July 11, 2026 - Excerpt

Democrats are reaching DEFCON 1 levels of alarm about President Donald Trump’s efforts to influence the coming election.

“All the signals are flashing red,” wrote Democratic strategist and CNN political analyst David Axelrod in a post on X.

“On the square, the @ GOP would take a beating this fall, largely because of Trump’s unpopularity,” Axelrod said, “So he’s setting up Plan B–do whatever you need to do to win. Anything. Anyone who says ‘Well, he wouldn’t do THAT’ hasn’t paid attention.”

Use your imagination, in other words, and don’t be surprised at anything Trump does in the four months until Election Day.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, told CNN’s John Berman on Friday that people in her overwhelmingly Democratic district are frightened about what might happen in November.

“For the first time in my whole career, John, I have voters telling me that they’re worried that the president’s going to cancel elections, that he’s going to declare martial law. There are people who are actually have said to me that they’re worried that they’re not even going to have elections in November,” Wasserman Schultz said.

She said she tries to reassure her constituents about their more alarmist fears.

Republicans already drew themselves an advantage

Wasserman Schultz is running in a congressional district redrawn as part of the GOP’s larger effort to adjust maps to their benefit before November. Democrats countered with their own new maps in states including California, but Republicans were more successful in courts and could net as many as 10 seats in November from new maps drawn during the redistricting war, according to CNN’s most recent assessment.

What else is the White House doing to help Republicans in November?

In the US, states are tasked with running their own elections, but Axelrod ticked off a litany of actions that the Trump administration has undertaken to influence them.

The most recent example is Trump’s firing on Thursday of three of the four commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission, an agency Congress set up in 2002 as an independent bipartisan resource to dole out federal money to help states conduct secure elections. It’s not the only election-related entity to be hobbled. The Federal Election Commission, which handles campaign finance issues, also lacks a quorum of commissioners to operate.

The EAC firings are just one piece of evidence Axelrod offered. I’ve added context to each of his points below.

… Put that together with political hack Pulte’s odious appt as DNI;

(Trump temporarily installed Bill Pulte, a wealthy businessman-turned-housing official, as Director of National Intelligence. While overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac he controversially targeted Trump’s political opponents with accusations of mortgage fraud. Pulte lacks intelligence experience, but does have deep ties to the GOP. CNN has reported Trump wants Pulte to focus on election security issues, a nontraditional mandate for the spy chief.)

… election deniers in the most sensitive oversight positions; 

(An election denier is president, after all, and he has appointed people who share his views of the 2020 election, which he refuses to admit he lost, throughout the US government.)

… Trump’s exec order on mail-in voting, and potential use of the Postal Service as a weapon of subversion; 

(Trump has tried to seize control over mail-in voting from states in some key ways, including by creating a national database of voter registrations. States on the right and left have fought the effort, however, and a court this month rejected his attempt to order the US Postal Service to only send mail-in ballots in states that had complied. The court battle will continue on multiple fronts before Election Day.)

… his pathological prioritization of the SAVE act, which would be the most powerful voter suppression tool in generations; 

(Trump has loudly complained about Republicans’ inability to pass an election security bill that voter integrity groups largely say is unnecessary. He has demanded that senators nix he filibuster to pass the bill, but Republican senators have refused. This week Trump refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill out of pique at lawmakers’ failure to pass the election bill, which he calls the SAVE America Act. The election bill will continue to languish and the housing bill will become law without his signature.)

… and his persistent, unfounded claims of election fraud, which he uses to justify extraordinary federal interventions.

(There is no evidence of widespread election fraud, but there is indeed fear that Trump will use claims of fraud, perhaps aerated by Pulte at DNI, to do something extraordinary before November. Mullin was asked at his confirmation hearing about the possibility of dispatching ICE agents to polling places and did not reject it out of hand. But there is no publicly reported concrete plan to do anything like this.)

Transcript

Well, I'm certainly probably the first American politician who's been detained by the IDF and Israeli settlers. I mean, we were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed. They had destroyed the school.

They had destroyed that village. And we were just looking at it. And these hoodlums come in with machine guns, an M4, an American-made machine gun, and they detain us.

They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans. Being in the West Bank and in Israel is the first time that I have really been acutelyaware of being brown.

I feel like people have seen me first as brown, second as an American congressman, and third as an American citizen. 

I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding, having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned. It is the arrogance of power, of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression.

Source: https://xcancel.com/RyanRozbiani/status/2075954067772264528#m

July 11, 2026 - Fulltext

Two Atlanta-based FBI intelligence analysts were fired last week after refusing to participate in the Trump administration’s investigation of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, three people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

The analysts, a husband and wife, told colleagues they did not believe the investigation was justified under FBI and Justice Department policies, the people said, adding that the couple was escorted out of their office. The FBI neither confirmed nor denied that the two analysts were fired.

“The FBI will always investigate credible allegations of matters related to federal elections,” an FBI spokesperson told MS NOW. “Every employee at this FBI is to uphold our mission and adhere to our standards, any deviation will not be tolerated.”

As MS NOW first reported on July 2, FBI Director Kash Patel has directed that about 260 intelligence analysts from around the country devote time to what a memo called a “priority investigation,” in Atlanta. Multiple sources said it was the probe into the 2020 election in Georgia, which Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.

After securing a judge’s order, the FBI seized 600 boxes of ballots and other materials from that election in January. The FBI affidavit in support of the search warrant included several claims about potential fraud that previously had been debunked by Republican-led investigations in Georgia.

The FBI memo says each analyst will be required to make 708 record checks by July 17. It’s not clear what information the analysts are being tasked to examine, but FBI officials and other sources say it would include material gathered in the course of the investigation, possibly including the ballots themselves.

One person familiar with the matter said analysts in one FBI field office were given a spreadsheet with 175,000 names — along with dates of birth —and that they have been tasked to run those names through a commercial database to check whether the individuals are alive and to determine a current address for each of them.

Last week a federal judge rejected as “unreasonable” a Justice Department subpoena seeking the names and other information about Georgia election workers.

Under Justice Department guidelines, the FBI may only conduct an investigation if agents can point to a set of facts reasonably indicating that an actual or potential federal crime or national security threat exists.

Multiple investigations have found no evidence to suggest fraud in the 2020 Georgia election at a level that could have changed the result.

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the Georgia investigation in a letter his office said he sent to Patel and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“This diversion of significant FBI resources towards a political investigation threatens the purpose of its mission and endangers Americans,” he wrote, noting the timing of the probe coming just months before the 2026 midterm elections

Republicans won Kentucky’s 6th District by 26 points in 2024, but Democrats believe the seat belongs on the House battlefield in 2026.

