Host Simone Leeper speaks with Campaign Legal Center attorneys Catie Kelley and Jonathan Diaz about the Trump administration’s efforts to seize state control of elections. From unlawful executive orders to voter registration barriers and voter roll data grabs, they explain how these actions undermine federalism—and what CLC is doing to protect American elections in the lead-up to 2026 and 2028.
Under our Constitution, the federal government and the states have distinct powers — especially when it comes to elections. But the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to interfere with how states run elections, pushing unlawful policies that undermine faith in safe, secure and accurate elections.
Host Simone Leeper sits down with Catie Kelley, Senior Director of Policy and Strategic Partnerships at Campaign Legal Center, and Jonathan Diaz, CLC’s Director of Voting Advocacy and Partnerships, to examine how the Trump administration has attempted to federalize elections, impose unconstitutional voter restrictions and silence Americans.
They unpack CLC’s major court victory against the administration’s unlawful election executive order; explain how new proof-of-citizenship requirements could disenfranchise millions of voters; and discuss lawsuits defending states’ rights and voters’ privacy against federal overreach. They also explore broader threats—from troubling legislation and to presidential attacks on mail-in voting—and what Campaign Legal Center is doing to preserve checks and balances, protect election integrity and defend every American’s freedom to vote.
Timestamps:
(00:00) — What does “federalism” mean, and why is it under attack?
(02:50) — How is the Trump administration overstepping its authority on elections?
(06:44) — What lawsuits has CLC filed to stop the president’s election overreach?
(07:58) — Why are proof-of-citizenship rules so dangerous for voters?
(11:28) — How are military families impacted by new voting restrictions?
(14:50) — Why is the DOJ demanding states’ voter data—and why is it alarming?
(17:56) — How are states pushing back to defend their power and voters’ privacy?
(19:10) — What is the SAVE Act, and how could it silence millions of voters?
(25:16) — Why is mail-in voting under attack again?
(28:41) — How does misinformation from the president erode trust in elections?
(30:51) — What lessons from 2024 should shape the 2026 midterms?
(34:04) — What can states do to strengthen confidence in elections?
(36:24) — What should voters remember heading into 2026 and beyond?
(40:17) — How can Americans hold the line for democracy?
Host and Guests:
Simone Leeper litigates a wide range of redistricting-related cases at Campaign Legal Center, challenging gerrymanders and advocating for election systems that guarantee all voters an equal opportunity to influence our democracy. Prior to arriving at CLC, Simone was a law clerk in the office of Senator Ed Markey and at the Library of Congress, Office of General Counsel. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2016.
Catie Kelley is Senior Director of Policy & Strategic Partnerships at Campaign Legal Center. Catie oversees CLC's policy work at the federal, state and local levels. She is leading CLC's work to address the emerging threats of election sabotage. Previously, Catie built and ran CLC's state campaign finance program. In that capacity, she worked with state and local stakeholders and policymakers to advance innovative policies designed to decrease the influence of money in the political process. She began her legal career in the Federal Election Commission's Office of General Counsel.
Jonathan Diaz is Director of Voting Advocacy and Partnerships at Campaign Legal Center. Jonathan advocates for laws and policies that expand the freedom to vote for all Americans; leads CLC's work on combatting election sabotage; and coordinates CLC's relationships with national, state and local voting rights partners.
Jonathan manages CLC's work to protect election results and defend against election sabotage, and he works directly with CLC's litigation, communications and policy teams to help set organizational strategy on voting rights and elections advocacy. He also works directly with election officials at the state and local level to improve election administration processes, and he represents CLC in democracy reform coalitions to coordinate legal, advocacy and messaging strategies with partner organizations across the country.
Jonathan has also litigated voting rights cases in federal courts across the country, including LULAC v. Executive Office of the President (challenging the President's unconstitutional executive order on voting); LUCHA v. Fontes (challenging Arizona's burdensome and discriminatory proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration); VoteAmerica v. Raffensperger (challenging Georgia's restrictions on the distribution of absentee ballot applications); and Raysor v. Lee (challenging Florida's conditioning of rights restoration for voters with past felony convictions on the payment of legal financial obligations).
