Wednesday, December 11

President-elect Donald Trump named longtime GOP staffer Kash Patel as his pick to lead the FBI. Like many of his nominees, not only is Patel uniquely unqualified, but his extremist views are bad for democracy. Also in this issue: a look at the True the Vote plan to disenfranchise voters and a rare win for voters in Arizona.

As always, thanks for reading. And just a quick programming note: Eye On The Right will be taking a short break for the holidays; we’ll be back in your inboxes Jan. 8!

— Matt Cohen, Senior Staff Writer

At Democracy Docket, we prioritize our readers in everything we do. Help support our pro-democracy news outlet as we continue to hold those in power accountable. Join us in the fight for a stronger, more transparent democracy.

How An FBI Led By Kash Patel Could Harm Democracy

When Trump announced Patel as his pick to lead the FBI, it was met with shock and concern. Not just because it’s highly unusual for a president to replace an FBI director in the middle of their 10-year term — especially one chosen by that president — but because of how extreme Patel’s views are.

Case in point: Patel has an “enemies” list of “deep state” members who have wronged Trump and should be criminally investigated and prosecuted. At least, that’s what he wrote in his 2023 book Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy — one of many troubling documents Patel authored that hint at just what he’d do as FBI director. The list doesn’t stop with his book: he has embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, hosted a radio show for the right-wing disinformation-peddling Epoch Times and promoted bogus supplements to help people “detox” from the COVID-19 vaccine.

Given all that, it’s not hard to figure out what sort of views Patel might harbor when it comes to voting and elections in the U.S. But while the FBI’s activities rarely involve voting laws or election administration, it’s not totally out of the question that a Patel-led FBI would work to make elections less safe. Project 2025, for example, calls for the FBI to be completely reformed — including a mandate to prohibit the agency from “engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity.” It’s a frightening mandate, especially at a time when the heightened threat of election-related violence and harassment of election workers is on the rise, thanks to the proliferation of disinformation.

When I spoke with Lisa Gilbert, the executive vice president of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, back in July about how Project 2025 could undermine democracy, she specifically called out the proposals for the FBI. “What the FBI does is investigate and expose corruption, look at political interference and think about holding the wealthy accountable when they break the law,” Gilbert said. “And so if this happened, people with enough money or political influence could be placed above the law at the whim of the President.”

Will Trump Adapt True the Vote’s Voter Suppression Plan?

Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump spoke a lot about “election integrity” and how, once he’s back in office, he will reform election law. Now that he’s set to return to the White House, a document from the conservative election integrity group True the Vote outlines exactly how the new Trump administration might accomplish it  — and how the plan could disenfranchise millions of voters.

True the Vote, the group who authored the plan, is best known as the primary source behind Dinesh D’Souza’s conspiracy theory election film 2,000 Mules, which he’s since acknowledged contained flawed information. True the Vote and its founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, have cashed in big on promoting election conspiracy theories and disinformation about voting, raising millions of dollars. Engeobrecht and True the Vote’s grift extends as far as trying to recruit sheriffs across the country to investigate bogus election fraud conspiracies. The group was even sued in Georgia for its voter intimidation tactics.

True the Vote’s plan, called “The Way Forward,” calls for major reformations of federal voting laws, like the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), along with “sunsetting” crucial federal agencies — including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Election Assistance Commission — that play a crucial role in securing U.S. elections. The plan also calls for replacing electronic voting with paper ballots, eliminating drop boxes, reducing mail-in ballots, implementing federal voter ID laws and privatizing election administration to third-party vendors. Cumulatively, these proposals could disenfranchise millions of voters.

A Right-Wing Legal Challenge to Arizona’s Voter Roll Maintenance Falls Short

In the months prior to the election, no state experienced such a massive legal assault on its election laws than Arizona. At least 18 anti-voting lawsuits were filed in the ‘23-’24 election cycle, according to Democracy Docket’s litigation database. Among the most contentious was a lawsuit filed in June by Gina Swoboda, chair of the Republican Party of Arizona, Scott Mussi, the president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and a voter against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D), challenging the maintenance of the state’s voter rolls.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claimed that at least four Arizona counties have more registered voters than adults over the age of 18, and that other counties have voter registration rates that far exceed national and statewide rates — the result of poor maintenance of the state’s voter rolls, which violates Section 8 of NVRA.

Last week an Arizona district court judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the right-wing plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case. Though the ruling might not be entirely relevant anymore, given that the election was over a month ago, it’s nonetheless important given how GOP plaintiffs so often file frivolous voting lawsuits, if only to sow doubt in the elections process and spread disinformation.