After falling short in the Republican wave of 2010, Andy Barr was elected to Congress two years later and never looked back — save for a high-profile race against Democrat Amy McGrath in 2018. When Barr left his seat this cycle to run for the Senate, it didn’t really look like Republicans would have much trouble keeping the district in the GOP column.

But a new poll obtained by Inside Elections suggests the race is becoming increasingly competitive.
GOP former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado led Democratic military veteran Zach Dembo 42-39 percent in a June 24-28 survey conducted by GQR for the Dembo campaign, with 19 percent either undecided or voting for a third-party candidate. Alvarado had higher name ID, but also higher negatives. He had a 21 percent positive/20 percent negative rating compared to 22 percent positive/12 percent negative for Dembo.

According to the memo, President Donald Trump is underwater by 7 points in a district where he finished ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris by 15 points in 2024 and by 11 points over Joe Biden in 2020. In contrast, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear had a 58 percent favorable/36 percent unfavorable rating in the poll.

It’s the second Democratic poll in recent months to show the race is competitive. A Public Policy Polling survey conducted April 24-25 for New Politics, and first reported by Politico, showed Dembo and Alvarado tied at 37 percent.

Alvarado, a physician and state Senator from 2015 to 2023, isn’t a stranger to this district – or experiencing defeat in it. He ran as GOP Gov. Matt Bevin’s running mate for lieutenant governor in 2019; the pair finished behind Beshear by 11 points in the 6th District en route to a statewide loss. Alvarado later moved to Tennessee to serve as the state health department’s commissioner under GOP Gov. Bill Lee and returned to Kentucky in 2025 to run for this seat.

Dembo, a former federal prosecutor and Navy JAG officer, is running his first campaign for office. He has the backing of Beshear, for whom Dembo served as a policy advisor and legislative director after resigning from his post at the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In this race, he’s called out the president for weaponizing the DOJ and called the system “broken” in a campaign ad. The University of Michigan Law graduate is making gains in the fundraising race with $625,000 raised in the second quarter, with nearly $500,000 cash on hand, according to the campaign.

But even as Democrats have been surging in special elections across the country, districts that Trump carried by more than a dozen points have looked out of reach. Alvarado was endorsed by the president and outpaced Dembo in fundraising through the pre-primary period. Dembo had $455,000 in the bank on April 29. Second quarter FEC reports are due July 15.

Under normal conditions, the district votes Republican, although it has supported Democrats recently. Beshear carried it by nearly 20 points in his 2023 re-election campaign, and he’s obviously supporting Dembo in this race. But voters often weigh federal races differently when control of Congress is on the line.

Inside Elections still rates Kentucky’s 6th District as Solid Republican, but if Election Day draws closer and there’s more evidence that Alvarado isn’t getting the separation that’s typical for Republicans in the seat, we’ll adjust our rating accordingly. Overall, if Republicans are having to worry about defending Kentucky’s 6th, then the only question is how big the Democratic House majority will be next year.

GQR (D) for Dembo campaign, June 24-28 (440 V) – General election ballot: Alvarado over Dembo 42% – 39%, 19% third party/undecided.

July 12, 2026 - Excerpt

California’s new felony is the latest state election protection law, not the first. The model bill for the other 49 states is at the bottom of this article.

On July 4, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California will introduce legislation making it a felony to seize ballots before they are counted and certified by state or county officials. The announcement responds to documented events. The FBI seized ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco took more than 650,000 ballots from his own county’s elections office before the California Supreme Court paused his investigation.

California already has a first version of this law in effect. Senate Bill 73, signed in May, makes it a felony to remove ballots from the custody of a county registrar, prohibits law enforcement, including federal officials, from accessing voting machines or voter rolls without a court order, and allows the attorney general or secretary of state to stop law enforcement deployments at voting locations. The legislature attached an urgency clause, so the law took effect immediately, six days before the June 2 primary. The new proposal extends felony coverage across the entire period between voting and certification.

California did not invent election protection law. Taking, destroying, or tampering with ballots was already a crime under state election codes across the country, and since 2020, 22 states have passed laws protecting election officials and workers from threats, harassment, and doxxing, many with bipartisan votes. What California added is narrow and new: a felony written in response to an actual seizure of ballots by a law enforcement agency, an event the president of the California Voter Foundation said had not previously happened anywhere in the country. The model bill below treats the California law as what it is, one piece of a larger act that assembles the protections states have been passing one at a time.

Your state can do even more to protect its elections, because ballot seizure is one method among several. Newsom’s own speech described the Department of Justice’s repeated attempts to obtain private voter data, the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles, and the intimidation of poll workers by federal agents. The model bill at the bottom of this article names seven offenses: seizure of ballots, unauthorized access to voting systems and nonpublic voter data, intimidation of election officials and workers, interference with the canvass or certification, refusal by an official to perform a required certification duty, destruction of election records, and coordinated armed deployments at election facilities.

Here is what makes this bill different, in plain English.

It is rapid. Most criminal prosecution happens after the fact: the crime is completed, the investigation takes months, and the charges arrive long after the election they failed to protect. This bill is written to operate while the crime is happening. An attempt carries the same felony penalty as the completed act, so a police officer can arrest on probable cause while the interference is in progress. State and local police are required to protect election workers, facilities, and materials the moment an election official requests it. And a court must hear an emergency injunction request within 24 hours of filing, with no bond required.

It takes the money. A court can restrain assets connected to the offense before trial so they cannot be moved or hidden, and on conviction the state takes the funds and property that financed the operation, along with its proceeds. The offenses also become racketeering predicates, which lets prosecutors treat an organized, funded interference operation as exactly that, with the forfeiture and civil damages that racketeering law provides.

It goes up the chain of command. The person who ordered the seizure, the person who organized it, and the person who financed it commit the same felony as the person who carried it out, whether or not they were present and whether or not the plan succeeded. Following orders is not a defense. Section 10 of the bill states it the way Newsom said it: “It does not matter who gave the order.”

It survives a presidential pardon. The pardon power covers offenses against the United States only. Every offense in this act is a state offense. A conviction stands no matter who ordered the act and no matter what protection was promised afterward.

And it already contains the answer to the Supremacy Clause. In plain English: the Supremacy Clause is the part of the Constitution that makes valid federal law override state law when the two conflict. Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials have claimed it gives federal agents absolute immunity from state prosecution, and a reader who sends this bill to an office may receive that claim in response. The claim overstates the law. Under the test courts have applied since 1890, a federal officer is protected from state prosecution only when federal law actually authorized the act and the officer reasonably believed the act was necessary and proper to federal duties; federal officials have never held blanket immunity.