Links:
Victory! Anti-Voter Executive Order Halted in Court – CLC
Voting Is an American Freedom. The President Can’t Change That – CLC
How CLC Is Pushing Back on the Trump Administration’s Anti-Voter Actions – CLC
Taking Action Against Presidential Abuses of Power – CLC
What You Need to Know About the SAVE Act – CLC
Vote-By-Mail: A Secure and Accessible Way to Cast Your Ballot – CLC
A Raging Battle for Democracy One Year from the Midterms – Trevor Potter’s newsletter
About CLC:
Democracy Decoded is a production of Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy. Campaign Legal Center fights for every American’s freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process. Learn more about us.
Democracy Decoded is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
Jonathan Diaz: Who actually gets to be American, who gets to form a part of our political and social community. This administration is trying to redefine who is really American enough to participate in our elections.
Simone Leeper: I'm Simone Leeper and this is Democracy Decoded, a podcast where we examine our government and discuss innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, accountable, and inclusive democracy. I work for a nonpartisan nonprofit organization called Campaign Legal Center, dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy.
This season on Democracy Decoded, we are sounding the alarm. Safeguards at the core of our American system of democracy are being challenged, ignored, or outright dismantled. Our very form of governance is under threat.
In this episode, we're bringing you another up- to- the- minute interview with legal experts to help you better understand the fast- moving issues affecting our democracy. Today we're going to talk about the erosion of federalism under Donald Trump. The president this year has repeatedly criticized the way states run elections, undermining faith in safe, secure, and accurate elections, and treading into an area where the president has no legal authority. Under our Constitution, the federal government and the states have clearly defined powers, especially when it comes to elections. So why is the president acting as if he dictates these matters?
Today I'm joined by two Campaign Legal Center attorneys to discuss this dangerous trend. Catie Kelley is our senior director of policy and strategic partnerships. Catie oversees CLC's policy work at the federal, state, and local levels. She also develops CLC's work to address the emerging threat of election sabotage.
Jonathan Diaz is our director of voting advocacy and partnerships. He works with national, state, and local voting rights partners to advocate for laws and policies that protect and expand all Americans' freedom to vote. Now he leads CLC's election protection and anti- sabotage project. Catie, Jonathan, thank you so much for being here and welcome to Democracy Decoded.
Jonathan Diaz: Thanks for having us.
Catie Kelley: Hi, Simone. Nice to be here.
Simone Leeper: Our last episode dealt with the topic of executive branch overreach. One of the many ways that this current Trump administration has oftentimes overstretched its executive power is by attempting to interfere with election administration, which, as you all know well, the Constitution clearly assigns to the states and to Congress to handle, not the president. One of the core tenets of our democracy is that concept of federalism. The states and the federal government have distinct powers and responsibilities. Could you give a summary of what's going on here and how Campaign Legal Center is challenging this overreach? Jonathan, let's start with you.
Jonathan Diaz: Throughout this first year almost of Donald Trump's second term, this administration, I think, has been really distinctively characterized by how much power they have been amassing in the executive branch at the expense of not just Congress, but also the states. That's certainly been true in the realm of elections. Donald Trump has been preoccupied with how elections are run for decades at this point, and he's continued to consistently spread falsehoods and misinformation about how our elections are run, how secure our elections are, and now that he is back in the Oval Office, is using the levers of power both available to him and not to consolidate federal control over elections as much as he can and reshape the way that elections are run to be more to his liking.
Catie Kelley: Simone, if I could just add a couple thoughts on that. When looking at what the president has done and reflecting on what it means for the upcoming midterm elections, I'm still struck by how much we are living under the shadow of the 2020 election. As Jonathan mentioned, President Trump has been spreading falsehoods about elections long before the 2020 election, but really it was at its peak in 2020. Now we have election deniers who were helping him spread misinformation about the results of the 2020 election well after the election was settled in positions of power and being rewarded for their loyalty to him. And so, not only do we have the president's continued spread of misinformation, but now we have those loyal to him spreading that election denial narrative in positions of power and overseeing the key parts of our government.
