Defending Democracy with Marc Elias

When reporters asked Attorney General Todd Blanche if the Justice Department might try to block states from certifying midterm results, he didn’t say no. “Of course there are scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically — some doomsday scenario,” he said. The federal government has no power over state certification. But this administration keeps leaving the door open to interfering with elections. Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias breaks down what Blanche said and why it’s a warning sign for what's to come.

Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers was caught on leaked audio telling county Republicans he wants the Republican National Committee to send retired or off-duty police officers to polling places in Detroit — and only Detroit — as poll watchers. “All you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt,” he said.As Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias explains, this isn't a new tactic. In 1981, the RNC sent armed off-duty police officers to polling places in Black and Latino neighborhoods in New Jersey. The lawsuit that followed put the RNC under a court order that barred these programs for more than three decades. That order ended in 2017 as Donald Trump began his first term.

With two weeks until the midterms, Donald Trump’s attacks on our elections have reached a dangerous new stage. Last week, the Department of Justice demanded that California and Los Angeles County review about 20,000 voters it claims may not be citizens. It gave officials 48 hours, then sued. By Friday, the DOJ’s No. 2 official was warning that election workers who count those ballots could face criminal prosecution. Over the weekend, Trump said California election officials will “all go to jail for a long period of time.” In this episode, Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias explains why the administration’s numbers keep collapsing under scrutiny, why California is likely only the beginning and why the legacy media and big law firms are staying silent.

In a major escalation three weeks before Election Day, Trump’s DOJ is in court trying to stop 20,000 votes from being counted. But where did this list come from, and what does DOJ plan to do with it? The answers are in DOJ’s own lawsuit, and they’re more alarming than you’d think. Democrats are already warning in court that this could be a first step toward federal agents seizing ballots. Meanwhile, a federal judge who struck down DOJ’s voter roll scheme wants answers by Monday, and Trump’s allies are openly talking about martial law.Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias breaks down what’s really going on and what comes next.

Over the weekend, a federal judge issued an injunction barring Trump's self-aggrandizing, illegally taxpayer-funded ads from being aired, but they continued to play anyway. The Trump administration has made a habit of ignoring court orders and blowing through deadlines and giving lame excuses. The reason they are able to continue doing so is because the federal judiciary has yet to hold them to account for their flagrant disregard for the law. Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias explains why federal judges need to stop extending the Trump administration any benefit of the doubt in order to protect our elections and the rule of law, and discusses why using your individual voice to spread news of Trump's defeats is essential.

Trump's most fervent election denier allies are begging him to take over voting machines and ballots just weeks before the midterms. Join Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias LIVE as he breaks it down. Tina Peters’ lawyer says her plan is to grab ballots “as soon as the machine spits them through.” In 2020, Trump’s own lawyers stopped a plan to seize machines. But who is stopping them this time? Marc also covers a MASSIVE court win: A federal judge just shut down the Trump DOJ’s nationwide voter data program, which handed millions of voters’ records to ICE. But ICE isn’t done. It investigated hundreds of voter registration groups and won’t say whether agents will show up at the polls.

Less than 30 days before the midterms, Trump told a reporter that anyone looking for mail voting fraud should "start off by taking a look at California." Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias explains the real reason Trump is targeting the state: its 52 congressional seats could decide control of the House. Because California counts mail ballots for days after the election, Trump will have a window to lie about the results and try to interfere.

Weeks before the midterms, election deniers on Georgia's election board quietly asked Trump's DOJ to intervene. Their letter is full of excuses: attacks on the state's voting machines, demands for last-minute software changes and unsubstantiated claims of "altered records." Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias breaks down the excuses in the letter and why it fits Trump's long obsession with controlling how Georgia's votes are counted.

Have you ever wondered why bombastic right-wing content seems to travel further and faster on social media than tempered analysis and commentary? Podcaster and author David Pakman joins Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias to discuss how the algorithms that control what you see on YouTube and other platforms favor content that targets "scapegoats and enemies with pithy language," and why the next influencer in your feed might not be a real person at all.

For the 25th consecutive time, Donald Trump's Department of Justice has lost its case attempting to access sensitive voter data. With just over 40 days left until Election Day, Americans are thinking about how to afford the skyrocketing cost of living – but Donald Trump's only focus is disenfranchising voters in order to tilt the scales in his favor. In this video, Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias explains why free and fair elections are the biggest threat to Trump's authoritarian goals.

Donald Trump just did something extraordinary on stage at the RNC convention: he made Republicans raise their right hand and pledge to him personally — then pledge that they're going to "cheat like hell," whether they're registered to vote or not. Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias breaks down why this moment matters and why it confirms what he's been warning for months: Trump's plan for the midterms isn't to win a fair fight, it's to make it harder for you to vote and easier for Republicans to cheat.

Donald Trump's Department of Justice just admitted, in its own words, what we have been saying for months: the U.S. Postal Service's new mail-in ballot rule could strip millions of Americans of their ability to vote by mail. In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the DOJ acknowledged there is a "grave risk" that states won't be ready to comply if the rule takes effect for this year's midterms. Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias breaks down the sentence buried in DOJ's filing, what it reveals about the Trump administration's real strategy and why the rule's barcode-matching system could cause tens of thousands of eligible voters to be rejected over a single mismatched name.