The Trump administration has effectively forced out more than two dozen experienced lawyers from the DOJ’s Voting Section, the part of the agency responsible for upholding the Voting Rights Act.David Becker had always dreamed of working as a lawyer in the Department of Justice’s Voting Section. It was a coveted position, one that thousands of people across the country aspired to. Becker, who is now the head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, recalls the intense competition for the role. “It was one of the most in-demand jobs,” he shares with WIRED. “I knew there were going to be thousands of people applying.”
The Voting Section, a part of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, was born out of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. For over six decades, the lawyers in this division have been the guardians of every American’s equal right to vote. Their work involved enforcing the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, and representing the United States in court to prevent discriminatory voting practices. While some of their cases were high-profile, much of their work impacted a small fraction of the population, work that no one else was willing or capable of doing.
To Becker’s surprise, he was selected for the job, a position he held for seven years, from 1998 to 2005. “I felt incredibly privileged, and I was working with some of the best lawyers I had ever seen in my life,” he says.
However, as detailed in a recent WIRED article, the past year has seen the Trump administration dismantle the Voting Section, a division once described by an expert as “the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Division.” The administration has effectively forced out more than two dozen experienced lawyers, replacing them with loyalists who seem to be executing the White House’s plans to undermine trust in elections.
Becker, along with a dozen other former Voting Section lawyers and experts, is not only deeply saddened by these developments, but also angry that the work done on behalf of the most vulnerable people in US society is no longer being carried out.
One former DOJ lawyer, who had many years of experience in the Voting Section before being pushed out last year, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, shared a case they worked on in a small town in a southern US state where Black voters were subject to discrimination.
“The black section of town had horrible roads,” they told WIRED. “They’d never had representation because they had citywide elections, and [the city had] never elected a person of color. Now [after the DOJ’s work] there’s a person of color in the city government. I just don’t know if that type of work will ever come back, and it’s deeply depressing.”
Over the past 12 months, lawyers within the Voting Section have been suing states to access their unredacted voter rolls, as part of what critics fear is the administration’s broader push to prevent large swathes of the population from voting. This shift in focus and the departure of experienced lawyers has left many wondering about the future of the Voting Section and its crucial role in protecting the rights of all American voters.