Jonathan Diaz: Critically, what we don't have are people in the federal government who will push back against these false claims, which we did have in the first Trump term. Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, at the Department of Justice, and at the Department of Defense curbed the president's worst impulses in his first term, and those people are largely gone. They've been fired, they've been pushed out, they've been ostracized by the administration. And so, what we're seeing now is a president surrounded by enablers, people who are more than willing to disregard long- held constitutional rules, federal laws, norms of American government to give this president what he wants and to reshape American society and American governance in his image.
Simone Leeper: Jonathan, your point is really well taken that that pushback isn't coming from within the government. We know that some of that pushback is coming from organizations like CLC. So what are we doing to combat this attempted breakdown of federalism?
Catie Kelley: Oh, CLC has filed several lawsuits against the administration and its attempts to really overreach in elections beginning with a challenge to the election executive order that came down in March of this year. CLC is representing LULAC, the Secure Families Initiative, and the Arizona Students Association.
The president signed this executive order unlawfully, attempting to direct several federal agencies to change the rules for federal elections and implement unnecessary barriers to registering to vote. Only Congress, not the president, has the power to pass laws that set national voting standards, and that can override state laws governing federal elections. The Constitution does not give the president any role in setting election rules, and yet he has repeatedly tried to give himself that authority.
Jonathan Diaz: I think it's important to talk a little bit about what this executive order does and why it is such an extreme overreach. In this order, the president attempts to create out of whole cloth new requirements for voter registration for people who use the federal form, which is accepted by virtually every state for voter registration. He tries to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the registration form, which functionally means that in addition to filling out the form, including all the necessary information, signing it under penalty of perjury, affirming that everything on the form is true. Under the executive order, you would also then have to provide additional documents to prove your American citizenship.
The list of documents that the order says are acceptable is really, really short. It basically boils down to a US passport or a government- issued ID that indicates on its face that you are a US citizen. The problem with that is only about half of Americans have passports. Most state- issued IDs don't have any information about citizenship on them one way or another. So if you wanted to use, for example, your driver's license, even if it is a real ID, it doesn't indicate citizenship on its face, so you'd have to provide a second document and maybe a third document, a birth certificate, something else.
These bureaucratic paperwork requirements really add up, especially when they are requesting forms of documentation that people may not have access to, may need to pay a fee to obtain. There've been a couple of academic studies that estimate that almost 1 in 10 Americans lack ready access to these forms of proof for their US citizenship.
These restrictions would be devastating for political participation in the United States. They would disproportionately affect very young voters and very old voters, voters of color, voters with disabilities, voters in rural areas. It would be hugely detrimental to voter registration and participation rates across the country, all to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
We don't have a problem in this country with voter fraud. Our elections are secure and reliable, but because the president has spent the last several years promoting and feeding this narrative that's created this climate of fear and uncertainty among the public, the executive order does a bunch of other things. It goes after certification standards for voting machines. It tries to overwrite state laws in 16 states that allow election officials to count mail ballots that are cast by election day, sent and postmarked by election day, but received a few days later.
16 states plus DC allow the grace period after election day to account for postal delays and things like that. This executive order tries to completely erase those state laws, which of course is not how our government works. The president doesn't just get to wave a pen around and decide that a bunch of state laws are invalid.
Overreach is really the best way to describe it, which is why we along with our co- counsel at Democracy Defenders Fund, on behalf of our clients, went to court to block this really extreme attempted takeover of our elections by the White House.
