flub, he didn’t meet that requirement, county officials determined. But the state elections board overruled the county in a 3-2 party-line vote, with the state election board’s Republican majority in favor and the Democratic minority opposed. The decision means Knight will be allowed to run in the Republican Party primary. Read Article

National: Trump is trying to change how the midterm elections are conducted | Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Washington Post

Five years ago, President Donald Trump pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he’s seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast. Trump, openly fearful that a Congress controlled by Democrats could investigate him, impeach him and stymie his agenda, is using every tool he can find to try to influence the 2026 midterm elections and, if his party loses, sow doubt in their validity. Many of these endeavors go far beyond typical political persuasion, challenging long-established democratic norms. They include unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots. Read Article

National: New federal ruling is latest defeat to Trump administration’s election agenda | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

A federal judge on Friday became the third one to block key provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at revising election rules nationwide, ruling that the Constitution gives states and Congress —not the president— the authority to exercise power over elections. The administration signaled it is likely to appeal the decision, the latest blow to Trump’s agenda on elections. His March executive order sought to require proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form, mostly ban the use of machine-readable codes when tallying ballots, and prohibit the counting of ballots postmarked Election Day but received afterwards. The administration has appealed two earlier rulings in other cases against the executive order. The cases could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court, but election law experts told Votebeat the president faces long odds. Read Article

National: MAGA Thinks Maduro Will Prove Trump Won in 2020 | Yvonne Wingett Sanchez/The Atlantic

In the days after American commandos raided Nicolás Maduro’s compound and whisked him out of Venezuela, Mike Lindell wasn’t ruminating about the dramatic military operation or oil prices—he was reviving a long-dead conspiracy theory. Lindell, better known as the “MyPillow guy,” was celebrating because, in his telling, a possible witness to the theory that Venezuela conspired with election-equipment companies to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump was now in U.S. custody. “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections,” Lindell, who has long espoused election falsehoods, told me the day after the Venezuelan dictator’s arraignment. The supposition boils down to this: Venezuela plotted with election-equipment and -technology companies to engineer Trump’s defeat in 2020. There is no credible evidence to support this. But with Maduro in U.S. custody months before the midterms and the Trump administration investigating the 2020 election, an idea that had been disproved by facts and debunked in lawsuits has been revived, with a newsy twist: Now Maduro will prove from a New York jail that Trump defeated Joe Biden. Read Article

National: Judge deals blow to the Trump Justice Department’s use of the Civil Rights Act to ‘clean’ voter rolls | Tierney Sneed/CNN

The Trump administration’s sweeping legal effort to obtain Americans’ sensitive data from states’ voter rolls is now almost entirely reliant upon the Civil Rights Act – a Jim Crow-era law passed to protect Black voters from disenfranchisement – a notable shift in how the administration is pressing its demands. The Justice Department says it wants to use the registration records to “help” states “clean” their rolls by comparing it to other data sets held by the government, according to public comments from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the department’s civil rights division. But Thursday, a federal judge delivered a searing setback, blocking the administration’s bid to obtain confidential information from California, including driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers. Read Article

National: Supreme Court rules candidates can challenge voting laws | Ashley Lopez/NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that political candidates have the legal standing to challenge election laws before voting or counting starts. The case before the court was brought by Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Bost and other candidates, who wanted to challenge a state law that allows election officials to count mail ballots that arrive up to two weeks after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked on time. Many states have laws that offer a buffer, or grace period, to voters to return mail ballots in case there are issues with the postal service, for example. A lower court ruled that Bost did not have standing to challenge the Illinois law. The conservative-majority Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, disagreed. Read Article

National: Election officials say trust with CISA on election security is broken | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security first declared in January 2017 that election systems were “critical infrastructure,” alarmed state election officials pushed back quickly and loudly, fearing the move could lead to a federal takeover of elections. DHS’s designation came during the final days of the Obama administration, as federal officials scrambled to respond to evidence of Russian interference with the 2016 election. Denise Merrill, a Connecticut Democrat who was then president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, helped lead the opposition. “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has no authority to interfere with elections, even in the name of national security,” NASS said in a February 2017 bipartisan resolution urging the new administration to rescind the designation. Read Article

National: The Quiet Campaign That Could Rewrite the 2028 Election | David L. Nevins/The Fulcrum

Most Americans are unaware, but a quiet campaign in states across the country is moving toward one of the biggest changes in presidential elections since the nation was founded. A movement called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is happening mostly out of public view and could soon change how the United States picks its president, possibly as early as 2028. If the compact reaches 270 electoral votes and overcomes likely legal challenges, the national popular vote winner would become president for the first time in U.S. history. Although this effort is not widely known, it could reshape the balance of power for years. So far, 17 states and Washington, D.C., have joined the NPVIC, giving it control of 209 electoral votes. This is about 39% of the Electoral College and 77% of the 270 votes needed for the compact to take effect. Member states include large ones like California, New York, and Illinois, as well as medium-sized states such as Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington. Smaller members include D.C., Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Read Article

National: Trump Regrets Not Seizing Voting Machines After 2020 Election | Alan Feuer, Ashley Ahn/The New York Times

President Trump said during an interview with The New York Times that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election, even though he doubted whether the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to carry out the order effectively. The remarks by Mr. Trump in the interview last week harked back to one of the most perilous moments from his first term in office, when he was urged by some advisers to order his national security agencies to take control of machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems in an effort to find evidence that they had been hacked to rig the election against him. The statement also came as he has continued his attacks on digital voting machines, saying that he wants to “lead a movement” to get rid of them altogether in advance of this year’s midterm elections. Mr. Trump has long been obsessed with voting machines, particularly those built by Dominion, a company that has figured prominently in conspiracy theories that technology was used to rob him of victory in his race against Joseph R. Biden Jr. Read Article

