Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Trump demands control of state elections—or else

 

Trump demands control of state elections—or else

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/22/800059352/elections/trump-demands-control-of-state-elections-or-else/ 

Trump demands control of state elections—or else

by Lisa Needham
Staff
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A person walks past a voting sign during the first day of early voting for the primary elections at the Dunwoody Library in Atlanta, Monday, April 27, 2026. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
APA person walks past a voting sign during the first day of early voting for the primary elections at the Dunwoody Library in Atlanta, on April 27.

The administration’s efforts to force states to let President Donald Trump control elections keep getting shot down by courts unwilling to warp the Constitution to grant Trump’s wishes, so it’s changing tactics. 

If they can’t win on the law, they’ll win with the purse strings and illegally withhold money from states that won’t comply with Trump’s conspiracy-addled demands. The money the administration is threatening to withhold, however, only highlights how little Trump cares about the country’s safety and security and how far he will go to get his way. 

States that refuse to bend the knee and let Trump dictate how their elections work could face losing 20% of Department of Homeland Security grant money that is intended to be used to protect infrastructure, combat terrorism, and prepare for disasters. Sure seems like a weird move for an administration that constantly claims that we are awash in terror and DHS needs infinite funding to keep us safe.

Cartoon by Drew Sheneman
Drew Sheneman/Tribune Content AgencyCartoon by Drew Sheneman

To avoid losing millions of dollars, states have to agree to Trump’s unenforceable, unconstitutional demands. State election officials would have to run their voter rolls through the administration’s SAVE database to verify citizenship. Gosh, I can’t figure out why states wouldn’t rush to use an error-prone database after seeing how things played out in eager early adopters like Texas and Missouri. 

In Texas, the database incorrectly flagged at least 87 citizens as ineligible to vote, and in Missouri, the database was wrong in hundreds of cases. Out of 690 people flagged as noncitizens in St. Louis County, roughly 35% were actually citizens who had registered to vote at naturalization ceremonies. Last December, 70 county clerks—the people who actually know how to run elections—sent a letter to congressional leadership explaining the database kept flagging “individuals we know to be U.S. citizens—our neighbors, colleagues and even voters we have personally registered at naturalization ceremonies.” 

It’s not just clerks who realize this database is garbage. On Monday, Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan blocked the government from using it, saying it “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable.” Oh, and also that “the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.

Even if they weren’t forced to use the government’s shoddy database, states would still be required to phase out certain electronic voting machines because Trump is fixated on conspiracy theories about them. He already installed an election denier, Kurt Olsen, as his election security czar, and Olsen immediately began trying to pressure the Commerce Department to ban the use of Dominion voting machines, an effort that faltered when Olsen couldn’t provide any evidence justifying a ban. 

All of this is unconstitutional, full stop. The executive branch, by design, has no meaningful role in elections. The Constitution leaves it to the states and to Congress, which can make or alter state regulations. You will note a distinct lack of any references to the president or the executive branch there. 

Regardless, the administration keeps suing states that refuse to treat Trump’s voter suppression executive orders as binding law rather than just a little piece of paper Trump signed. However, they also keep losing.

Related| Trump will do anything to rig elections—even kneecap his own nominees

Trump also isn’t having any success ramming his SAVE bill through Congress, because even his own party won’t fall in line and vote for it. Hence, the pivot to withholding funds. 

Of course, that’s not the only thing Trump is doing to wreck elections. The administration has already begun implementing its rule requiring the Post Office to track all mail ballots and to send them only to voters on approved lists submitted by states. This isn’t just unconstitutional. It’s also a chaotic, impossible demand to do this in time for the midterms. Unsurprisingly, the administration already faces a lawsuit about that. 

The administration is also kicking around the possibility of deploying armed federal agents to polling places, even though the law explicitly forbids it. It’s also seizing state voter rolls based on Trump’s ongoing worm-brained insistence he won in 2020. 

At root, Trump and the GOP believe that any time a Democrat wins an election, it must be fraud, and couldn’t just be that the Republican candidate sucked—looking at you, Spencer Pratt. But since Trump can’t get the courts or Congress to fully sign onto this, he’s left with his perennial threat to withhold money to force states to comply. 

This isn’t how democracy works, but this administration doesn’t care.