Catie Kelley: I'll just add one thing on there, Jonathan. One group of voters affected by this issue of when the mail- in ballot is received by election officials are military voters and their families. One of our clients in that case is the Secure Family Initiatives, which is a group of military families. When they are stationed away from their home state, they're voting mail, and they are relying on this grace period for delays that can happen in the mail due to no fault of theirs. This was a group of voters that would be really dramatically impacted by the change in when election officials can receive ballots
Simone Leeper: When President Trump signed this illegal executive order, Campaign Legal Center and our co- counsel State Democracy Defenders Fund immediately sued on behalf of our clients. Back in April, the court temporarily blocked the section of the executive order that purported to direct the Election Assistance Commission to require documents proving citizenship on the federal voter registration form.
In that order back in April, the court agreed with our argument and said that the Constitution gives the states and Congress the express power to regulate our elections and does not give that power to the president. We've requested that the court make that win permanent, and, as you guys know, just recently it did. The district court again concluded that the president has no constitutional authority to dictate the contents of the federal voter registration form and it permanently struck down his unlawful attempt to do so, issuing a final judgment against the government.
Not only, as we all know, is this a huge win for Campaign Legal Center, our co- counsel, and of course our clients, but it's a really big deal for American voters who now will not be illegally burdened by this requirement. This is another example of how our system of checks and balances is holding firm against the extreme overreach of the Trump administration. That's, as we all know, why the work of groups like CLC is so important to hold the administration accountable in court and to defend voters' freedom to vote.
As we all know, day in and day out, Campaign Legal Center will continue to litigate all of our cases, including litigate against the other unlawful provisions of this executive order, which include the president's attempt to override state mail ballot receipt deadlines and to make it more difficult for overseas and uniformed voters to use the federal postcard application form to register to vote and to request absentee ballots.
I know last time when we had one of these up- to- the- minute episodes, I was speaking with Anna and Brent about the lawsuits where the Department of Justice has sued several states to obtain voters' personal private information. Can you give an update on what CLC is doing to combat that now across the country?
Jonathan Diaz: As we mentioned earlier, there are a number of prominent election deniers with senior roles in this presidential administration. Among them is Pam Bondi, the attorney general, who was a key figure in President Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. She's now in charge of the Department of Justice. DOJ has demanded that every state turn over their full, unredacted voter rolls, all of their data on voter registration in each state, to give it to the Department of Justice so that they can review it, vet it, do something with it. They've been vague about what they're going to do with it.
This is happening at the same time as the Department of Homeland Security is building a national citizenship database. And so, the administration wants to take all of the state's voter rolls and run them through this kind of haphazardly constructed, unreliable federal database to search for evidence that there are thousands of noncitizens who are illegally registered and voting.
It's a fishing expedition, really, and it's not something that the department has ever really done before. DOJ is responsible for enforcing federal election laws like the National Voter Registration Act or the Help America Vote Act. And so, if they have an open investigation that is credible and supported by other evidence, they'll seek a state's voter file to confirm whether or not they want to move forward with enforcement of a federal law.
That's not what's happening here. They don't have any kind of concrete evidence of wrongdoing. They just have a general vibe that the states are not properly conducting voter registration or are letting people who are ineligible register and vote. It arguably violates federal laws around data privacy and how data can be shared among government agencies. It violates state laws about who has access to the sensitive personal information in voter registration rolls like full social security numbers and addresses.
A number of states, unsurprisingly, refused to turn over their full voter rolls to the federal government, citing all of these privacy protections in law. And so, DOJ has sued eight of those states, and CLC, on behalf of the League of Women Voters and other kind of nonpartisan and civic engagement groups and voter organizations, we've filed motions to intervene in several of those lawsuits to defend voters' privacy and to push back against the Department of Justice's effort to get access to all of this sensitive data.
We've intervened in those lawsuits in Maine, in New York, and I think by the time this episode goes out, we'll have also intervened in Michigan. We're also looking at filing amicus briefs in several of the other states where DOJ has initiated similar lawsuits.
Catie Kelley: I'll just add to that the point you raised at the beginning of the episode about federalism and who has the power to do what in our system. Really we see the state stepping up to protect the rights of its citizens, and it's a lot of important work being done by the AGs in these states to make sure that their citizens' privacy rights aren't infringed on by the federal government when we are seeing such blatant overreach to collect information about voters. So really a lot of credit is due to these states who are stepping up to protect their citizens.
