The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using Justice Department lawsuits, FBI investigations, and an executive order to limit voting by mail, according to election experts and former officials.
Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the DOJ, the FBI, and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud. The Justice Department has filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections – and the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and other swing states that Trump lost in 2020.
Trump in late March issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules, which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder.
The administration’s multi-pronged push to change voting rules is sparking lawsuits from states and nonpartisan voting rights groups. In early April, officials from 23 Democratic states, including California and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s executive order, arguing it was an unconstitutional effort to interfere with states’ administering their elections.
The Justice Department’s Role
Former federal officials with voting expertise are sharply critical of the Trump administration’s moves.
“The Department of Justice has no authority to sweep up the voter rolls, which contain private information like drivers’ licenses and Social Security numbers, from every state in the nation,” Eileen O’Connor, a senior counsel with the Brennan Center who spent eight years in the DoJ’s voting section, told the Guardian.
“The department has 30 active lawsuits against states and the District of Columbia to force the turnover of these sensitive records. So far, eight courts have issued rulings in these cases, and the DoJ has lost each one.”
O’Connor stressed that “lawsuits against the states are only one part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to interfere with elections. The administration has targeted election officials, attempted to rewrite election rules, pardoned January 6 rioters, and elevated election deniers.”
The FBI’s Role
On another election front that tracks Trump’s bogus voting-fraud claims, the FBI has made investigating 2020 voting fraud a growing priority. The FBI has active inquiries into voting fraud in 2020 in Georgia and Wisconsin, which critics say perpetuate lies about Trump’s loss and may intimidate election workers and voters.
This year, the FBI raided an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, seized election data and images of ballots in Arizona, demanded ballots in Michigan, and in May expanded its inquiries to include the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, according to the Washington Post.
The Executive Order on Mail-In Voting
Trump’s March 2026 executive order on voting by mail has ignited a firestorm of lawsuits and alarms from voting experts. The order charges the USPS with deciding who may vote by mail and authorizes it not to deliver ballots sent by individuals who are not included on newly developed federal mail voter lists. The order threatens criminal penalties for election workers, mail carriers, and others who deliver or send ballots to people the administration claims are ineligible.
In a related step, the order instructs the Department of Homeland Security to develop lists of citizens in every state using unreliable and incomplete federal data materials. The Brennan Center and other voting rights advocates have warned that if implemented, the order would create chaos and curb voting by eligible US citizens.
The Political Context
The administration’s aggressive steps to tighten voting rules come as Trump and many Republican allies have voiced strong fears that the November midterm elections are likely to give Democrats control of the House, and possibly the Senate too, limiting Trump’s powers and possibly leading to his impeachment again.
At a Republican House retreat in January, Trump stressed the stakes are high for his future if Democrats win control of the House. “You gotta win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be … I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told lawmakers.
The Bottom Line
The Trump administration is launching a broad-front attack on US voting rights using Justice Department lawsuits, FBI investigations, and executive orders to change voting rules, according to election experts and former officials. The DoJ has filed 30 lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from states, the FBI is investigating debunked 2020 fraud claims in swing states, and Trump has issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules. Critics say the moves are based on false claims of widespread voter fraud and threaten to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.