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  1. Comment by b4xtc.

    It simply amazes me how many laws Trump has broken and his absolute revocation of the oath he took to protect the constitution and yet he has had absolutely no personal consequences for these blatantly and at times quite heinous illegal acts in office.

    From murder on the high seas to the attempted theft of 1.8 billion dollars from the U.S. taxpayers, it just continues with each day Trump is in office.

    Of course he has to rig elections, because that is the only way that any MAGA could ever win at this point, which is really ironic because as he claims there is massive voter fraud in the U.S., outside of himself, no one else in America is trying to commit voter fraud and rig elections.

    Trump himself is the only real source of voter fraud and attempted election rigging in the United States.

    So in a way he is right, we need to protect our voting system from fraudsters like him and his cabal of criminal cronies. I'm hoping the courts keep his shenanigans at bay, but they have been trying for decades to put judges on the bench for just this scenario, so they can strike down our voting rights.

  2. Comment by Talmas.

    I have a response from our Blue State leaders to the Orange Anus, fuck off!!

  3. Comment by bezzbubb.

    shouldn't courts be dismissing his cases and fining him? his cases have no obvious merit since they violate clear rules in our constitution. it's not like they have to think too deeply, or at all, by backing what the constitution actually says.

  4. Comment by BobRR.

    If any of Trump's goons start hanging around my area, we are going to tell them to scram.

    I am against people taking up arms, but I would hope that my state polling stations were protected by armed guards.

  5. Comment by Zeeksmom.

    Remember to send your comments about the proposed USPS rule change in by July 2. They go to: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov. There's no reason why EVERY person on this site can't write and say they object. I posted a long letter a couple of days ago that I will edit again and send, but all you really need to say is election fraud in this country is virtually non-existent, the proposed rule change is unnecessary and racist, it bypasses the states' Constitutional authority to run elections, and you oppose it.

    • Reply by Rise above the swamp.

      Done! Thank you for posting this address.

  6. Comment by No more.

    This is an old Republican canard going back to Reagan. If they can't win on the issues, and they can't as the are focused on enriching the already rich, so they must cheat to win. Reagan did it by convincing the Iranians to withhold the deal Carter worked out until he became president. That happened as soon as he said "I do". H.W. Bush had a little war and lost a second term by not having a big enough chest-pounding skirmish. His son remedied that deficit several times over by lying us into two wars. He knew, and told his biographer, that the voting public gives a war president a second term. And I could go on but the stomach churns.

    • Reply by decisivemoment.

      Nixon pulled that on Vietnam with Johnson/Humphrey.

  7. Comment by tekno2600.

    The courts are too slow and feckless. When Rump sends armed goons to election sites on Election Day, it will be a bit late to go to court and stop them. There needs to be a preliminary injunction and state police ordered to arrest the federal agents violating the law, with an authorization to use deadly force if necessary. If they don’t, the dictator will not hesitate to do use that against them,

    • Reply by BobRR.

      YES.

    • Reply by teacherbill.

      You may be right. Trump is increasingly scared, unhinged, impulsive and unpopular. That combination will almost certainly lead to ham handed attempts to interfere by posting troops in cities he views as "Enemies". A relatively small group of Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and of course Minneapolis should expect troops at polling stations. Those troops will be there partially to intimidate voters but also to provoke citizens to violence so that voting can be stopped in those places and votes be ignored.

      The ensuing chaos is what he seeks.

      It is absolutely imperative that voters. be neither intimidated nor provoked to violence. Our nation needs our citizens to resolutely and fearlessly dedicated to democracy.

    • Reply by Adammc2112.

      I think we Minnesotans have them figured out. They want violence, we'll offer hot dish. We are also one of the highest ranking states for voting. Typically in the 60-70% range if I remember correctly. So we take our vote seriously and won't put up with any shenanigans.

  8. Comment by Truth Will Out.

    This is probably down below somewhere, but a judge threw out SAFE today as an unreliable tool that could improperly deny voting rights to valid voters. Thank God at least some of our courts are still functional. No doubt the trumpies will drag this straight to the totally dysfunctional supreme court.

  9. Comment by tom 47.

    An f-in’ sh*tshow with garbage information. Think, throwing dust in the air to confuse, or sh*t at the wall to see what sticks. Or both, and more.