Jonathan Diaz: And their own power, right? It's the states that conduct voter registration. The federal government doesn't register voters. There is no national voter registration system or database. That is the responsibility of the states, and they all take that responsibility very seriously. So to have the federal government intruding on their voter registration process without cause, without any real justification is a real federalism problem. It's a good thing that these states are stepping up to assert their own authority in our constitutional system as well, as Katie said, defending the rights of their citizens.
Simone Leeper: Moving on to another topic. Earlier this year, Congress, seemingly in coordination with the Trump administration, introduced the SAVE Act, which our listeners may know is an anti- voter law that could silence millions of voters by creating new barriers to voter registration that make it harder for Americans across the country to make their voices heard. That legislation is deeply unpopular, and it seems that it has been halted in its tracks, in no small part thanks to Campaign Legal Center's policy work on the Hill. Can you explain the origins of this legislation, why it's so concerning, and what we're continuing to do to make sure that it does not become the law of the land?
Jonathan Diaz: The SAVE Act dates back to the last Congress and, like you said, Simone, is a legislative effort in Congress to impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements on voter registration, similar to those in the executive order. The timing of this is really, I think, instructive.
The SAVE Act was introduced on the first day of this new Congress. It was among a list of the 10 top priority bills from Speaker Johnson and the Republican majority in the House. It was something that they were really pushing in coordination with the White House in support of this false narrative about non- citizen voting. It would, if it became law, be the first federal law that restricts rather than expands access to voting, which in itself is striking. Every time Congress has passed a federal election bill, it's come in a bipartisan way that expands access to the franchise, that makes voting more attainable for American citizens.
The SAVE Act would do the opposite. It's an entirely partisan bill that would restrict access to voting and, in particular, and this is something that really grabbed hold of the public imagination in a way that federal bills often don't, the way that the proof of citizenship requirements are structured in the SAVE Act, they would have really drastic impacts on married women who've changed their last names.
Everyone would be required to provide additional proof of citizenship documents similar to the EO, whether it's a passport or a birth certificate or something like that. But because married women who've changed their names, because their documents wouldn't necessarily line up, the name on your birth certificate wouldn't be the same as the name on your passport or your driver's license necessarily because those documents would have your married name on them, married women would potentially have to provide not one, not two, but potentially a third, a fourth, a marriage license, a change of name paperwork from Social Security Administration or some other agency. Just the bureaucratic hoops that this would erect would be so burdensome and so detrimental to voter registration and participation rates.
There was a pretty significant public backlash against members of Congress who supported this bill. It did pass the House by an incredibly narrow margin, but as of right now it is languishing in the Senate with no solid prospects of moving forward, which is why the president tried to revive some of these provisions in his executive order and just do them himself.
Catie Kelley: I'll just add, as Jonathan mentioned, the SAVE Act is stalled out in the Senate, wildly unpopular and stalled out. The executive order is blocked from implementing the documentary proof of citizenship requirement. But these efforts continue at the state level, and state legislatures have really taken the baton and run with it and are going to do everything that they can to require documentary proof of citizenship at the state level. So we are also working at the state level to prevent these laws from getting passed and challenging them in court as well. But as we see from the president and his supporters, they're going to push every possible avenue to implement these restrictive voting laws, and CLC and other folks who are trying to expand the franchise and support voters need to be prepared to push back on these efforts at every level that Trump and his allies are going to be pushing them.
Jonathan Diaz: We are litigating these issues at the state level as well. We've challenged Louisiana's proof of citizenship requirement that they passed in 2024. That litigation is ongoing. We actually have been litigating issues related to proof of citizenship requirements in Arizona since 2018. Arizona was the first state to pass a requirement like this way back in 2004, 2006, around that time.
