A New Theory of Voter Protection to Match a New Authoritarian Threat
Today was National Voter Registration Day, and the silence was deafening. You’re excused if you didn’t have a clue it was happening.
Whatever volunteer, civic engagement, or election protection efforts you or your company, law firm, or philanthropy supported in previous elections were certainly admirable. If you match those same efforts in 2025, 2026, and 2028, your work will unfortunately appear quaint against the new authoritarian threats that voters and our elections now face.
In very short order, each of us will be called on to do more than we’ve ever done before to protect American voters and elections.
A New Type of Coward & New Type of Threat
American elections are a thing to behold. Over 230 years ago, the Framers gave states authority over "the time, place, and manner" of elections, and for 230 years state officials have been the keepers of a voting system that has remained open and transparent to the public and press; secure against attack and manipulation; and—with pressure from activists and advocates—become more equal and equitable over time.
Of course, some have always sought to manipulate our system for their own purposes, whether to horde power, exercise cruelty, or both. We recognize this for what it is: a cowardly, centuries-old strategy to grab and hold power—and often to keep Black and Brown leaders out of power.
That history of disenfranchisement has long been grounded in excluding voters from the process on the front end: i.e., literacy tests, ID requirements, and blatant harassment and intimidation designed to keep voters from casting ever a ballot.
But voter suppression circa 2025 don’t stop at keeping voters from the ballot box. Instead, today’s election sabotage is dual-impact: it seeks to both disenfranchise voters and undermine the validity of elections even after votes have been cast—whether by nefariously casting doubt on the results, the workers who administered the election, or the integrity of the entire system.
The always-fantastic team at the Brennan Center identified four likely components of the upcoming authoritarian attacks on elections:
Federal agencies that are currently making unprecedented requests for private voter data could use that data to launch false claims that large numbers of non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote. This can lead to errant voter roll purges and drive down voter confidence.
The President has prompted agencies to investigate and even decertify previously approved voting equipment. This could be a precursor for government reports containing false or misleading claims about the security and accuracy of election systems.
Executive Orders and other statements suggest we’ll see an increase in politicized investigations and prosecutions of election workers and other individuals who work to assist voters.
Based on recent military deployments and other actions, we could even see scenarios where federal agencies could be used to interfere in election operations, including through efforts to prevent legal votes from being counted.
Again, each attack is a twin threat against democracy: it seeks to both disenfranchise voters or intimidate them from voting, and simultaneously lay the groundwork to subvert perfectly valid election results after the fact. This is the new threat we face.
A New Theory of Election Protection
For years, lawyers, advocates, and political parties have led election protection efforts. This made sense. Courts and legislatures were the obvious places to fight for a level playing field, political candidates were obvious leaders in that fight, and nonprofit advocates could help amplify voting rights messages to their members.
Protecting our votes from an autocrat determined to deploy new tactics to meddle in elections to grab and hold power for himself and his party will, however, take more than just lawyers volunteering to monitor polling places on Election Day and celebrities posting links to voter registration websites.
Don't get me wrong: we'll need every lawyer and celebrity we can get.
But safeguarding elections and voters from an authoritarian who is already laying the groundwork to subvert elections will require more from each more of us than ever before contributing more than ever before starting sooner than ever before.
New Timelines: This is not a Summer or Fall of 2026 problem, it’s a today problem. The authoritarians are organizing now, and we’re already behind. There are major elections in just 50 days in California, New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Detroit, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Authoritarians will use what happens in 2025 as a basis to tilt the playing field in 2026. The midterms in 2026 will feel like a Presidential year in terms of intensity, because the authoritarians will use whatever happens that year to further hamper free and fair elections in 2028. We must organize and activate starting today.
New Tactics: Activation and volunteerism must be robust before, during, and after Election Day—all the way until the last vote is certified and the final court case challenging the results is settled. We need people pre-butting and debunking election disinformation in the streets and on social media and on podcasts and (most importantly of all) with friends and neighbors and coworkers and fellow churchgoers. We need businesses to be brave and amplify pro-voter messaging to employees. We need philanthropy to be more generous than ever before.
New Coalitions: We’re going to need to do all this numbers that make previous national activation weekends like No Kings look small. Lawyers and non-lawyers. Students and retirees. We need the business community and the creator community and the faith community to show up en masse, both in person and online. And we need each and every person that I just listed to recruit three friends to volunteer or march or post with them. Case studies from other countries teach us that the most effective way to stop authoritarian election manipulation is people standing up in huge numbers and saying, “no!”.
Essential voting rights and election protection litigation is still essential. The leading pro-democracy nonprofit organizations will still lead. They need your support and your funding and your amplification, just like you’ve done for them in the past. But they, and we, and America need you to do more.
Now, or never.