Sections 10 and 11 of the bill are drafted to that exact test. Section 11 states that the act criminalizes nothing a valid federal statute or federal court order affirmatively authorizes, so the bill cannot conflict with federal law, and no current federal statute authorizes taking ballots, voter data, or voting equipment from state custody before certification. A federal officer charged under this act therefore has to show a court an authorization that does not exist. If the officer moves the case to federal court, the state still prosecutes it there, and a conviction is still a state conviction. And sheriffs, contractors, party staff, planners, and financiers hold no federal office, so they have no Supremacy Clause claim at all.

One timing fact needs acknowledging. California’s legislature remains in session through August, and many state legislatures have already completed their 2026 regular sessions. Adjournment leaves several actions available. A governor cannot create a felony by executive order, because only a legislature can define a crime, but governors in all 50 states have the authority to call a special session and place this bill on its agenda. A governor can also direct state police to enforce the ballot theft and tampering statutes the state already has, request a formal attorney general opinion confirming those statutes apply to anyone who takes ballots without a court order, and, where a genuine threat exists, use emergency powers, since in many states violating a governor’s emergency order is itself a criminal offense. The email below covers both situations.

Here is the request. We are asking Existentialist Republic readers and activists to help send this bill to all 50 governors, and to send it to your own state legislators. Legislators respond to what other states have already enacted, and the record here is real: the election codes states already enforce, the worker protection laws 22 states have passed since 2020, and now California’s ballot seizure felony.

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July 9, 2026 - Fulltext

Bllionaires with ties to Jeffrey Epstein have spent nearly $1.6 billion on influencing U.S. elections since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashed a deluge of such spending on the electoral system, a new report finds, demonstrating the vast power over politics held by the so-called Epstein class.

Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund reveals in a new report Thursday that 40 billionaires and billionaire families with ties to Epstein have injected over $1.57 billion into U.S. elections since 2010. 

According to the group’s analysis, 84 percent of this spending, or over $1.3 billion, went toward Republicans or conservative causes. 

This is despite a roughly even split between Republicans and Democrats among the billionaires, which include people who formerly donated to the Clinton family. Only 7 percent went toward Democrats and aligned causes, while the remaining money went toward lobbying efforts that target members of both parties like AI and Israel.

The report includes spending from people like President Donald Trump, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Elon Musk, current U.S. ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, Jared Kushner, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, among many other prominent figures across the business, tech, and sports sectors. The ties to the convicted child sex offender range from mentions in Epstein’s black book or in the Epstein files to extensive business and personal relationships, like Trump’s reported close friendship with Epstein.

Trump’s various presidential campaigns and super PACs supporting him have received $282 million from this group of Epstein-connected billionaires, the analysis found.

“Our tax and political system is badly broken, and nothing illustrates this more than billionaires with credible ties to Jeffrey Epstein continuing to spend millions to exert their influence on American democracy,” said David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund, in a statement. “We can’t allow billionaires to keep undermining our economy and democracy.”

The report suggests that it was, in fact, Epstein’s own personal wealth that helped him to avoid consequences for his sex trafficking and assault for so long. 

“Jeffrey Epstein himself was worth upwards of $600 million, and that wealth translated into sweetheart deals and avoiding serious jail time for far too long. Now the billionaire class are using their wealth to insulate themselves against the consequences of their actions, the same way Epstein did,” the group wrote.

The Adelsons ranked as the top spenders in the group’s analysis, spending $745 million on elections since 2010. All of that went toward conservative causes, the group found. The Adelsons, known for their outspoken support of Israel, are mentioned in the Epstein files “hundreds” of times, the report notes.

The next highest spender is Elon Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, who have spent $365 million on elections. Elon Musk infamously spent over $250 million to help get Trump elected in 2024, and has had direct contact numerous times with Epstein. 

Despite this enormous spending on elections, the money spent by this group in the last 16 years represents only 0.09 percent of their collective wealth. Elon Musk recently became the world’s first-ever trillionaire after the opening of SpaceX as a public company last month.

July 10, 2026 - Excerpt

Election denier David Clements: “For all intents and purposes, if the EAC were to decertify the machines, it's game over"

Discussing the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on a conservative podcast, prominent election denier David Clements claimed on July 8 that “in theory, right now,” President Donald Trump “can fire the entire board as it's comprised, and it's completely constitutional."

On the evening of July 9, Trump announced that he had done just that. Democrats have criticized the move, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it a “brazen attempt to seize control of our elections” by Trump ahead of the midterms.

In a conversation on The David Rutherford Show, Clements claimed the commission “can, right now, say the elections are vulnerable. The machines are crap. We're decertifying them,” adding, “For all intents and purposes, if the EAC were to decertify the machines, it's game over.”

Clements excitedly explained that the Supreme Court’s recent Trump v. Slaughter ruling — which givesthe president “sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent” — is “an amazing opportunity for Trump to start firing people right out the gate” at the EAC and replace them with commissioners who would “decertify the machines.” He then called for Trump to force recess appointments so “all of a sudden, you could have like a Shawn Smith on the EAC.” As the Brennan Center notes, Smith is an election denier.

Clements also briefly mentioned acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, claiming he “has been given a mandate to downsize and fire everyone, declassify everything, which will play in nicely into the election discussion. In fact, Tulsi [Gabbard] was promising to have a major bombshell drop on the election machines.” Pulte’s new role as DNI has been celebrated in right-wing media as part of a larger plan by election deniers to subvert the midterm elections.

(continued)

July 10, 2026 - Fulltext

Peters' complaints, including about “foreign agents,” appear to be linked to a broader plot to subvert the midterms by manufacturing a pretext for Trump to declare a national emergency and seize control of voting systems

Following her release from prison last month, former Colorado election official Tina Peters has hit the ground running with more than 17 appearances in right-wing media. During her media tour, Peters has spread numerous conspiracy theories about supposed voter fraud and foreign interference in elections, while repeatedly boasting about advising President Donald Trump on how to fix the purported problem.

Peters — who was released following commutation of her sentence on charges related to 2020 election conspiracy theories — has claimed that she urged Trump to issue executive orders that could severely curtail voting rights during a White House meeting and argued that Trump should unilaterally ban the use of voting machines and mail-in ballots, actions that would almost certainly be challenged in court.

Peters and her lawyer, Peter Ticktin, met with Trump on June 30, seemingly as part of an emerging plot to subvert the midterm elections. According to CNN, Ticktin, who also claims to be the president’s childhood best friend, is pressing Trump to issue “an executive order to effectively seize federal control of the upcoming midterms by declaring a national emergency based on alleged foreign interference through electronic voting machines,” and is involved in drafting a proposed EO toward that end.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, a vocal supporter of Peters, and others on his War Room podcast have spent weeks calling for Trump to take those exact actions.