  10. Comment by sgkos.

    It's the constitution stupid...

    • Reply by BADGERALUM.

      I remember when not too long ago the gawdawful Tea Party required a "Constitutional Justification" for all proposed legislation submitted to Congress. The all carried miniature booklet copies of the Constitution in their pockets. It was ridiculous and solely performative. Now the maga GOP is willing to abide by obviously and overtly un-Constitutional actions by the Executive Branch. They are spineless, clueless weasels who have no business running this Country. In addition to what's stated in the diary, Congress Constitutionally holds the "power of the purse". Funds can only be withheld by the Executive Branch under very limited circumstances. This clearly ain't one of them. The fact that tens of millions of voters still support the GOP mainly because they're "sticking it the Libs" makes me really question the supposed goodness of human nature. Their hatred (and ignorance) somehow allows them to rationalize all the harm maga has done and continues to do to this Country.

    • Reply by ktoz.

      “ They are spineless, clueless weasels who have no business running this Country.”

      They know exactly what they’re doing, setting up a dictatorship. In their minds, “the people” have no right to choose their leaders.

  11. Comment by RedlandsCalif.

    Not only does a president have no Constitutional role in elections, neither does a dictator.

    • Reply by OvertheRainbow.

      Unless of course, you are trump who thinks he is neither president, a dictator,or a king. trump thinks he is a god. Maybe we need to summons the Greek and Roman gods of old to show don what's what.

    • Reply by inappropriateideology.

      I invoke the Christian God -- who is someone totally different than what the "Christians" who really are worshipping Trump, think He is. And the teachings of Jesus when He spent time on Earth bear out rather clearly and in no uncertain terms that Trump has nothing to do with Him. I have a feeling He will show Trump and those who serve him "what's what" when their time comes--i.e. they will be quite unpleasantly surprised where their soul ends up when they die. Of course it's between them and Him, and I can't speak for Him, just saying....

      Meantime it is our duty (not just as Christians if we are, but American citizens) to stop his destructive acts of tyranny as best we can, even if Trump is the Antichrist itself (probably a precursor unless he somehow does manage to take over the world for a season as St. John's Revelation says) and we lose the Good Fight for the next few years. But Trump will get his in the end.

      Not meaning to preach religion here--I was a longtime agnostic who in part was deceived by the horrible example of many many "Christians" and swore I'd have nothing to do with any of them--but it is how I see it. And real Christians who see this THING as the abomonation it is, need to start standing up against the bad name it and its minions are giving our faith and Jesus--they are the false prophets He warned us about. Retake the faith, ye Left!

    • Reply by Zeeksmom.

      I think we should ask Ares to take a look at this whole mess.

  12. Comment by Eholburt.

    As the Supreme Court gets ready to rule on mail in voting, it is worth noting that the Constitution gives no role to the Supreme Court in election management. The Supreme Court is violating the Constitution in their upcoming decision.

    • Reply by OvertheRainbow.

      Now, there ya go again,Eholburt, dragging out all of that legal shit again.

    • Reply by BobRR.

      What about the Supremes and the Bush-Gore election impasse?

    • Reply by ShamballaJones.

      Yep. The lawlessness of the supreme court goes back a ways.

  13. Comment by Goatwoman.

    Wait a minute: if the badministration is threatening to withhold Homeland Security money from blue states--does that mean "no ICE for you!"? Because talk about a crazily illegal move devoutly to be wished...

    In a separate topic: The Guardian published a story yesterday about DeSatan seizing a Florida state college (this has to be wildly illegal) to turn into an "anti-woke training ground."

    This despite the huge disapproval and pushback of pretty much every current student, faculty member, and administrator.

    I find it incredibly scary that I had to go to a(n admittedly excellent) British paper to read about this.

    In an even more separate topic: Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan has to be the coolest actual superhero name of the last two years. Thank you for all you do, Judge!

    (I haven't forgotten that it was she who stopped the badministration cold when they tried to sneak a planeful of kids out of the country in the middle of the night, to deport them to another nation none of them had any memories of, and in many cases had ever been it.

    Extreme, ongoing kudos to both the Judge and the anonymous person who called her in the middle of the night to let her know what was going on.)