It has been, administratively, a disaster in Arizona. They've lost multiple Supreme Court cases about this restriction. They had to build a whole second separate voter registration system so that people who don't comply with their burdensome state proof of citizenship requirement can still be registered for federal elections, but not state and local elections. Its cost to the state millions of dollars not just in technology and implementation costs, but also in legal fees because they keep getting sued over this proof of citizenship requirement because of the way that it has discriminated against Latino voters, Native American voters, college students.
From an election administration standpoint, these requirements do nothing but create headaches for election officials, and from a voter perspective, they're incredibly burdensome. So they really benefit nobody except for the people who have a partisan stake in pushing these anti- voter narratives.
Simone Leeper: Catie, you mentioned that this administration seems to be attacking voting and voting access on multiple fronts, which includes, as we've discussed, in the executive and the legislative branches. But also we've been talking a lot about voter registration. That's not the only thing that's under attack now. Recently President Trump announced on social media that he wants to lead a movement to " get rid of mail- in voting". Can you provide some context for the president's attacks on this really time- honored way of voting?
Catie Kelley: We keep repeating ourselves on a couple of points, and so let's say it again. The president does not have any authority in setting the rules for the elections or administering elections, so we'll say it in response to each of your questions, Simone. There it is again.
Americans have been voting by mail at least since the Civil War, when troops were away from home and needed some way to participate in the election, and it has continued since then. Of course we saw a huge uptick in mail voting in 2020 when a lot of voters felt like it was safer to vote by mail- in ballot in their own homes rather than risk possible exposure to COVID- 19 going to a polling location. So it was a huge uptick in mail voting then, and a lot of states have continued to increase mail voting since then because people like the convenience of mail-in voting.
Jonathan Diaz: Let's not forget that President Trump himself has voted by mail several times. There's a perception that vote by mail has a kind of partisan split, although that was true in 2020. I think that was in large part due to the fact that Donald Trump told his supporters not to vote by mail. Prior to that election, there was a pretty even split among both major parties as far as voting by mail. Vote by mail is incredibly popular in states like Florida and Utah, both of which have been reliably Republican in recent election cycles, in battleground states that go with both parties like Arizona and Pennsylvania, blue states like California and Washington. It didn't become a partisan issue until party leaders made it one. Vote by mail just benefits voters generally.
Catie mentioned the 2020 election and the spike that we saw in vote by mail because of the pandemic. Well, that's an election that President Trump lost, and so he's pointing to that increase in mail voting as the reason. It's entirely a self- serving motive. There's no reason to believe that vote by mail is unreliable or unsecure. Again, the president doesn't have the power to do this. He could sign an executive order tomorrow that says vote by mail is illegal, no one can vote by mail, and that wouldn't have any effect on the laws in every state that permit certain voters to vote by mail under certain circumstances.
He can't just rewrite the laws in 50 states and DC and Puerto Rico and everywhere else just because he feels like it. That's not the way that our government works. Only the states can set rules around vote by mail and only Congress can change those rules by passing some kind of national standard. The president can't do anything about vote by mail no matter how much he dislikes it.
Catie Kelley: We've talked a lot about authority and what the president can't do, but what he's also doing, making an announcement like this on his social media network is creating a narrative that sows distrust in elections. And so, I think that we really can't gloss over that point and what damage he does by questioning different ways of voting, questioning the laws, questioning the fair administration of elections, to plant the seeds that if then the election does not go his way or does not go the way of his party, he can claim that it was an improperly administered election, that there was fraud in the election.
He has the bully pulpit of the presidency to plant these seeds of distrust in our election, which is such a disservice to our country. It's a disservice to the voters, the election administrators who are there doing the difficult work of making sure that we can vote and our votes are counted and we have results in elections in a timely manner, and he chips away at the confidence in the process and in the people running it to the great detriment of all of us.
Jonathan Diaz: Even if he's ultimately unsuccessful in overturning the results of an election, he's creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that chills voter participation, that leads to horrible threats and harassment of election workers and election officials and volunteers, and, like Catie said, really damaging American's belief and trust in our electoral system and laying a foundation for future attempts to overturn election results that maybe won't see as much public pushback because he's convinced enough of the American public that there is something wrong with our elections despite the total lack of evidence and all of the election lawsuits he keeps losing. It does real damage to our ability to maintain an effective and impartial election system.