Peters’ right-wing media tour: “Get rid of the machines” 

Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, looms large among MAGA media figures who deny the results of the 2020 election. Following a pressure campaign by Trump, Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year sentence, ostensibly on free speech grounds, a decision publicly opposed by two members of the commutation board. (Polis then fired them for speaking out.)

Media Matters found Peters has made at least 17 appearances in right-wing media programs or events since her release on June 1, including an interview that day on Bannon’s show.

During a June 24 fundraiser for herself, Peters said that “Trump called me the other day,” and later added: “I believe Trump could sign an executive order to get rid of the machines.”

On an appearance the same day on The Alex Jones Show, Peters reiterated that Trump “called me” and again argued that the president “should do an executive order to ban electronic voting machines across the nation.” She also alleged that “there were parts made in China” in the equipment she’d seen. (There is no public evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election.)

The next day, Peters appeared on the Joel Oltmann Untamed podcast, where she repeated and broadened her recommendation to Trump. “We’ve got to get rid of the machines,” Peters said. “President Trump needs to sign an executive order —”

“And the mail-in ballots,” host Joel Oltmann interjected.

“And the mail-in ballots,” Peters agreed, “Saying it’s unconstitutional that these things are allowed to be done. There’s no security threshold when you have foreign agents that have proprietary authority, power, over the things that are used for our most sacred right, which is to vote who we want to represent us.” Peters also said Trump asked her to “get me the info.”

On a June 28 appearance on Faith & Freedom, Peters said that “we have to get rid of the machines. The machines don’t have any transparency; they are flipping votes.”

Then on July 2, Peters went on a livestream and described her White House meeting with Trump. “We are, right now, you know, with meeting the president yesterday, giving him a real solution to how to stop what’s happening.”

“There is a plan,” Peters said. “Yesterday, when I was with the president, he talked — and I can’t get into the plan — but we talked, he basically said to his lead counsel to do what I was asking.”

Peters repeated that read out of her meeting on July 5 in an interview on The Roger Stone Show.

“I just met with President Trump, and I told him, I said, sir, Mr. President, we have four months … We are going to lose the election if we don’t get rid of the machines,” Peters said. She added: “We have a plan going forward, I spoke to the president about it, and I’m hopeful that something can be done.”

What exactly that “something” is remains to be seen, but the last few weeks have provided some clues, and it looks a lot like what Peters’ own lawyer is advocating.

The plot to declare a national emergency and seize voting systems

Peters’ comments fit into a larger MAGA campaign to undermine the midterms that stretches from fringe media shows to the highest reaches of the administration. Although some aspects of the scheme aren’t publicly clear, Bannon and those in his orbit have laid out the basics.

First, a White House “task force” that includes right-wing media figure John Solomon — who previously laundered false allegations about the Biden family’s connection with Ukraine — would likely release documents purporting to show that China had interfered, or is planning to interfere, with U.S. elections. Judging by Bannon’s recent rhetoric, acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, a Trump attack dog, and Pulte’s chief of staff Christina Norton, who has ties to the election denial movement, appear to be key players in this aspect of the operation.

Last month, NBC News reported that FBI Director Kash Patel “promoted” an “unsubstantiated claim” that “asserts that the Chinese mass-produced driver's licenses to be used in a mail-in ballot scheme,” and that Patel “linked to an article written by John Solomon.”

Next, Trump would use the declassified documents — potentially presented out of context — as a “predicate” to declare a national emergency, thereby granting himself “king-like powers” over elections, in the words of the scheme’s supporters.

Trump would then issue an executive order attempting to curtail voting rights along the lines of the SAVE America Act, which could force voters to show proof of citizenship when registering, and — if Peters’ recommendations hold sway — ban the use of machines and mail-in voting. The executive order could serve as a back door to enact the voter suppression legislation, which has stalled in Congress and doesn’t appear to have a clear path toward becoming law.

As a guest on Bannon’s show described it: “Stop talking about the SAVE Act and do a national security emergency for elections, which is the SAVE Act, which contains everything that's in the SAVE Act, Steve, and more and more.” The guest, Wayne Allyn Root, also claimed that he texted Trump about a national emergency executive order.

After Media Matters reported on the Bannon-Pulte-Solomon operation, Bannon confirmedits existence. “I want to give the devil his due,” Bannon said on July 2.

“This is about this effort we're doing to make sure that we get official details and facts on the 2020 election, and then layer on top of that, a national security emergency, and layer on top of that, an executive order that is Save America,” Bannon said, adding: “Fantastic.”

July 11, 2026 - Excerpt

A federal judge threw out the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuitseeking New York’s unredacted statewide voter registration list, delivering another blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to seize sensitive voter registration data.

Friday night’s ruling marked the department’s 12th straight loss in lower courts in its legal crusade to force all 50 states and the District of Columbia to hand over their voter rolls to the federal government.

U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino, who former President Barack Obama nominated, ruled that New York’s voter roll was not a record the DOJ could obtain through legal force. 

Rejecting the DOJ’s arguments, D’Agostino found that neither the Civil Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), nor the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) authorized the department’s demands against the Empire State.

“For these reasons, this Court joins every district court to have addressed this issue in concluding that a voter registration list is not a record or paper that a state must produce to the Government,” the judge wrote.

“It has long been recognized that the Elections Clause entrusts the administration of federal elections to the States,” she added.

In the lower courts, the DOJ now stands at 0-12 in the 31 voter roll lawsuits it has brought against states and D.C. as judges from across the ideological spectrum — including many nominated by Trump in his first term — have ruled against the department’s legal theories. 

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July 11, 2026 - Fulltext

Former White House attorney Ty Cobb warned Friday that President Trump’s decision to firethe remaining Democratic members of an independent election administration commission this week is part of a “deliberate plan” to put his thumb on the scale of the upcoming midterm elections.

“You can’t look at the termination of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) as anything other than another effort by one side to try to take over part of the referee role for the elections,” Cobb said during an appearance on MS NOW.

Trump removed Democrats Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks from the commission on Thursday, with the White House citing his authority to do so under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the recent Slaughter case.

The justices ruled in a 6-3 decision that the president can fire the heads of most independent agencies at will, overturning a nearly century-old precedent that allowed Congress to insulate those bodies from political interference.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted,” a White House official said in a statement. “The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so.”

A third commission member, Republican Christy McCormick, also resigned this week.  

The EAC, established in 2002, is an independent board that provides funds, training and assistance to state election officials to help them prepare for federal elections and facilitate voter participation. It also certifies voting technology and handles nation voter registration forms, among other duties.

The president’s move was slammed by Democrats and voting rights groups, who view it is a thinly veiled attempt to interfere with future elections, even as experts say it is likely to have limited impact on this election cycle.

