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The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) voting rights unit is switching its focus from protecting voters’ ability to cast ballots to investigating so-called voter fraud and fair election practices — buzzwords frequently used by President Donald Trump to push election denial.
“The mission of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is to ensure free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion,” the unit’s new mission statement reads.
Traditionally, the division has been tasked with guaranteeing that voters’ rights aren’t violated — that redistricting hasn’t disenfranchised voters, for example, or that people are not unduly denied access to ballots. However, those points appear to be missing from the new mission statement, according to reporting from The Associated Press.
The change is troubling to voting rights experts, who note that the shift could lead to an influx of baseless and politically charged accusations of voter fraud.
“The Civil Rights Division has always worked to make sure Americans have access to the polls and that their votes matter. The division’s job is not to promote the politically expedient fiction that voting fraud is widespread,” said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department litigator who previously served in the Civil Rights Division.
In addition to changing its philosophy, department officials appointed by Trump are removing managers working within voting rights offices. Remaining staffers are being directed to drop all cases relating to the section’s work.
Trump has frequently peddled the debunked claim that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden because of voter fraud — and has continued pushing that claim throughout his third term. Just days after the DOJ made changes to the voting rights unit, Trump demanded on Truth Social that the sentence of an election denier be reduced.
In his post, Trump discussed former Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters, who is currently in prison for breaching voter systems in her jurisdiction, allowing unauthorized people to enter the Mesa County election office to access sensitive data, which was also shared online.
During her sentencing last fall, Colorado District Judge Matthew Barrett expressed frustration with Peters, noting that she didn’t show any sign of remorse.
“I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could,” Barrett said. “You are a privileged person. You are as privileged as they come. You used that for power and fame.”
Last week, Trump demanded that Peters be freed, citing false and partisan talking points.
Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that Peters, for example, had “worked to expose and document Democrat Election Fraud” in the state of Colorado, when no such fraud has been uncovered. He also called the situation a “Communist persecution by the Radical Left Democrats to cover up their Election crimes and misdeeds in 2020,” an accusation that has no basis in reality.
Trump further indicated that he would direct “the Department of Justice to take all necessary action” to end her sentencing, which he falsely claimed was a politically motivated move by Democrats in the state — providing more evidence that the administration’s goal to address supposed voter fraud is, in fact, political.
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