Hello, pro-democracy readers! Some breaking news: The Department of Justice (DOJ) sent letters to numerous states warning that they could face criminal prosecution if noncitizens vote. Meanwhile, a judge ruled today that President Donald Trump’s DOJ could not get the names and personal information of those who worked during the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. Meanwhile, pro-voting groups are fighting back against the Trump administration’s attempt to create a centralized master citizenship database.

All that and more is on the docket today. See you tomorrow!

Andrew Wyrich, Newsletter Editor 

DOJ sends letters threatening prosecution if votes are cast by noncitizens

• DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon sent letters today to numerous states, warning that election officials could face criminal prosecution if votes are cast by noncitizens, and ordering them to do more to purge their voter rolls.
  
  
• Democracy Docket has obtained letters sent to chief election officials in Michigan and Nevada, and Utah's chief election official said she, too, received a letter.

➤ Read the letters

Trump-appointed judge rejects DOJ’s demands for personal info of 2020 Georgia election workers

• A federal judge ruled today that the DOJ could not have the personal information of people who worked in Fulton County, Georgia, during the 2020 election, calling the request “unreasonable.”
  
  
• The judge also said the department’s attempt to force the county to divulge the election workers’ names, home addresses, emails and phone numbers through a subpoena was “staggering.”

➤ Why the judge said the county was under “no obligation to comply”

Maryland schedules special redistricting session to counter GOP gerrymanders

• Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D) said today that the General Assembly will convene in early August to consider legislation to put a redistricting amendment before voters in November.
  
  
• Ferguson opposed mid-decade redistricting efforts after Trump pushed red states to redraw their maps to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s devastating Callais ruling contributed to Ferguson shifting his tone.

➤ What’s the latest in Maryland?

DOJ to send election monitors to Michigan primaries

• Letters were sent to officials in Lansing, East Lansing and Detroit — three of the biggest Democratic strongholds in the pivotal swing state — in which the DOJ’s voting section deputy chief Timothy Mellett said monitors would be sent to assess voting procedures.

➤ More about the letters sent to Michigan officials

Pro-voting groups oppose DHS’s latest bid to purge voters using national citizenship database

• The League of Women Voters, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and other organizations asked a federal court to deny the Trump administration’s effort to pause a court ruling that blocked it from turning a database that was designed to help states check the citizenship status of people applying for government benefits into a new centralized master citizenship database.

➤ What else did they argue?

More database news: Judge restores Republican-led states’ access to DHS citizenship database for voter purges

• A judge in Florida ruled the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must allow four Republican-led states to again use a federal database to search for noncitizens on their voter registration rolls.

➤ What’s in the ruling?

Postal Service appeals court order blocking Trump’s anti-mail voting order

• In a recent filing, the federal government argued that unless the court pauses the order, the “sweeping injunction” will “severely disrupt USPS’s efforts to potentially promulgate a final rule” fulfilling Trump’s March 2026 order ahead of November’s midterm elections.
  
  
• Legal experts have widely called the executive order unconstitutional, noting that the Constitution empowers states to run elections, supervised by Congress. The president has no legal role.

➤ Read more about the appeal

Judge rejects Trump admin bid to pause order blocking attack on mail voting

• A federal judge rejected the Trump administration's motion asking her to put on hold, pending an appeal, her June 25 ruling that the USPS cannot refuse to deliver mail ballots unless voter lists are handed over to the DOJ.

➤ Here’s what you need to know

Trump DOJ appeals latest wave of losses in languishing voter roll crusade

• That means every defeat in Trump’s nationwide campaign to obtain unredacted state voter data is now in or headed to the federal appeals courts.
  
  
• The new appeals come from Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

➤ The latest in Trump’s voter roll crusade

Judges grant motion to dismiss lawsuit challenging Census statistical methods

• A three-judge panel in Florida granted motions to dismiss, with prejudice, the Republican-led lawsuit that alleged the bureau’s statistical methods were inaccurate and resulted in the dilution of representative power of lawful citizens. Republicans will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

➤ More about the case

The Supreme Court went on break. Here’s why we can’t

• The Supreme Court's term just ended, and the results were mixed for voting rights. Marc breaks down the wins — including a 5-4 ruling protecting mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day — and the losses in his newest video.

➤ Watch the full video