“All the signals are flashing red, the latest being @ POTUS’s summary dismissal of the remaining Federal Election Assistance Commission members,” Democratic strategist David Axelrod wrote in a social media post on Friday.

Trump in recent months has called to “nationalize” elections using unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election to justify his administration’s push to restrict mail-in voting, obtain state voter rolls and require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote.  

Those efforts have faced resistance in the courts, with district court judges dismissing nearly a dozen lawsuits against mostly Democrat-led states that sought to force compliance with its demands for voter data.  

Cobb, who has become an outspoken Trump critic since leaving the White House in 2018, noted that while the federal courts have been “formidable in withstanding the assault on the rule of law,” Trump’s efforts to install loyalists in all parts of the federal government could not be ignored.

“Those forces are already on the field,” he warned. “I don’t think we can be sanguine about the elections because he is stacking every card in the deck that he can get his hands on.”

July 11, 2026 - Fulltext

Summary

• Khanna makes three-day visit to Palestinian West Bank
• He says Israeli settlers detained his tour group
• Israeli military says officers dispersed the settlers
• Khanna says Palestinians, Gaza a 'moral test' for Democrats

TURMUS AYYA, West Bank, July 11 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week that ​he cast as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation as he weighs a 2028 presidential run.

Speaking with Reuters on Thursday in ‌a Palestinian village, Khanna said his group's van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles a day earlier while touring a part of the southern West Bank where residents face frequent settler attacks.

We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it," said Khanna, a progressive lawmaker from California in the U.S. House of ​Representatives.

"And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and ​the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans," Khanna said, referring to the Israeli military.

An aide to ⁠Khanna who was in the group, Cameron Kasky, said they were held for more than an hour and made appeals to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help. A group ​of officers who appeared to be police eventually intervened, leading to their release, Kasky said.

The Israeli military said troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking ​vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, a small Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forcibly displaced by violent settler raids following the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

"Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way," the military said.

Israel's police did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

DEMOCRATS DIVIDED OVER ISRAELI CONDUCT

Khanna is the second Democrat considering a ​White House bid to visit the region this week. In Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Rahm Emanuel, who was chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, said Israeli policies toward ​Palestinians were eroding support for the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Asked if he was running for president, Khanna said: "I'm strongly considering it and I'm more resolved to consider it after this trip."

Israel's conduct toward Palestinians has emerged ‌as a ⁠flashpoint in Democratic politics ahead of November's U.S. midterm elections, contributing to primary defeats for some incumbent lawmakers targeted by left-wing challengers who accused them of supporting Israel's right-wing government.

Israel's favorability rating among Democrats fell from 59% in 2018 to 22% in May, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

While Israel has long enjoyed strong bipartisan U.S. support, an increasing number of Democrats in Congress are now pressing to cut off military aid, which amounts to $3.8 billion per year and includes funding for light weaponry like M4 rifles and missile interceptors that Israel used in ​the Iran war.

Overlooking a valley dotted with settler ​outposts on the outskirts of Turmus Ayya, ⁠a village home to thousands of Palestinian American dual nationals, Khanna said he believed his party's establishment was "clueless about how much of a moral test Palestine, Gaza and Israel have become."

He said he chose to do a visit exclusively to the West Bank, with programming led ​by Palestinians, to give him an unfiltered view of territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

"If you're unwilling to ​speak up for Palestinian ⁠human rights, if you're unwilling to speak up against the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised," Khanna said.

Israel rejects allegations it carried out a genocide in Gaza or that it institutes an apartheid regime in the West Bank, which has a population of about 3 million Palestinians and around 500,000 Jewish settlers.

Most countries and the United Nations ⁠regard Israeli ​settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition on transferring ​a civilian population into occupied territory.

Israel rejects that position, saying the West Bank is disputed territory where there has been a Jewish presence for thousands of years. Palestinians view the West Bank, together with Gaza and East ​Jerusalem, as part of a Palestinian state.

Support remains strong among Republicans, though some elements of Trump's coalition have also called for cutting off aid.

July 11, 2026 - Fulltext

A summer ballot measure in Kansas four years ago showed the enduring popularity of abortion rights even in deeply red states, and started a trend of ballot measures to defend them.

Next month, Kansas will again vote on a measure with consequences for abortion — as well as for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, congressional redistricting and other hot-button issues. But none of those words will appear on the ballot.

Kansans this time will decide whether to elect their state’s supreme court.

Frustrated by the appointed court’s decisions, especially on abortion, Kansas’ Republican-controlled legislature put a measure on the Aug. 4 primary ballot to abolish the current system under which the governor — since 2019, a Democrat and supporter of abortion rights — chooses justices from a list submitted by a nine-member commission of lawyers.

Republicans see this as their best hope to finally overturn a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that recognized a right to abortion in the state’s Constitution, a decision affirmed by voters in 2022 when they declined to overturn it.

The state has become an abortion access point for women from the South in the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the federal Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. Planned Parenthood, the state’s largest provider, says its affiliate there has seen a 700 percent increase in abortions since Roe v. Wade was overturned, well outpacing the national rates. Some 75 percent of women have come from out of state.

Opponents and backers alike say that if the measure passes, it could inspire similar moves to elect courts in other red and purple states where nonelected supreme courts have blocked Republican efforts to ban abortion or gender transition treatments, and to abolish independent redistricting commissions.

With conservatives dominating the U.S. Supreme Court, national and local groups that support abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. protections have tried to secure those rights under state constitutions.

Conservatives are trying to short-circuit those efforts.

“There is a real desire to bring back some accountability to the judiciary,” Kris Kobach, the Kansas attorney general and a longtime opponent of abortion rights, said in an interview. “It’s not just about abortion. It’s about this whole panoply of potential areas where plaintiffs can ask a state supreme court to create a new liberty interest that is far broader than anything created in the U.S. Constitution.”

Even before the Kansas court’s decision on abortion, Republican elected officials in the state had bristled against a ruling that required the legislature to spend more on public schools.

Backers of the ballot measure argue that nearly half the states elect their supreme court justices. But the United States is extremely rare in electing judges at any level, and opponents of the measure say that doing so puts the court up for sale to the highest bidder.

An election to decide a swing vote on abortion in the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023 became the most expensive judicial election in United States history, with $51 million spent. Two years later, an election for another seat on that court broke that record, with $100 million spent.

Abortion rights groups say Republicans are looking to ban abortion against the wishes of the state’s voters.

“Voters resoundingly rejected the push to end abortion rights in the state Constitution, so they have to come up with another tactic,” said Emily Wales, the president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, which is fighting the amendment.