    • Reply by FLwolverine.

      It’s been a couple of years since DeSatan seized New College. The staff and student body were liberal and inclusive and way too woke for his taste. He wanted to remake it into the Hilllsdale of the south and was able to take it over because of Florida’s bizarre (naturally) laws giving the governor power over the state university system. This takeover of the USF campus is just the latest move. It’s another instance of break things and waste taxpayer money doing it. Maybe things will change a little after his term ends this year, but I’m not holding my breath. No wonder my granddaughter insisted on going out-of-state for college.

  14. Comment by De veritas.

    WE have to be the ones saying — and meaning it — "or else"!

  15. Comment by moxieflux2015.

    Lock. Him. Up.

  16. Comment by busterggi.

    I remember when we had a Constitution.

    • Reply by Perlinator.

      The 14th Amendment states that anyone who incites an insurrection against the United States government is not permitted to hold any federal office. Allowing Trump to be sworn in for a second term was unconstitutional!

      The 14th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits insurrectionists from holding public office on a federal level.

    • Reply by Sanityisagoodthing.

      It absolutely was. The Supreme Court is corrupt and illegitimate. We need to form communities organized outside of the current system and democratically elect people to serve in a parallel system. Like religion and governments of the past have done. Like having courts of law and courts of equity. The system is broken beyond repair. Musk being a trillionaire demonstrates the brokenness. Musk is a threat to the world.

  17. Comment by zoom314.

    California is ready for this or soon will be, CA won't bend, Trump can GET BENT...

    We need BOLD and Italics again!!

  18. Comment by TMerritt.

    Most likely Trump will not succeed, unless the seditious six decide that there is a hidden clause in the Constitution that really does give him electon power over the states. But by far the worst thing is that this will ultimately make Congress eliminating gerrymandering and setting common standards for voting eligibility and other various issues such as when a ballot must be received by the elections bureau all the more difficult.

    • Reply by sfbob.

      It's my understanding, though I could be mistaken, that all federal grant money comes with conditions but those conditions for the most part are contained in the legislation that created the grant programs and cannot be changed by executive order, and certainly not for use as a form of extortion.

    • Reply by zoom314.

      McCain gave a Thumbs down on a Vote to save the ACA, McCain Voted YES, he had nothing left to lose as he was dying of cancer, Trump is a Cancer...

    • Reply by BarbeCul.

      I think you are correct. The problem is that scofflaw tRump just ignores the legislation. The states then need to take him to court, but ultimately the DOJ and SCOTUS do what he wants, 90% of the time. And if he does lose, well he's had "three months of a win" in the meantime.

    • Reply by zoom314.

      The ARRA money had no strings attached, Trump wanted the spent ARRA $2.5 Billion Grant that CA received returned, Trump left empty pawed...

    • Reply by eliteDAF.

      The only reason McCain didn't get my vote was his selection of Palin as VP. I'm still convinced that he did it deliberately to sabotage his own election. He recognized the pressures he was going to have to face and deliberately chose to tank his own selection to ensure that the backers of the Republican Party were not given the opportunity to subvert his own Presidency through all the levers they controlled throughout the party.

    • Reply by BobRR.

      A liberal Republican all my life, I was never going to vote Republican again after the Abu Gharib prison tortures of 2004. I snapped. It took me only ten seconds to become a Democrat, and a progressive one.

      I liked McCain and I voted for him for president in the GOP primary of year 2000. But so help me I could never vote for a Republican again.

    • Reply by BobRR.

      I think Bob Dole may have been the same, sacrificing his candidacy to thwart the oligarchs. I remember right wing talk show host Michael Savage was amazed -- "This guy sounds like he wants to lose".

    • Reply by eliteDAF.

      I admit to being somewhat disgusted by myself these days because I cannot envision even the possibility of voting for someone who calls themselves Republican during the remainder of my lifetime. The Republican party will go down in history as the enablers of Trump and the intentional destruction of the American experiment. Anyone who still calls themselves a Republican* in today's society is intellectually and politically admitting they are ignoring the Constitution and the ideals that America claimed to uphold. And it disgusts me that i can't forget or forgive that.