Election Deniers Think the Venezuela Attack Is All About 2020 | David Gilbert/WIRED

Election deniers and MAGA influencers are confident that the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has nothing to do with oil or drug trafficking. Instead, they’re sure it’s all linked to unfounded claims that the Venezuelan government rigged the 2020 election in former president Joe Biden’s favor. President Donald Trump and his administration appear to have boosted these conspiracy theories. In the days after Maduro’s capture on January 3, Trump shared a flurry of posts on his Truth Social platform about election fraud, including ones related to Dominion Voting Systems. Other MAGA influencers posted about Smartmatic, another election company. Read Article

National: U.S. Capitol attack anniversary renews big lie claims, midterm worries | Antonio Fins/Palm Beach Post

The legacy of the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol hovers over the 2026 midterm voting this year, a top elections analyst said on Jan. 6, the insurrection’s fifth anniversary. David Becker, the founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the cloud largely exists because of an effort to “rewrite history” about what happened on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021. In reality, Becker said, what occurred was a violent mob was sent to the Capitol by then-President Donald Trump with the aim of stopping the official election of Joe Biden. “And yet, we’re seeing an attempt to rewrite history,” he said. “It’s been going on almost immediately after those attacks, to not just forget about the events of January 6, but completely reinvent a fake mythology around those attacks.” Read Article

National: Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Rally and Demand More from Trump | Karoun Demirjian/The New York Times

Five years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, several dozen rioters, including many who were jailed and later pardoned, gathered in Washington to retrace their steps and vow to keep fighting for payback, even against the Trump administration. The “J6ers,” as they refer to themselves, have been emboldened by President Trump, who pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,600 people who planned or participated in storming the Capitol to protest the results of the 2020 election. During Tuesday’s anniversary march, they praised Mr. Trump for setting them free, but were critical of his administration for not doing more for them. “Retribution is what we seek,” said Enrique Tarrio, a far-right activist and leader of the Proud Boys, one of the organizers of the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration and Tuesday’s anniversary event. “Without accountability, there is no justice.” Read Article

National: New USPS postmark rule could affect mail voters | Carter Walker/Votebeat

Mail voters in 18 jurisdictions may need to take extra care to ensure that their ballots aren’t rejected under new guidance from the U.S. Postal Service about how it processes mail. In a notice in the Federal Register that took effect Dec. 24, the Postal Service announced that it may not postmark a piece of mail on the same day that it takes possession of it. The change could affect thousands of people who vote by mail in places that allow mail ballots to be counted if they are received after Election Day but postmarked by Election Day. Those policies are in effect in 14 states — Alaska, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia — along with the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The new guidance means that, even if a voter delivers their ballot to the Postal Service by Election Day, it may nevertheless be rejected if it is not postmarked that day. Read Article

National: Trump pulls US out of international cyber orgs | Tim starks/CyberScoop

The Trump administration is withdrawing the United States from a handful of international organizations that work to strengthen cybersecurity. As part of a broader pullback from 66 international organizations, the administration is leaving the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, the Online Freedom Coalition and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Trump’s decision is in line with a president who has expressed hostility toward the existing international order, an approach critics fear creates a leadership power vacuum for U.S. adversaries to fill. Read Article

National: The Supreme Court may leave alone the Voting Rights Act just long enough to keep the GOP from House control in 2026 | Samuel Benson and Andrew Howard/Politico

Republicans want a big Supreme Court redistricting win. They’re losing hope it will help them in the 2026 midterms. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken the Voting Rights Act and open the door to redrawing congressional maps, particularly across the South. Court watchers expect at least a partial win for conservatives that could let the GOP draw more seats for themselves by erasing Black- and Hispanic-majority districts. But while that decision could theoretically come as soon as when the court returns on Friday, many experts think the case is more likely to be resolved with the flurry of decisions the court typically releases in late June. Read Article

National: All eyes on secretary of state races – with 2028 White House at stake | Sam Levine/The Guardian

When Americans go to cast ballots in the midterm elections in 2026, much of the attention is likely to be on races for the US House, Senate and governorships – contests that will serve as a referendum on Donald Trump’s first two years in office and determine the trajectories of the final ones. But further down the ballot, voters will choose secretaries of state in key races that could have a major effect on how elections are run in many US states, including several battleground states that are key to the 2028 presidential race. Twenty-six states are set to choose secretaries of state next year, including the presidential battlegrounds of Nevada, Arizona and Michigan. In many US states, the secretary of state serves as the chief election officer and is responsible for overseeing how elections are run across their state. Many also play an important role in certifying election results in their states. Read Article

National: A court ruling could shrink Black representation in Congress | Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

The United States could be headed toward the largest-ever decline in representation by Black members of Congress, depending on how the Supreme Court rules in a closely watched redistricting case about the Voting Rights Act. For decades, the landmark law that came out of the Civil Rights Movement has protected the collective voting power of racial minorities when political maps are redrawn. Its provisions have also boosted the number of seats in the House of Representatives filled by Black lawmakers. That’s largely because in many Southern states — where voting is often polarized between a Republican-supporting white majority and a Democratic-supporting Black minority — political mapmakers have drawn a certain kind of district to get in line with the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 provisions. In these districts, racial-minority voters make up a population large enough to have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidates. Read Article

Opinion: Jan. 6 Never Ended | Jamie Raskin/The New York Times