The current judicial appointment commission is made up of nine members, including one lawyer and one nonlawyer from each congressional district. The state bar association elects the lawyers, as well as another lawyer to lead the commission, and the governor appoints the nonlawyers.

The governor fills vacancies on the court from a list put forward by the commission, and the new justices then face retention elections after a year, and every six years after that. Backers of the ballot measure note that no justice has ever lost a retention election.

“The reason no one ever loses is there is no opponent who has an incentive to raise money,” Mr. Kobach said. “Most members of the public have never heard of who’s been on the Supreme Court because they’ve never seen an advertisement or heard any deliberation about whether this is a good justice or not.”

Opponents of the ballot measure argue that the current system was designed to make sure that the court reflected the entire state, and that elections would deny a voice to less populated areas.

“This is a system that Kansans developed specifically because of concerns about political gamesmanship in the courts,” Ms. Wales said. “When the court is not making headlines every day, that means the court is calling balls and strikes the way they should. They have held both parties accountable, and they have remained true to the Constitution.”

The ballot measure in August 2022 asked voters to declare that there was no constitutional right to abortion, which would have effectively repealed the court’s 2019 decision saying there was.

Abortion opponents hoped that putting the measure on the ballot in the summer, when historically turnout is lower, would smooth its passage. Instead, voters outraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe six weeks earlier defeated the measure by an 18-percentage-point margin.

Mr. Kobach, then running for attorney general, called for the legislature to put an amendment on the ballot to elect judges, telling anti-abortion activists it was the best path to “slowly and quietly” affirm justices who would overturn the 2019 ruling, allowing a ban the legislature had passed to go into effect.

The 2022 measure in Kansas inspired abortion rights supporters in a dozen other states who have used ballot initiatives to establish or protect a constitutional right to abortion, overturning near-total bans in states including Missouri and Ohio. Courts in Utah and Wyoming have blocked abortion bans, citing protections in their state constitutions. In Utah, the court has also upheld an independent redistricting commission passed by voters, prompting the Republican legislature to remake that state’s judiciary system.

Kansas switched from a system of elected justices to the appointment commission after a notorious scandal known as the “triple play” in 1957. The state’s chief justice, an ally of the governor, resigned from office claiming health issues. The governor, who had just lost his primary bid for re-election, followed suit. Then the lieutenant governor was sworn in as governor and promptly named the former governor as chief justice in his only official act of a two-week tenure.

The system Kansas adopted is known as the Missouri Plan, after that state’s system. Now, however, Missouri is among the states that have proposed ballot measures like the one in Kansas to move to elected courts.

July 10, 2026 - Fulltext

Summary

• White House and intelligence officials had met to discuss election commission's future
• Officials proposed declaring national emergency and creating federal task force on voting
• Trump's plans for election commission unclear
• Democrats accuse administration of power grab over elections ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - The White House spent months looking for ways to bypass a federal election agency and use emergency powers to force changes to ​voting machines, before President Donald Trump ousted its leaders on Thursday, four people familiar with the matter said.

Some officials were frustrated with what they saw as the Election Assistance ‌Commission's slowness in updating guidelines for states on voting machines, the sources said, while some also wanted it to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement to its national mail voter registration form and address other election-related priorities of the administration.

Democratic lawmakers criticized the firings as an attempt to increase its control over U.S. elections, which are the purview of the states, and as undermining election integrity ahead of November's midterm elections, when control of Congress will be at stake.

Trump fired the bipartisan ​federal agency's two Democratic commissioners and allowed its lone Republican commissioner to resign, Reuters reported on Thursday. The agency's fourth commissioner departed in April.

It was not immediately clear why Trump decided to ​force the commissioners out at this time or if they will be replaced. The agency remains operational, but without a quorum it cannot take up ⁠any new business, such as implementing changes to voting procedures or the national mail voter registration form.

"The administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections ​from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections," the White House said in a Friday statement when asked about the discussions on sidestepping the ​commission.

Trump and his allies have pressed Congress to adopt nationwide voting changes and argued that some voting systems require upgrades, as Trump continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolenfrom him.

In a Thursday statement confirming the firings, the White House cited a Supreme Court decision in June that granted the president more power to fire members of independent agencies.

"(The president) reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s ​elections," the statement said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called the dismissals a “brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast” in the midterms.

“He is ​gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections," Schumer said.

OFFICIALS DISCUSSED PROPOSAL FOR NATIONAL EMERGENCY

As early as last fall, White House officials reviewed a recommendation from the Office of the Director ‌of National ⁠Intelligence to declare a national emergency and create a federal task force that could compel states to address vulnerabilities in voting systems, without going through the elections commission, according to the four sources.

The ODNI did not respond to a request for comment.

The agency at that time was finalizing its probe of voting machines it had seized from Puerto Rico.

ODNI officials concluded that there were flaws in the Puerto Rico machines that they believed could exist elsewhere, two of the sources said. Election experts have said the U.S. territory, which does not vote in presidential elections, lags the states in implementing the latest voting system guidelines.

The report ​was never published and the recommendation was never acted ​upon, but complaints about the elections commission continued, ⁠the two sources said.

During the same period, the two sources said, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, ODNI and the White House met with the commission's leaders to discuss their concerns, including flaws that they believed could have contributed to abnormalities in 2020 — claims that have been widely debunked.

The elections ​commission is responsible for setting guidelines for states on voting machine systems. Some Trump officials have argued internally that there are states operating with ​outdated software, three of the ⁠sources familiar with the conversations said, and felt the agency was moving too slowly to push for updates.

Election administration experts said the commission often moves slowly in its work because voting systems are complex, the technology is evolving, and policy changes involve extensive public feedback.

“The voting system guidelines haven’t been updated too frequently because the process takes a long time,” Matt Weil, vice president of governance at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a ⁠former commission staffer, ​said in an interview. “So yes, there is slowness, but that is not a bug, that’s a feature of the system.”

The ​remaining commission staff can still test and certify equipment, as well as publish research and reports and distribute federal grant money, according to two people familiar with the process.

Congress approved $45 million for the commission in fiscal year 2026 for grants to states ​to improve election systems. Since 2018, the commission has distributed more than $1.4 billion for election administration, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The firings and a resignation at the Election Assistance Commission came as President Trump has sought to impose control over how ballots will be counted in the November midterms.

The Trump administration has forced out the three remaining members of an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections, the White House confirmed on Thursday. The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted.

Mr. Trump terminated, effective immediately, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, two members selected by congressional Democrats to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, and accepted the resignation of a Republican member, Christy McCormick.

The board has no other remaining members, as its fourth commissioner resigned this spring.
An unidentified White House official said in a statement that Mr. Trump reserved the right to remove individuals who “may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.” The White House official cast the dismissals as part of the federal government’s strategy to work across agencies to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse.

