Last week’s FBI raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, points to an emerging threat from the Trump administration ahead of the 2026 midterms. The Trump administration’s fixation on previously debunked claims of fraud is about how to capture and control upcoming elections and, at the very least, limit the impact of Black and brown voters.
Not only are the Trump administration’s recent actions “dangerous,” according to election experts, but if left unchecked, the extreme overreach in Fulton County could lead to further intrusions into local and state election administration ahead of the 2026 midterms.
In effect, the administration aims to accomplish complete domination and control at the ballot box, where decades of voter suppression and conservative tweaks to election administration have failed. Republicans continue to treat Georgia as an open-air lab ripe for their authoritarian experimentation.
If MAGA-aligned officials control the means of administering and overseeing our elections, there is no guarantee we can trust the outcomes. This is clear in their adherence to and insistence on doubling down on lies already debunked by Trump’s former attorney general, vice president, and countless other officials in 2020.
As we’ve seen on multiple occasions, the Trump administration has no respect for democratic norms or the rule of law. And arguably neither do Republicans who hold a trifecta in Georgia’s state government, and who recently passed a resolution urging the secretary of state to hand over the complete, unredacted voter roll.
To date, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has refused the DOJ’s request, and a federal judge recently tossed out the agency’s lawsuit. Georgia is among dozens of states where the DOJ has been attempting to gain access to unredacted voter rolls containing sensitive information.
It’s a fishing expedition that could turn over a large volume of personal data and sensitive information to an administration that has already let one billionaire raid our information for his own purposes. The DOJ has shifted from being a steward protecting fair ballot access to an arm of the suppression state actively engaging in actions that restrict Black and brown political power.
It sounds wild and something out of a dystopian B-movie you find scrolling late at night on HULU or TUBI. But bringing in DNI head Tuli Gabbard was all about dramatic effect, not genuine concern. It’s even worse than Brian Kemp as secretary of state in 2018, overseeing his own election.
Her presence sets the stage for the administration to be even more loud and wrong about alleged electoral conspiracies that required the whisking away of physical ballots rather than waiting for court-authorized access to copies or digital backups. According to reports, Trump ordered Gabbard to set up a phone call with him and the FBI agents involved.
Before his return to office, Trump promised reprisals against those who opposed him during his first term and the aftermath. Fulton County voters and election officials have resoundingly defied the wanna be king. From his defeat in 2020 and the 2021 Senate runoff flipping two seats, to refusing to allow MAGA-aligned election deniers to join our county board of elections, there has been a consistent effort to defend democracy at all levels of government.
But this is more than just simply a former candidate—returned to his former position of power four years later—who can’t take no for an answer. We’re dealing with a strategic effort to solidify the right capture of major American institutions at the state and federal levels and strengthen the fascist grip currently enjoyed by the country’s MAGA faction.
Despite rejecting the Big Lie post-2020, Georgia Republicans and others enacted several laws and restrictions related to voting and election administration. While many focus on how officials made handing water to voters waiting in line a crime, many overlook how the Georgia Legislature gave more power to the state’s election board and made it easier to remove and take over county boards of elections.
And we’ve already experienced how this president lies to the media and his base in an effort to disrupt election administration and control the outcome of elections. Just look to the countless lies and unfounded claims made ahead of 2020 about vote-by-mail, alleged fraud, and other accusations by the administration and its allies that never panned out.
His supporters shared fabricated information, videos, pictures, and other things taken out of context that led to the harassment of election workers and regular people trying to do their jobs. We wouldn’t have had the battle over the last several years about having MAGA-aligned election deniers in positions concerning the administration of elections. Over the past year, Fulton County voters and officials fought to block people who did not believe in or support protecting the sanctity of our votes.
Just as we have people being urged to snitch on neighbors, teachers, and other officials from everything, including immigration status to teaching DEI, soon it will be making baseless claims against voters and the organizations that do the work of expanding and protecting access to the political process. ICE agents have told community observers in Minneapolis that they are developing databases to track them.
Why would we not think something similar couldn’t happen to pro-democracy advocates and voters in states that pose a threat to the Trump regime?
Fulton County officials and voters have nothing to hide and should not have to waste precious county tax dollars fighting lies and misrepresentations of the process and the facts. And yet, here we are, potentially staring down a government takeover that was aided and abetted by state-level Republicans praised for “standing up to Trump.”
But facts don’t matter when your goal is to steal and amass absolute power. The recent incursion in Fulton County has nothing to do with correcting an alleged wrong from 2020. It’s absolutely about punishing a diverse coalition of voters and elected officials who have not only defied him but demanded that Trump be held responsible for his actions.
It will lead to more harm and harassment. And with a shoot-first, ask-questions-later mentality in the administration, the phrase “give me liberty or give me death” could take on new meaning.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Wants To ‘Nationalize’ Voting And Control Elections
Georgia Runoff Election Administration Compromised By SB 202
