Blanche says he will ‘follow the law’ on ICE agents at polls but won’t pledge not to deploy them

• Blanche, the current acting attorney general and one of Trump’s former personal defense attorneys, made the remarks while answering questions from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) during his confirmation hearing today.
  
  
• She asked: “Will you commit to following clear federal law and not deploy federal agents to polling locations?” He responded: “I will commit to following the law, senator.” He also pointedly stopped short of pledging not to deploy them.

➤ More on what Blanche said today

Speaking of Blanche… here’s why he’s a threat to the ballot box

• Blanche “represents a direct, calculated assault on our most sacred right — to have a government that serves the people, not just those who have been elected,” Virginia Kase Solomon, the president and CEO of Common Cause, writes in a new op-ed.

➤ More on why Blanche is a “grave threat” to fair elections

More sidestepping: Trump’s pick for intel chief refuses to say who won 2020 election

• Clayton repeatedly declined to answer the very simple question during his confirmation hearing today, engaging in rhetorical gymnastics to avoid admitting that former President Joe Biden won — and, by extension, that Trump lost the 2020 contest.
  
  
• Instead, like many of Trump’s recent nominees, Clayton claimed that “Biden was certified as the president of the United States.”

➤ More on Clayton’s word salad answers

USPS says it’s not implementing Trump’s anti-mail voting order, for now

• USPS confirmed it is following a pair of court orders blocking it from acting on a Trump executive order that would allow the postal service to only deliver mail ballots if states handed over a list of preapproved voters, according to a letter obtained by Democracy Docket.

➤ Read more about the letter

DOJ wants to help anti-voting group purge California rolls

• Tom Fitton, the president of the far-right legal group Judicial Watch, boasted on social media today that the Department of Justice seeks to “clean nearly 1 million dirty voter names from California’s voter rolls” after the department filed its motion to intervene as a plaintiff in a massive voter roll purge effort in the state.

➤ More context for what’s happening in California

Maricopa County hands election denier control over early voting and drop boxes

• A year-long fight over control of elections in Arizona ended with a settlement this week, when Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap was given broad authority over early voting while leaving Election Day operations and ballot counting with the county Board of Supervisors.
  
  
• Heap falsely claimed that the county’s 2020 election results were rigged against Trump. He also insisted without evidence that “inconsistencies and illegalities” occurred in Arizona’s recent elections.

➤ What does this mean for voters?

Facing bipartisan backlash, North Carolina GOP operative resigns over ‘meddling’ in local voting plans

• A North Carolina GOP operative resigned from a state elections oversight role after the State Auditor’s office was caught aggressively attempting to influence how counties picked their early voting locations — a move that drew significant backlash from local officials in both parties.

➤ What to know about North Carolina

Follow us live from Rapid City, South Dakota this week

• Reporter Matt Cohen is doing some on-site reporting at the National Association of Secretaries of State. We’ll highlight some of his work here every day, but in the meantime you can catch the latest on Bluesky.

➤ Follow along

Here we share noteworthy briefs on all things voting rights and democracy. Have a footnote for us? Send it to newsletters@democracydocket.com.

• The U.S. Mint is producing $1 gold coins with Trump’s face on them, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. I guess they are Trump’s favorite color. Favorite response so far: “I was way more fond of the penny. Can we bring that back?”
  
  
• OK — I’ll level with you. This has to do with the diarrhea parasite outbreak across the country, so fair warning. But this post making fun of something Dr. Oz said eight months ago is hilarious. I won’t spoil it, but it made me laugh out loud in the office today.
  
  
• Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Guy election conspiracist, was probably happy to get Trump’s endorsement for Minnesota governor. He may be less happy that the president bungled his nickname while doing so. In a post, Trump called him “the Pillow Man.”
  
  
• Pete Hegseth is promising a “High-T Department of War.” Cool, bro.