      *No problem with those who can honestly claim that they USED to be a Republican but can't stomach what the party stands for today. That's understandable. But the last 10 years have made it pretty plain that today's Republican party has abandoned the principles it claimed to endorse during previous decades. Calling yourself a Republican today should be offensive to anybody over 30 who used to call themselves a Republican.

    • Reply by BobRR.

      When I was growing up, my family were LIBERAL Eisenhower Republicans from the northeastern part of the US. My own family heritage goes back to Amos Tuck, a founder of the Republican party and a close friend of Lincoln. Robert Lincoln, the son of the president, was my grandfather's business lawyer.

      So SUE ME, Democrats, for growing up Republican! I'm getting a little agitated now.

      From my perspective as a kid, I saw the Democrats as great heroes like FDR and John F. Kennedy, but also an AWFUL lot of racist segregationist conservatives like George Wallace of Alabama and Lester Maddox (of Georgia, who carried around a hatchet to smash civil rights).

      I HATED these fucking racist Democrats, and even today I resent being called evil because I was a Republican. It was southern Democrats who were evil! Like snakes, they just slithered into the Republican party in the 1970s.

      After Reagan in 1980, being a liberal Republican was no longer possible. I became an independent for a few years. THAT was a waste of time, because you can't vote in a primary!

      So I went back to Republican, hoping that Bob Dole and John McCain could steer the party back to sanity. After the obscenities of Au Gharib, in 2004, I just broke. Never GOP again.

    • Reply by mathGuyNTulsa.

      I agree. I well remember Mark Hatfield, Charles Percy, John Lindsey, and William Scranton, all liberal Republicans in the 1960s. Henry Wallace, Roosevelt's VP from 1941-45, was a former Republican--who got dumped in favor of Truman due to pressure from the very Southern Democrats you mention over his positions on civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 only passed because Everett Dirkson also pushed for its passage (as I recall, more Repblican senators voted for it than did Democratic sensators). Even Bourke Hickenlooper, Iowa's Republican Senator in 1950s and 60s and great uncle to Colorato's current Democratic governor, would never have tolerated the current ignorant fascists that run the Republican party. The realignment that took place in the 90s, where the Southern Democrats "slithered away" (great term, that) to the Republicans cleansed the Democrats of their pernicious influence while simultaneously destroying the integrity of the Republicans.

  19. Comment by ElimuNzuri.

    Joseph Stalin once said that people could have all the elections they want, just as long as he got to count all the votes. Traitor Trump is copying a page from Stalin's playbook. We can have all the elections we want, just as long as Traitor Trump gets to select the voters. Traitor Trump = the 21st century version of Joseph Stalin. Everyone must find ways to resist this heinous attack on democracy.

  20. Comment by CathyM.

    Sounds like a judge agreed (gawd I wish we had bold and italics again!!):

    https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5934681-trump-database-blocked-judge/

    Judge strikes down Trump administration database of Social Security numbers, citizenship status

    A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from creating a centralized database containing Social Security numbers along with information about voters’ citizenship status and other sensitive data.

    District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, an appointee of former President Biden, said officials across numerous government agencies “haphazardly combined and repurposed the private information of millions of Americans, including citizenship data that they knew to be unreliable” in order to comply with President Trump’s March executive order attempting to overhaul federal elections.....

    • Reply by bigwhoop.

      >> Sounds like a judge agreed (gawd I wish we had bold and italics again!!):

      +1, I'm with you on that!

    • Reply by Throw The Bums Out.

      You can have 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 and 𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘴 again (sorry, no underline or other stuff) but it does require a full keyboard with either ctrl or cmd on it (not sure if software keyboards like hacker's keyboard on android work) and a browser that can run addons like tampermonkey.

      https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/570356-universal-text-formatter

    • Reply by BarbeCul.

      THANKS, TTBO! I'm going to give that a try. (And thanks for including demo/proof in your comment!

      Next up on my wish-list: strikeout, and sub/superscript (very useful for TINY snark tags!)

    • Reply by BobRR.

      How can a database of Social Security numbers and citizenship be worth anything after 2-3 months?

      Immigrants with SS numbers are becoming citizens ALL the time, every day.

    • Reply by ShamballaJones.

      It's useful precisely because it mistakenly says that they are not.

 

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