Trump's Aggressive Election Strategy

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2:04Alex Ebert:The dispute over a new map drawn to help Republicans gain a seat in the pivotal midterms has triggered confusion and uncertainty for more than a million potential voters who could be shuffled among districts. It comes amid crucial administrative deadlines. Election officials in Missouri have already started mailing ballots to military personnel and other voters outside the country. In two separate rulings this month, the Supreme Court has told Missouri it must use its old map, not the new gerrymandered map drawn up by Republicans. But on Monday, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said the Constitution requires that the state use the same voting map in November that it used during the primary elections.

2:51Alex Ebert:And now the case is back at the Supreme Court. Joining me is Danielle Lang, Vice President for Voting Rights and the Rule of Law at the Campaign Legal Center. Danielle, Missouri's redistricting battle has been among the longest and most complex in the roughly dozen states that have sought to change their house districts over the past year. Explain why it's back at the Supreme Court once again. That's a great question. I think it's because some of the plaintiffs in the Missouri case can't quite get the hint from the Supreme Court. And that seems to be the case, I think, for the Eighth Circuit as well.

3:31So twice this has been before the Supreme Court already. And then the Supreme Court has said, no, we have to follow what the Missouri Supreme Court has said about the redistricting and what map needs to be used. But notwithstanding those two prior orders from the Supreme Court, the Eighth Circuit nonetheless ruled in favor of plaintiffs that are trying to seek the use of a map that the Missouri Supreme Court has said cannot be used. And under those circumstances, we have to go back to the Supreme Court to correct that error.

4:02Alex Ebert:So the Supreme Court ordered Missouri to use its old map in the upcoming midterm elections. However, during the primaries, Missouri used the new map, which was drawn up to give Republicans an advantage. So they're using a map with different lines from that used when voters went to the polls for the primaries. That does seem like it might cause some problems and the Eighth Circuit said it's unconstitutional. Right, but I would just say in this context, I think the Supreme Court has already been clear. You know, these are not new facts. The issue was already brought to the Supreme Court of whether or not the Missouri Supreme Court's order could be evaded and the answer was no.

4:48And so under those circumstances, I wouldn't expect there to be a change in the Supreme Court's position.

4:54Alex Ebert:And also the ballots have been mailed already, right, to overseas and military voters? Exactly. You know, it is far too late to change things. The election is underway and the Supreme Court has already spoken twice. Let's turn now to some of the problems that seem to be arising ahead of the election as President Trump is trying to assert greater federal control over the elections and the Justice Department is employing an aggressive strategy that includes suing states for voter records, investigating election officials, and even seizing ballots in some states. And this is setting off alarm bells as to what might happen on election day.

5:39Alex Ebert:And the NAACP is suing over what it says is a Trump administration plan to station armed federal agents near voting locations. The federal government has sent monitors to election sites before. Tell us what normally happens. Yes, there's been a longstanding federal observer policy and program from the Department of Justice as well as congressional observers, but that's all they are. They are observers. They cannot interfere. They cannot even enter polling places unless they're invited. They have to stand outside. And so it is not the case that that observers can interfere with our elections in any way.

6:23So that's a longstanding practice. And of course, I would expect there to be observers at the polls this year, the same way that they have always been. Of course, there have been concerning and fear-mongering statements from members of the administration suggesting perhaps more nefarious motives at the polls by federal officials. But their federal law is actually very clear. There's a statute that says that you cannot send federal armed officials to the polls, point blank. That is the law. There are no ifs, ands, or buts to that law. And so there is no reason for there to be federal armed officials at the polls.

7:07Alex Ebert:Have the Justice Department or FBI officials hinted that they might be armed? Well, I mean, I think that that is the image that is evoked by FBI officers, ICE and the like, is that those are typically law enforcement that are armed officials. But the point is that there is no kind of military or law enforcement, federal law enforcement permitted at the polls. In fact, many states don't even allow state law enforcement to be at the polls, except for under very limited circumstances. because, of course, voters should feel at ease at the polls. And there are some communities that feel very ill at ease when law enforcement is present.

7:46Alex Ebert:So the NAACP is one of the groups that's suing over this plan to place armed federal agents at the polls. So, I mean, what can they hope to get before an election that would stop that from happening? Yeah, I think that groups like the NAACP are putting down a marker to make it very clear in the litigation that the law stands, that the law is clear, and that federal law enforcement will not be tolerated at the polls and that the civic engagement community, the civil rights community has voters back. And so, you know, we'll see how that litigation plays out and whether or not there will be any kind of preliminary relief thought there.

