Slate Daily Feed Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Trump Has a New “Big Lie” for the Midterms
Feb 7, 2026
Mark Elias, a leading election and voting-rights lawyer who founded Democracy Docket, explains why recent tactics feel like a pivot toward election subversion. He discusses raids and ballot seizures, threats to place federal officers at polling sites, and how legal strategies and data grabs could target voters. The conversation stresses vigilance and early attention to voting rights.
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Paramilitary Moves Intimidate Voters
- Deploying federal paramilitary forces around cities serves to normalize intimidation and can deter voting.
- Elias explains this creates side benefits like making it more intimidating and inconvenient to reach polling places.
'Nationalize' Means Partisan Takeover
- When Trump talks about 'nationalizing' elections he means partisan takeovers of specific jurisdictions, not neutral federal standards.
- Elias says the goal is control of vote administration in Democratic areas, not uniform rules nationwide.
2020 Escalation Timeline Replayed
- Elias recounts the 2020 escalation from pre-election attacks on mail ballots to 64 post-election lawsuits and January 6th insurrection.
- He uses that history to illustrate the predictable progression being replayed today.