Trump's predictable bad faith on election security gives his opponents an advantage

The Trump administration has announced that they will send some kind of election monitors to polling places in one pivotal county in New Jersey, one that swung toward Trump last time.

Those election monitors will report to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division at DOJ. Oh boy, you may recall both Bondi and Dhillon were part of Trump's efforts to throw out the results of the 2020 election, but now they'll be supervising the election monitors in New Jersey.

The administration is also sending election monitors from DOJ to the state of California.

Several counties in Southern and Central California, that's while California voters will next week be deciding on a new congressional map to try to balance out the gerrymandering that Trump has ordered up in Republican controlled states.

Polls in California show that California voters are likely to approve the new districts, but they are going to send those monitors.

California officials today announced that the state will send its own monitors to the polls to watch the federal monitors that that are being sent from DOJ. California's Attorney General says quote, we cannot be naive. The Republican Party asked for the U.S. DOJ to come in.

California appears concerned about these elections and about these monitors from the federal government. How worried should the rest of us be? Hold that thought.

After the Trump administration announced it was sending poll monitors to California and New Jersey, poll monitors who will answer to Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias wrote this.

He said quote, they are sending these DOJ officials to the polls to do Trump's bidding.

To gather information for him and his administration to misuse and wage war on voters and elections. I cannot tell you exactly what form that will take. Trump may not even know how he plans to abuse this process. But I know this: minority voters will not be protected. Voting rights will not be preserved. Free and fair elections will not benefit. Trump will exploit whatever he can under the guise of security or integrity. It is our job not to give him the opportunity.

Joining us now is Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, an elections attorney involved in suing the Trump administration over voting rights and a host of other issues. Mr. Elias, it's nice to see you. Thanks very much for taking time to be here tonight.

Thank you for having me back.

So let me ask you just what what that means that you wrote today.

It is our job not to give him the opportunity.

Yeah, so look, he Donald Trump has telegraphed what he's doing here in broad strokes. Yesterday, he posted on social media that he already believes there's fraud in in California. You know, he said that, uh, you know, that, uh, watch how totally dishonest the California prop vote is, millions of ballots being shipped. Like that's that's the predicate he is laying down before these monitors start to collect whatever information they they they collect. And that information will be mischaracterized, it'll be misused, it'll be abused so that Donald Trump, when that ballot, uh, initiative passes, as it will, will claim that there was massive fraud. And when Mikey Sherrill wins in New Jersey, he will claim there was massive fraud. And he will use that as the jumping off point for the 2026 election when he is really worried that he is going to lose power.

When he makes those sort of claims, will it matter or how will it matter that the Justice Department will have sent these federal election monitors in? How will that affect that?

Yeah, so remember, you know, I have a lot of experience suing and and litigating against Donald Trump. I mean, I represented Joe Biden and we've beaten him like a drum over 60 times after 2020. What's different this time is that he will have the United States government, the Department of Justice show up in courtrooms and say preposterously false things, but that will be given the the the premature of the United States. And look, Rachel, this is a problem we're seeing across the country. I mean, they are claiming that they need the National Guard and the military deployed in cities because he says they're on fire when in fact, there is no fires. And too many judges, frankly, are still giving DOJ the benefit of the doubt. So the difference here, and the reason why the DOJ being involved in these monitors being involved is so problematic is because our judicial system is still set up to believe that when Department of Justice lawyers show up and say we found X, that in fact they found X. When they say Y is true, that Y is true. When in fact, as you pointed out in your introduction, which was excellent, these are these are not career officials working for a normal Justice Department, they are working for Pam Bondi and ultimately for the White House.

What's the best strategy against what you think Trump is doing here?

So I think it's twofold. I think number one, it is for there to be public awareness, right? So that we can pre-butt the misinformation and the disinformation that he is going to spread to try to create an environment that allows him to create mischief like I said in 2026. The second thing though, is we need to broaden the aperture. You know, in your last segment you talked about, uh, privacy and and the fact that they're building a national database. Well, my law firm is also involved in a case in six, I'm sorry, in eight cases where the Department of Justice is trying to collect voter data on every single American. Every single American who's ever registered to vote, the Department of Justice is trying to collect that data from all 50 states. And why are they collecting that? They're not collecting it to make elections easier. They're not collecting it to make people safer. They're collecting it because as they head towards 2026, they want to be able to weaponize that data along with a lot of other information that they've collected for a lot of bad reasons, including to try to make the 2026 elections less free and fair. So what we need to do is we need to be prepared for that fight. We need to stand up tall against it. We need to litigate against it, but most importantly, we need to know it's happening so that we can explain and contextualize this to our friends and our families, our clients, our customers, our bowling partners and our bridge partners.

Mark, let me also ask you about a new lawsuit that you filed today, uh, in New York. This is a challenge effectively to New York's congressional map. Uh, the my read on this is that this puts New York in the mix in terms of states that may essentially redistrict their congressional map for partisan advantage because of the way that Trump has insisted that red states must do it. Democrats Democratic controlled states now trying to fight back on those same lines.

Yeah, and I make no apologies for that. I mean, the fact is my my law firm and I, we are involved now in eight different lawsuits in eight different states involving congressional lines, everything from Alabama and Mississippi to Missouri, uh, uh, to Texas, uh, and now, uh, now New York, and I expect that number will grow in the coming days. Uh, you know, what we what we've identified in New York is that the districts that were drawn, at least one of them does not comply with state law, and therefore we are suing. And we think it is important that this case be heard quickly and that the result be a new redrawn map by the state legislature. And like I said, I make no apologies for standing up against what Donald Trump is trying to do, while also not agreeing that we are going to unilaterally disarm because that will be the death knell of democracy.

Attorney Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket. Mr. Elias, it's always a pleasure to have you. Thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you.