Welcome to Bad News Weekly, your rundown of key attacks on voting rights and independent elections across the country – it’s a way to keep up with what the opponents of democracy are up to. We’ll highlight some of the worst anti-voter efforts, with a spotlight on the South, the original frontline in the fight for voting rights, and still its fiercest.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The biggest structural concern is using this information in an irresponsible manner to fuel the narrative that something is amiss in any election in which the preferred outcome is not the actual outcome.” – Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, on the DOJ’s effort to compile voter roll data from over 30 states.
NOTABLE TRENDS
DOJ Plans to Give States Voter Roll Data to DHS For Criminal And Immigration-Related Investigations: Since May of this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ), through both the Civil Rights Division and Criminal Division, has requested voter roll data from at least 30 states, over 20 of which were demands for a complete list with sensitive information. Reuters first reported that the DOJ is considering transferring the voter roll data to Homeland Security Investigations, a part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for use in criminal and immigration-related investigations, which was later confirmed by a DHS spokesperson in a statement to Democracy Docket. Some legal experts have said that the data sharing idea raises privacy concerns and would also conflict with what the DOJ told states it wanted to use the voter data for.
Over 30 Million Voters Have Been Run Through a Federal Citizenship Check Program: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that election officials have used the SAVE program to check the information of more than 33 million voters. The program allows officials to use voters’ information to check if they are US citizens or if they have died; however, there is still uncertainty over what USCIS or DHS do with the data that is run through the SAVE program but USCIS policy dictates that all queries are saved for 10 years for audit purposes. “I don't know if this means that the USCIS now has a depository of one-sixth of all [the country's] registered voters,” said Charles Stewart, a political science professor who directs the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
STATE ACTIVITY
Arizona • Counties Defy State Attorney General Opinion, Leading to Thousands of Voters Caught In State Record-Keeping Error Losing At Least Some Voting Rights: In an effort to create a uniform policy statewide for voters that were erroneously listed in state records as having provided proof of citizenship, state Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) issued an opinion that county recorders cannot legally suspend voters’ registrations or move them to the state’s federal-only voter roll because they fail to respond to notices requesting their proof of citizenship. However, Maricopa and Pinal counties, two of the largest in the state, have defied the opinion, leading to disparate treatment of affected voters across the state. In Maricopa County, affected voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship in time will only be allowed to vote in federal elections while, in Pinal County, the county will suspend the registration of any affected voters if they try to update their registration without providing citizenship documentation.
Tennessee • Davidson County Purged Roughly 80,000 Voters: Davidson County, home to Nashville, purged 80,170 voters between Dec 1, 2024, and June 1, 2025, the most of any other county in the state reported in the same time period, based on reports published by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett. A majority of the voters purged, over 60,000, were inactive and were purged after not responding to a letter confirming their registration, did not update their registration, and did not vote over two regular November elections. Another 13,710 active voters were purged as well. Davidson County purged more voters in this six month period than in the past six months combined.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Cleta Mitchell Called On Congress to Pass a “Super SAVE Act”: At a sparsely-attended rally on Capitol Hill organized by the Tea Party Patriots, Cleta Mitchell, who runs the Election Integrity Network (EIN) and likely helped write the SAVE Act, called for Congress to pass a “Super SAVE Act,” a “stronger” version of the bill that is currently stalled in the Senate. The SAVE Act currently pending in Congress would require people to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person in order to register to vote or update their voter registration. Mitchell’s “Super SAVE Act” would require all states to share their driver’s license data and their voter rolls to DHS to check citizenship status.
Paid for by Fair Fight Action.
34 FELON is doing the most to cheat midterms 2026, because he knows he will lose! Pay attn to your state voters laws, the cheaters GOP rep lawmakers of perspective red states are already changing the state voters laws! Pay attn please!