Simone Leeper: This episode is coming out a week after the 2025 elections that took place in many states across the country. By all accounts, the elections ran very smoothly, thanks in large part, I'm sure, to the election protection work that Campaign Legal Center and our nonpartisan coalition of partners spearheaded.
Now we are looking ahead to the 2026 elections. Jonathan, I know you in particular are looking ahead. You have famously around the office a continuing countdown to the next election, and you've already given us that countdown in many meetings in the last week. So what lessons did we learn from the 2024 elections that we can carry into future federal elections, and is there anything in particular that state election officials should be thinking about now with less than one year until the 2026 midterms?
Jonathan Diaz: It is true. I end most of our all staff meetings by telling everyone how many days there are until the next election, because there's always a next election. One of the things that we learned in 2024 is that our election system really is quite resilient despite the rhetorical attacks on election workers, despite all of the lawsuits, despite all of the threats and misinformation.
From an administrative standpoint, the 2024 election ran really smoothly. There were no major disruptions to the voting process. There were no efforts to disrupt or overturn the results to interfere with counting, tabulation, certification. There was no congressional objection to the results that we saw in 2020.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of that had to do with what the results were and who won. Vice President Harris, when she lost the presidential election, did not amplify or echo conspiracy theories about why she lost, didn't lead a legal and political movement to overturn the results. There wasn't a major political movement to undermine the election process.
I'm not confident that that would've been the case had the outcome been reversed. We've seen that even after winning and even after taking office, President Trump and his allies have continued to undermine the electoral system and spread misinformation about the electoral process. And so, I do worry, looking ahead to 2026, that depending on what the results are, the losing party, the losing side may not respect those results and may, again, try to undermine the system to overturn the results.
Unfortunately, many of those folks who led that charge in 2020, as we've said already, now hold pretty significant levers of power at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security and the White House. And so, we are preparing as we look ahead to 2026 for potential federal attempts to interfere with election administration. To interfere with election results.
Catie Kelley: I'll just add a couple of things there, Simone. We've talked a lot about who does not have the power to write the rules for elections, the president, and who does, the states. There is a lot of room from improvement at the state level, and we have seen states over the past several years take important steps to improve, especially their post- election processes and make the ballot counting faster and get results out sooner.
The really critical time for trust in elections and when there's an opportunity to really crack away at confidence in elections is after voting closes and before results are announced. And so, the longer that process takes, the more opportunity there is for mischief. And so, we've seen a number of states try to speed up their vote counting process. This is especially important in presidential elections where we now have a firm certification deadline for states to certify their slates of electors for presidential elections. So a lot states can do there to get results faster and make sure the count is accurate and coming out quickly when voters are most primed to distrust what's happening in the election.
What are election officials doing? We've really seen them increase the amount of transparency and public education that they are doing to make sure that voters understand what's going on in that vote counting process and feel like they have a window into what happens to a ballot after it's submitted by a voter. One of the more delightful and tedious things we saw coming out of the 2024 election was videos from ballot processing centers of people counting ballots and feeding ballots into machines to get counted and like, wow, that's boring stuff, but you could watch it. Kudos to the election officials who are providing a window into what that process looks like. Hopefully it provides some amount of confidence to voters, but also we know more about the hours and the tedious work elections officials are doing to make sure that we have results in a timely manner.
Simone Leeper: Catie and Jonathan, do you have any final thoughts that you want to leave our listeners with as we're looking forward heading into the 2026 midterms and beyond?
