There were around 30 attorneys in the DOJ’s Voting Section on the day of Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Three months later, all but two were gone. Now the election deniers are in control.When a fresh administration takes the helm in Washington, DC, it invariably brings with it a shift in policy priorities and a reshuffling of personnel. Alex, a seasoned attorney in the Department of Justice’s Voting Section, had weathered the storm of Donald Trump’s initial term and was confident he could navigate the second. However, within mere hours of the president’s inauguration, he realized he had gravely miscalculated the situation.
“I was simply mistaken,” Alex confesses. “The second Trump administration was a stark contrast to the first. There was an overwhelming sense that things were not going to proceed as they had before. And then, within the Voting Section, they began to abruptly dismiss cases.”
The Voting Section, a cornerstone of the agency’s Civil Rights Division, was established in the wake of the groundbreaking Voting Rights Act of 1965. Its mission was to safeguard the equal voting rights of every American citizen. Alex, whose name has been altered to shield his identity, is among the numerous attorneys who have been purged from the section since Trump’s re-ascension to the Oval Office.
At the time of Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the Voting Section boasted a team of approximately 30 attorneys. By April, a mere two remained. The outgoing lawyers were swiftly replaced by a handful of new recruits, most of whom had scant experience in federal court and had committed a series of elementary mistakes in their court filings. These new hires seemed all too eager to fall in line with Trump’s anti-voting directives, launching a barrage of lawsuits in an attempt to coerce states into surrendering unredacted voter rolls.
In an investigation by WIRED, a dozen experts and former Voting Section attorneys were consulted about the systematic dismantling of the Justice Department’s Voting Section under Trump. Many chose to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals from the Trump administration. As the November midterms approach, multiple sources have expressed to WIRED their concerns that the damage inflicted on the DOJ’s Voting Section may be beyond repair.
Their fears center around the possibility that the ultimate objective is to furnish Trump with so-called evidence to wrest control of elections from the states. “I believe the long-term strategy is to generate ammunition to challenge or undermine elections,” says Alex, a long-time veteran of the Voting Section.
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at the Fair Elections Center, shares this sentiment. “They’ve transformed what was once the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Division, the Voting Section, into a weapon against voters,” she tells WIRED. “This was a section that once championed people’s voting rights, that fought against intimidation, that enforced federal voting laws designed to protect people from discrimination and ensure fair and accessible voting. It is now being manipulated into a political tool to propagate the conspiracy theories of the Trump administration.”
Former attorneys from the Voting Section echo these sentiments. Eileen O’Connor, who spent eight years in the Voting Section as a trial attorney and is now senior counsel at a nonprofit, reflects on the transformation. “I spent my tenure in the Voting Section doing what was its core work since its inception, which was enforcing the Voting Rights Act and other federal statutes that protect the right to vote,” she says. “It’s disheartening to see it morph into a political tool.”
In conclusion, the systematic dismantling of the Voting Section under the Trump administration has raised serious concerns about the future of voting rights in America. As the November midterms approach, the fear is that the damage done may be irreversible, and the ultimate goal could be to provide Trump with so-called evidence to wrest control of elections from the states. The transformation of the Voting Section from a champion of voting rights into a political tool is a stark reminder of the fragility of our democratic institutions and the need for constant vigilance to protect them.