8:29But one way or another, it lays down a very clear marker. This is the law and we will not tolerate it to be violated.

8:37Alex Ebert:I'm also wondering, so if despite this, armed agents end up at the polls, what happens at the polls? Because at that point you have disruption. I'm sure you have some voters who are intimidated already. What happens if the state runs to court or the county runs to court and tries to get an order? Yeah, first, I just want to assure listeners that we don't have any reason to believe that there is going to be kind of forms of law enforcement at the polls. I expect 2026 elections to go the way that voters normally experience their elections, that they go to the polls, they meet their friendly election officials, they get their sticker, and they go along their merry way.

9:20But, you know, as this lawsuit kind of demonstrates, civic engagement communities are prepared for every eventuality and to protect voters. So what does that look like? Okay, so if law enforcement appears improperly at the polls, voters are going to have community members there with them. They can just go ahead and vote, right? They're going to move forward with their day. They're going to lawfully cast their ballot and move on. And in the meanwhile, there will be very prompt legal action. And I would imagine that any such attempts at deployments would be very quickly cut off.

9:58Alex Ebert:I mentioned the head of the Civil Rights Division before, Harmeet Dillon. Historically, the Justice Department has focused on addressing racial discrimination, language and disability access at polls and other barriers to voting. Under President Trump, that's changed. And now you have the department suing more than two dozen states for their voter rolls. Explain why they want those rolls. Yeah, the Department of Justice has been on a mission to try to hoover up all of Americans' voter data across the entire country, including Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, voter history. There's just no reason for the Department of Justice to do that.

10:47There is no lawful basis for the Department of Justice to do that. And it raises both concerns about their motives as well as the privacy of that data for American voters. And the good news is that they have been unsuccessful. Red and blue states alike have pushed back, and they have been unanimous in their victories thus far in the courts in kind of pushing back on those attempts to hoover up American voter data.

11:12Alex Ebert:Does this search for state voter rolls have anything to do with the case before the Supreme Court where we're waiting for the court to make a decision about the Trump administration's use of the SAVE database? Yes and no, I would say. Technically, no. And the Department of Justice has at times suggested that they are unrelated. But at the same time, we actually do know from reporting that the Department of Justice did appear to be sharing that data with Department of Homeland Security and using this so-called save database to try to match voters to other federal data. And what the district court and the D.C.

11:57Circuit found in that case is that that entire process was unlawful. It violated the Privacy Act, and it had all sorts of both security and accuracy concerns.

12:09Alex Ebert:Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, we'll talk about how state election officials and county officials are trying to game out what might happen, the worst case scenarios during the midterm elections. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off.

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14:15Alex Ebert:While the Constitution largely puts states in charge of elections, President Trump has sought to reach into virtually every corner of the voting process as he boosts baseless accusations of widespread fraud. And he's empowered agencies like the Justice Department to pursue extraordinary legal tactics to assert greater federal control over U.S. elections. I've been talking to Danielle Lang, vice president for voting rights and the rule of law at the campaign legal center. Harmeet Dillon, who's the head of the civil rights division at the Justice Department, warned of criminal investigations of state and local election officials for failing to clean up voter rolls.

15:01Alex Ebert:Sending letters to top election officials nationwide. I mean, is there a reason for her warning? This is intimidation and nothing more. If you'll remember back at the beginning of the year when there was that huge ice surge in Minneapolis, you know, the Department of Justice was trying to kind of trade on, oh, perhaps we will pull back on our ice surge if you will give us this data or information that we want about voters, which just shows the kind of length of intimidation and kind of thuggery that the Department of Justice has been willing to engage in when it comes to their mission to undermine our election.

15:41So I see those letters of kind of trying to threaten election officials into doing their bidding as just another element in that scheme. Election officials have regular list maintenance processes that they go through year round. They are constantly cleaning their rolls to make sure that people who passed away or moved are removed and that everybody who's newly registered gets registered. That's their job and they know how to do it well. I will say the one time that they're not doing it, they're not doing kind of removal list maintenance is right now. In the 90 days before a federal election, it's actually illegal to engage in systematic list maintenance.

16:23So election officials have already gone through all those processes in a timely manner so that they could pause them in the run-up to the election so that nobody gets improperly removed without the ability to kind of fix it before the election.

