0 for 26∶ The #Trump Admin’s Astonishing Losing Record
Not one single court has approved of the #DOJ’s plans to obtain #state #voter rolls.
Typically, the DOJ’s #CivilRights Division focuses its #VotingRights efforts on ensuring that Americans are free to cast a ballot. Under the 2nd Trump admin, the division has trained its focus on a different project∶ strong-arming states to hand over sensitive voter information to the federal government.
#GiftArticle
#law
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/doj-lawsuits-voter-rolls-losing/689003/?gift=guxsrl_dAdXUP9zqbQPWxd6cIWWTiEJ9h_qlXuFSPJk
Since Sept 2025, the #Trump #DOJ has filed lawsuits against 30 #states & DC to this effect.
“This is a top priority,” the division’s head, Asst AG Harmeet Dhillon, said on a podcast hosted by the right-wing influencer Benny Johnson last December. Examining these records would help DOJ identify supposed voting by noncitizens & stamp out voter fraud, Dhillon explained∶ “I think eventually we’re going to win these cases, all of them.”
#DOJ had never before sought to collect these data, and the ominous ambiguity as to what the government plans to do with the information left many experts and election officials alarmed over how this might be used to interfere with the midterm elections. In a letter to the DOJ, a group of Democratic secretaries of state voiced “immense concern” over DOJ’s apparent plans to share the data with #DHS.
#law #Constitution #Trump #ElectionInterference #privacy #midterms #CivilRights #VotingRights
Nearly a year later, however, the number of victories secured by the #DOJ in this litigation stands at zero. DOJ has lost 26 cases in district court & triumphed in none; Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, in Washington, DC, handed the admin its latest defeat just last Friday. (Several cases remain pending.) The admin’s demands have been rejected by judges appointed by #Democrats & #Republicans including several nominated by #Trump himself—a run of losses that represents an embarrassing defeat….
More important than humiliation∶ #DOJ’s wipeout demonstrates how America’s decentralized system of #elections, aided by the #courts, is working to limit #Trump’s efforts to corrupt #democracy. Anxious narratives about his admin interfering with elections often portray the president as a figure who “can just will his fantasies into existence,” says Justin Levitt, an #ElectionLaw expert at Loyola Law School & a former deputy assistant attorney general in the #CivilRights Division.
@Nonilex "willing his fantasies into existence" depends heavily on the cult-like followers.
They probably haven't quite reached critical mass yet, but every DoJ action seems like a probe to check if they're there yet. If/when capture of the system has outcomes going their way, the autocracy likely kicks into high gear.
That sort of story is a leap, and probably a counterproductive one, building Trump up into the effective administrator he and his supporters want him to be.
Frankly, that kind of talk got him reelected.
Instead just go with Occam's Razor: simply, the guy has no idea what he's doing so he keeps losing, failing his voters, stumbling into struggles international and domestic.
He's a convicted felon not as part of some grand master plan but because he's honestly just an incompetent loser.
The DoJ losses in court are because he's simply a loser.