Jonathan Diaz: We've talked a lot on this episode about the ways in which the administration has gone beyond constitutional and legal limits in the realm of elections, but that's certainly not the only aspect of American law or American life where they're doing that. When we are conducting a national election in 2026, I think that there are a lot of concerns about actions that the administration could take, both legal and extra legal, to disrupt the administration of that election, whether it's frivolous lawsuits from the Department of Justice, trying to remove voters from the rolls or keep ballots from being counted, the kinds of things that we saw in 2020 and in 2024 in North Carolina, for example, or deployment of National Guard or ICE or other kind of federal law enforcement agencies to the polls, to the vote counting centers.
Those are certainly risks that we are going to be monitoring and preparing to respond to if they occur. But even if they don't, the threat of those kinds of things happening carries with it the risk of a chilling effect on voters, on voters being afraid that either they or their loved ones won't be safe if they vote, if they participate in elections, and that's a real problem.
And so, it is up to election officials, elected officials, groups like CLC and our partners to make sure that voters know that they have a right and they should have the expectation that they can vote safely, securely, and without fear of consequence or reprisal, and that that vote really matters, and that no matter what steps the Trump administration or their allies or anybody take to intimidate or threaten voters or election officials, groups like us and our partners and our clients and groups in your community will be there to stand with you and defend every American's right to cast a ballot and to have that ballot counted.
Catie Kelley: Jonathan covered a lot of really important points there. I'll just emphasize, although he said it so well, a lot of this is an effort to discourage people from voting and to make it seem confusing. What are the rules? Who can do what? All of this is an effort to discourage voting.
And so, when I am talking to people I know, friends and family, who are discouraged about what's happening and wondering what they can do to push back on this administration, we can't give up on voting and we cannot let them turn people away from voting. And so, I think that just making sure that citizens still have the opportunity to register to vote, to cast their ballots, and that those ballots will be counted is really so important in an administration that is really trying to chill the exercise of those rights and trying to discourage people from pushing back on what they're doing.
I just can't emphasize enough how important it is for voters to continue to stay engaged, to tune out some of the noise of what the administration is doing, and really hold on to those fundamental rights to vote and choose their elected officials.
Simone Leeper: Jonathan and Catie, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been an incredible conversation.
Jonathan Diaz: Thanks, Simone.
Catie Kelley: Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Simone Leeper: As we heard, it's unnerving when the president and his allies take steps to make voting harder for so many Americans. But one of the strengths of American elections is how decentralized they are. States control elections and they generally empower their counties to run those elections.
Traditionally, the federal government does have a vital role to play in elections: protecting the rights of individual voters against abuses by states. But with the president, the Supreme Court, and Congress now seemingly aligned in curtailing voting rights, the job of protecting voters falls to people like Catie, Jonathan, and our colleagues at Campaign Legal Center. It's up to them, their networks at the state level, and all of us as Americans to hold the line for voters across the country.
In our next and final episode of this season, we're looking ahead to the future of elections. We'll look at the consequences of laws supposedly meant to protect our elections. We'll discuss ways in which Americans like you can make the greatest possible impact on the future of safe and secure elections in the United States.
This season of Democracy Decoded is produced by JAR Podcast Solutions for Campaign Legal Center. We're a nonpartisan legal organization dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy. We fight for every American's freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process, particularly Americans who have faced political barriers because of race, ethnicity, or economic status.
During this pivotal moment for our country, it is critical that Campaign Legal Center has the support it needs to continue to fight on behalf of the American people. Your tax- deductible donation can directly fund our efforts to do just that. If you would like to support our work, just go to campaignlegal.org and click on the donate button.
Special thanks to our guests Catie Kelley and Jonathan Diaz of Campaign Legal Center. I'm your host, Simone Leeper. Thanks so much for listening. Find us on your podcast platform of choice and hit subscribe to get updates as we release new episodes. Leading the production for Campaign Legal Center are Casey Atkins, multimedia manager, and Madeleine Greenberg, communications associate.
This podcast was produced by Sam Eifling, edited and mixed by Luke Batiot. Democracy Decoded is a member of the Democracy Group, a network of podcasts dedicated to engaging in civil discourse, inspiring civic engagement, and exploring the future of our democracy. You can learn more at democracygroup.org.