16:36Alex Ebert:Every investigation, et cetera, has shown that the incidence of non-citizens voting is very, very low. But we had that disclosure in New Jersey of the state software error that registered several thousand non-citizens in 2023 and 2024, including several hundred who ended up voting. And I wonder how much that is giving credence to Trump's continuing claims of fraud and non-citizens voting. Listen, the administration has been on a consistent message, unsupported by the facts or the evidence for a long time, while predating this particular data point about New Jersey, telling Americans lies about the integrity of our elections.

17:27And so I think that you would tell those lies under any circumstances. It is a mission of the administration to undermine our elections. What happened in New Jersey was actually an example of where there are errors, how the system should work. They found the errors, they fixed them, they resolved it. And it's important to note here that that was a data issue. It was not a question of voters trying to engage in subterfuge. These were individuals who had actually disclosed their citizenship status when they got their driver's license. And the agency made an error, a data error. So nothing in a kind of new restrictions on voting or the like would have prevented that.

18:14It was a human data error. And we caught it and we fixed it. And that's exactly what should happen.

18:21Alex Ebert:California's AG Rob Bonta told Bloomberg recently that Democratic state officials are gaming out worst case scenarios for November, including if federal agents show up to seize ballots. What happens if federal agents come to try to seize ballots? Here's what I'll say. I think our elections are going to run really well in 2026. The federal government doesn't have power over running our elections. Their elections are run by thousands of individual jurisdictions with their own power over the elections and election materials. I also think it's right for state officials to be gaming out work case scenarios because, of course, this administration has engaged in a lot of really dangerous threats.

19:10It has engaged in unprecedented activities like going to seize the ballot materials in Fulton County, Georgia. And what I would expect is that state officials will be very well prepared to push back on those, to immediately seek return of those materials, to make sure that we have backup data where possible to verify our election results. And so I am, you know, gratified, although I very much hope it's unnecessary that state officials will have plans for every scenario.

19:44Alex Ebert:And so now as far as there have been all the, you know, the legal battles over mail-in ballots and the post office trying to impose rules on the states submitting ballots, has that all been settled? Is that all over? Yes. The USPS rule is not going to be in place in any way, shape or form for the 2026 election. It has been enjoined by two separate district courts, the First Circuit and the Supreme Court has said we are not going to disrupt that injunction. As far as going back to the Missouri map and the congressional map situations. All this confusion over the maps and this last minute jockeying is because President Trump made that request, starting with Texas, to redistrict.

20:36Alex Ebert:Besides Missouri, are there any other states' maps that are still in question? No, there should not be. Elections are underway. You know, I mean, for the reasons we talked about at the top of our discussion, Missouri also shouldn't be a question except for the kind of unreasonable behavior, I think, of the plaintiffs in that case. And I very much hope that that's going to be put to an end, hopefully, today, if not, you know, later this week by the Supreme Court. And so voters have really been put through the ringer this year with this redistricting war. It's something that voters should not have had to face.

21:15It is absurd for there to be this race to the bottom when it comes to redistricting when there doesn't need to be any redistricting being done mid-cycle. You know, normally we only redistrict every 10 years with new census results. This is unprecedented, but I think that we are at the end and it's time for voters to actually have their voices heard.

21:38Alex Ebert:Is the whole point of a lot of this just intimidation and to try to stop people from coming to the polls? I think that is part of the purpose, but I don't think it will work. I think there is this idea that we can kind of demoralize voters, we can scare voters, we can confuse voters, and so that will change the outcomes of an election. But I actually think American voters are a lot more resilient than that. They can kind of see through all of this morass and see that what's really happening is that there's a lot of attention being paid to the rules of voting, trying to undermine their vote because their vote is powerful.

22:18I am pretty confident that voters are going to be steadfast in making sure that their voices are heard.

22:25Alex Ebert:There's always, I don't know, is it always or often litigation after the elections over results? I suppose I would say often, but it's close to always if you think about a national election, there's always going to be some elections that are very close and therefore lead to some post-election litigation. Are you guys anticipating that there'll be even more this midterm? I think it's really hard to say. You know, a lot of this will often depend on how close the races are. When elections aren't that close, it doesn't really leave a lot of options for candidates to try to undermine the results. where they are closer or where candidates are unwilling to concede to the voice of the American people.

23:14They will sometimes try to use the courts as a way to change the results. But I've been through a few cycles of that now, and it doesn't succeed.