A Republican member of a key federal election panel is facing a call to step down after she claimed in an unhinged rant that Democrats “need open borders, they need illegal citizens to increase their votes,” Democracy Docket exclusively reported last week. Also in this week’s Eye On The Right: A government watchdog sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records on the hiring of a prominent election conspiracy theorist, Ed Martin is investigating the 2020 election in Georgia, and more.

As always, thanks for reading.

A top federal voting official claimed in an unhinged rant that Dems ‘need the votes’ of ‘illegal citizens’

• Christy McCormick — a Republican member of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — alleged in an unhinged rant that Democrats “need open borders, they need illegal citizens to increase their votes,” Democracy Docket exclusively reported last week.

• McCormick made the remarks during a panel on voting at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. Though the false conspiracy theory is common on the far right, McCormick isn’t some online MAGA warrior. She’s a federal election official charged with helping states to administer fair elections that voters can have confidence in.
  
  
• “It’s un-American to spread lies that sow fear and paranoia in the heart of our democracy,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read (D) said in a statement to Democracy Docket. “She must resign or be removed immediately. America’s light is dimming because rot like this is spreading — and it’s up to us to stop it.”

DHS sued for records on Trump-appointed election conspiracy theorist

• A watchdog group sued DHS last week for records related to Heather Honey, a leading election conspiracy theorist who was appointed this summer to a senior “election integrity” role in the department.

• Honey has a long history of anti-voting activism. Prior to her DHS appointment, she reportedly said that Trump could declare a “national emergency” to take control of future elections. The lawsuit, filed by American Oversight, asked for any communications between Honey and various anti-voting groups and figures, including the anti-voting lawyer Cleta Mitchell and her group, the Election Integrity Network, Arizona GOP chair Gina Swoboda, as well as groups like True the Vote, Unite4Freedom, and their leaders.

Ed Martin investigating 2020 election in Georgia

• Ed Martin, the Trump loyalist who heads the DOJ’s shady “weaponization” task force, has a new target: 2020 election ballots. In a letter sent to Fulton County, Georgia Judge Robert McBurney in August, Martin asked to "immediately access the approximately 148,000 absentee ballots and envelopes currently being held at the Fulton County ballot warehouse."
  
  
• Martin added that he is "at present undertaking an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice" and that "a review of the ballots and envelopes is imperative for this work."
  
  
• News of the letter was posted on social media by Mitchell, who wrote that it is "time for the truth about what happened in 2020" and asked Martin "how can we HELP?" Martin quoted her with a pair of eyes emoji.
  
  
• In recent weeks, Trump has put pressure on DOJ to probe 2020 election conspiracy theories — specifically calling on the department to scrutinize ballots preserved in Georgia, along with voting equipment in Colorado and Missouri.

Breaking down all Harmeet Dhillon’s unhinged anti-voting comments in her recent podcast appearance

• Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department's civil rights division, was a guest last week on conservative journalist John Solomon’s podcast and, hoo boy, she made a lot of unhinged anti-voting comments and spread some truly bonkers conspiracy theories. Here we go:
  
  
• When asked about sending federal election monitors to California and New Jersey, Dhillon said “turnabout is fair play” because no Democratic governors objected when the “Democrat Department of Justice sent election monitors to these jurisdictions.” She also said monitors were sent to areas with a “history of non-compliance with our federal voting rights laws,” without citing any examples. 

• Dhillon falsely claimed that Democrats are somehow “coaching” overseas voters “to send their ballots into one of these battleground states.”
  
  
• She expressed hope that the U.S. Supreme Court would decide who gets counted in the Census, and appeared to accuse the Biden administration of rigging the Census to overcount noncitizens. “The Biden administration's census counting actually used AI to smooth out, the way they're calling it, to sort of estimate, overestimate,” Dhillon added.