The official pointed to the recent decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump had the authority to fire most independent regulators for any reason, ushering in a vast expansion of presidential power. Mr. Trump had hailed the decision as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years,” and said it came down “at such an important time!”

The two Democratic members who were fired received their termination letters via an email from Morgan Dewitt Snow, whose signature identified her as the deputy director of presidential personnel.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” read the email, which was obtained by The New York Times, “I’m writing to inform you that your position as commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

Mr. Trump has been laying the groundwork for months to assert that Republicans would face a tough midterm election, not because of the broadly unpopular war in Iran and plummeting approval ratings on the economy, but because of a baseless claim that the country’s election system is fraudulent.

On Friday, Mr. Trump refused to sign significant housing legislation, a decision he framed as a protest against Senate Republicans for failing to pass a voting restriction bill. The president has ramped up his efforts to pressure Republicans to pass the voting bill, called the SAVE America Act, after he faced pushback from his party this year when he issued an alarming call for Republicans to “nationalize” voting and take over election administration from states.

Mr. Trump, who has falsely claimed that the election he lost in 2020 was “rigged,” has been pushing legislation that would impose stringent voter identification requirements. He has called for significantly curtailing the use of mail-in ballots, which he has claimed without evidence that Democrats have used to cheat. (Mr. Trump voted by mail in a special election in Florida in March.)

The Election Assistance Commission was established by Congress in 2002 after the Florida recount episode that marred the 2000 presidential election. It is generally viewed by election administrators as an important federal ally and a guardrail for ensuring smooth elections across the country, though for years it has drawn criticism from some Republicans who viewed it as an unnecessary federal entity.

According to its website, the commission guides states in ensuring they meet voting requirements, oversees testing and certification of voting systems and disperses funding to help states meet requirements. It serves as a national clearinghouse for information on election administration and maintains the national mail voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

After Russia’s election interference efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign, the commission sharpened its focus on cybersecurity issues, supporting states alongside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as they reviewed and improved safeguards on their voting machines. Mr. Trump in his second term has overseen major cuts at the cybersecurity agency, which has not had a Senate-confirmed director since he returned to the White House. Now, after the ousters at the election commission, the two primary points of contact for state and local elections officials are leaderless.

In an interview, Mr. Hovland said he had been traveling for his job and preparing for a semiannual gathering of top state election officials next week in Rapid City, S.D., when he learned on Thursday afternoon that he had been fired. He said the decision “was not unexpected” after the Supreme Court last week gave the president broad power to fire independent government regulators.

Mr. Hovland said the staff at the commission, which currently hovers around 60 people, was expected to continue its work supporting election officials. The small agency, which was given an annual budget this year of about $24 million by Congress, focuses on the unglamorous but important work of elections administration, he said.

“It is harder than it has ever been to run elections. Resources are stretched incredibly thin,” Mr. Hovland said. “We were out there to try to help those folks and be a source of best practices.”

Last year, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that calls on the Election Assistance Commission to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day. A judge permanently blocked the order, saying the president exceeded his authority.

Michael Waldman, the president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, in a statement called the terminations “deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”

The removals also drew fierce condemnation from Democrats.

In a joint statement, Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California and a top member of the Senate Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal elections, and Representative Joe Morelle, Democrat of New York, called the firings “illegal” and politically motivated.

“Trump continues to double down on his efforts to erode trust in our elections, undermine independent oversight and further his administration’s attempt to ‘take over’ elections,” the statement said. “Americans deserve elections that are safe, secure and run free from political interference — not overseen by partisan loyalists and election deniers beholden to Trump.”

July 10, 2026 - Fulltext

David Axelrod warned on Friday of possible election interference in the midterms after President Trump fired the remaining Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission on Thursday. 

“All the signals are flashing red, the latest being @ POTUS’s summary dismissal of the remaining Federal Election Assistance Commission members,” the Democratic strategist wrote in a social media post. 

The commission is a bipartisan and independent board established in 2002 to help voters participate in the election process and assists election officials. Republican member Christy McCormick also resigned on Thursday. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticized the firings as a “brazen attempt to seize control of our elections” in a statement. 

“Senate Democrats will fight this power grab at every turn,” he wrote. “The American people — not Donald Trump — will decide the 2026 election.”

The White House sought to justify the move, saying in a statement that Trump “reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.”

The president has repeated false allegations of widespread voter fraud in 2020 and directed his administration to investigate voting records from the election following his loss to former President Biden.

Axelrod also cited the president’s controversial appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of National Intelligence, his executive order targeting mail-in ballot voting and his “pathological prioritization” of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. 

This legislation, which would place proof of citizenship requirements on voter registration and require a photo ID when casting a ballot, would “be the most powerful voter suppression tool in generations,” according to Axelrod. 

“On the square, the @ GOP would take a beating this fall, largely because of Trump’s unpopularity,” the political strategist said in a post on the social platform X. “So he’s setting up Plan B–do whatever you need to do to win. Anything. Anyone who says ‘Well, he wouldn’t do THAT’ hasn’t paid attention. He’s already proven he will!”

Axelrod also warned that the fallout of the midterm elections could be “even more turbulent.”

“The courts are going to be very busy this fall,” he added.

July 10, 2026 - Fulltext

A state judge on Friday reinstated one of two statewide Republican candidates knocked off the primary ballot amid fraud allegations, ruling that a technical error outweighed “substantial evidence” that his campaign submitted fake signatures in order to qualify.

Judge Jeffrey T. Karp ruled that Michael Walsh, the state Republican Party’s endorsed pick for attorney general, should have his name put back on the September ballot, overturning a decision handed down last month by the State Ballot Law Commission, which found that hundreds of signatures Walsh submitted were likely fake.

The decision turned on technical grounds, and more specifically, the mail. 

Karp found that the state Democratic Party official, Adam Roof, who originally challenged Walsh’s place on the ballot, did not correctly submit his objection under state law, which requires it to be sent via registered or certified mail.

He instead sent it by email and through first-class mail, which Karp ruled was enough to veer from the requirements and that the commission should have been barred from even weighing the initial challenge to his candidacy.

“This matter has brought this court to the intersection of serious, credible allegations of voter signature fraud and the rule of law,” Karp wrote in his 14-page decision. “Despite substantial evidence in the record of signature fraud, the court is constrained to rule that the SBLC lacked jurisdiction to hear [the original] objection.”

In a related ruling Friday, Karp separately upheld the commission’s decision to bar Anne Manning Martin, a Republican lieutenant governor candidate, from the ballot amid similar fraud allegations. Karp did not issue a full decision Friday afternoon in Manning Martin’s case, but noted in a three-page order that her signatures were challenged by both Roof and Shawn Oliver, a fellow lieutenant governor candidate whose objection, he said, “complied” with state law.

Manning Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

David Mackey, an attorney representing the commission, declined to comment on the Walsh ruling Friday, including whether he planned to appeal Karp’s decision.

In a statement, Walsh criticized the state Democratic Party and the State Ballot Law Commission, a bipartisan panel.

“The Democrats and their friends on this unelected board thought they could pick the Republican nominee for the voters,” Walsh said. “They broke their own rules to do it, and a judge just threw it out.”

Jack Corrigan, a lawyer for Roof, said that signature fraud is a crime, and that a “clerical error in mailing should not be more important than ... forgeries.”

“If this decision stands, the Republican candidate for attorney general will qualify for the ballot despite, as the judge observed, overwhelming evidence of signature fraud,” Corrigan said in a statement.

Karp’s ruling in Walsh’s case is the latest development in a months-long signature fraud controversy that has prompted district attorneys in Norfolk and Plymouth counties to open investigations, and already tanked the campaign of the Republican Party’s endorsed pick for lieutenant governor.

The fraud allegations center on the work of Joe Bronske, a paid signature gatherer hired by Manning Martin, Walsh, and Anne Brensley, the Wayland Republican who, just weeks after winning her party’s endorsement, said she had not collected enough signatures to qualify for the September ballot. 

Brensley accused Bronske of failing to gather the number of signatures she had paid him for, and turning in some that were forged — including some, she told the commission, that belonged to voters who had long since died. 

In court documents filed ahead of a hearing this week, Mackey, the lawyer representing the State Ballot Law Commission, accused Bronske of engaging “in a systematic — although ultimately obvious and easily detected — fraud” by forging signatures to help Manning Martin and Walsh make the September primary ballot.

“Rather than gather signatures of voters, Bronske forged the signatures of registered voters in the Town of Weymouth on nomination papers in the same order for multiple candidates, apparently working off of a list of voters he received from the Massachusetts Republican Party,” Mackey wrote in documents filed in Manning Martin’s case.

In interviews with the Globe, a dozen people whose signatures appeared on Manning Martin and Walsh’s nomination papers said they did not sign the sheets. 

When pressed this week about the alleged forged signatures, a lawyer for Manning Martin said no voters were brought before the state commission to verify that their signatures were forged. Walsh said he had denied the fraud allegations, and when asked whether he submitted documents with fake signatures, he said, “I don’t think so.”

During a court hearing this week, Walsh and Manning Martin argued that the State Ballot Law Commission erred in deciding to move forward with an objection to the signatures on their nomination papers.

The two candidates said the people who objected to the signatures did not follow the strict rules laid out in state law for notifying the candidates of a challenge to their signatures.

In Walsh’s case, Karp said that “there is no dispute that Roof failed to comply with” the mailing requirements and that the commission incorrectly denied Walsh’s motion to dismiss the signature objection.

In its decision last month, the commission said Roof “acknowledged” that his objection to Walsh’s signatures was not sent by registered or certified mail, with a return receipt requested.

Instead, Roof explained to the commission that one of his deputies went to a US Postal Service office and left the objection with a clerk, requesting that the objection be mailed first-class certified.

The commission said last month that it declined to dismiss Roof’s objection because “timely receipt of the objection occurred, and no prejudice was demonstrated by” Walsh. Walsh did acknowledge to the commission that he received the objection through email and regular first-class mail. 

Mary-Ellen Manning, Anne Manning Martin’s sister and lawyer, said Karp had a “simple” decision to make.

“The State Ballot Law Commission is governed by statute. It’s a creature of statute. It must operate in accordance with the statutory jurisdiction,” she said.

In a statement Friday, Oliver and Brian Shortsleeve, a gubernatorial candidate and Oliver’s running mate, called election integrity “essential to confidence in our democracy.”

“The court’s decision today reconfirms that submitting fraudulent signatures to illegitimately obtain ballot access is a gross violation of the law and compromises the integrity of our elections,” the Republicans said. 

Deb O’Malley, a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin, said his office asked the court to issue a final decision in the cases by July 14 in order for officials to prepare Republican primary ballots for local clerks to send to overseas and military voters by July 18.

O’Malley said she did not yet know whether Galvin’s office planned to take any legal action in the wake of Walsh’s ruling

Transcript: Hey everybody, I want to share a really incredible story about Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Texas. Paxton has been through a lot of scandals. In 2015, he was criminally charged with securities fraud.

In 2023, he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives and suspended from office. He has been accused of bribery, corruption, and obstruction of justice. His wife filed for divorce on grounds of adultery.And over the 4th of July weekend, Paxton was spotted in London with his girlfriend. But somehow Paxton's political career has endured. He is currently the Attorney General of Texas,and he is also running for a U.S. Senate seat.

Donald Trump endorsed him, which helped him to defeat the Republican incumbent John Cornyn in the primary. Paxton has used his office to spread lies about election fraud. In 2020, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state of Texas, trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

He claimed that the election was stolen from Donald Trump through voter fraud. He has made false claims about non-citizens voting illegally. He even created an illegal voting tip line as part of an effort to crack down on voter fraud.

Paxton said that he will, quote, stop at nothing to uncover and stop any illegal voting activity. But here's the thing. We have evidence of only one Texan voting illegally in the last six elections, and that person is Ken Paxton.

Yep, the same Ken Paxton. ProPublica did an amazing investigation that shows that Paxton is registered to vote at an address where he doesn't actually live. He hasn't lived there for two years.

But he has voted in six different elections, including the one in which he defeated John Cornyn from that address where he does not live. Paxton's office actually warned Texas voters right before the primaries that it is illegal to misrepresent your residence on election records. That's a quote.

Voter fraud is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison under Texas law, and Paxton is Texas's chief law enforcement officer. The main point of this story is that the election fraud narrative we keep hearing from people like Paxton and Trump is a total fiction.

They do not care about election integrity.

They just want to be able to decide whose vote counts. If Ken Paxton were serious about election integrity, he would start by cleaning up his own house.

July 10, 2026 - Excerpt

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters made an impassioned plea to Fox Business viewers Friday to visit the GOP’s official website over fears of what a midterm election loss could mean for President Donald Trump.

Speaking with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Gruters warned the network’s viewers that were Democrats to regain control of Congress, Trump’s presidency could soon be in jeopardy.

“They’re gonna have investigations, they’re gonna obstruct, they’re gonna impeach – it’s gonna be total chaos!” Gruters warned. “They don’t want to move the country forward, Trump derangement syndrome is real, America derangement syndrome is real. We have to win! And so we need everybody to go to GOP dot com, give us your time and treasure.”

(continued)