When New Jersey announced in July that a voter registration snafu had allowed fewer than 400 noncitizens to vote since 2023, the response from Republicans — and much of the political press — was apoplectic.

But a Democracy Docket analysis found that over 72,000 mail ballots were rejected across just six states during the 2026 primaries over technical issues. And more than 360,000 ballots nationwide were tossed for similar issues in the 2024 general election.

The impact on the fairness of election outcomes is no different when a valid voter is disenfranchised as when an illegal vote is counted. But unlike New Jersey’s far less consequential error, the issue has spurred no headlines or investigations, no calls for new legislation, and no impassioned denunciations from lawmakers.

It’s time to change that imbalance.

➤ Dive into the numbers

It’s October, Halloween is coming, and I can’t think of anything more frightening than the enormous federal resources that Trump has directed to try to prove that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. (OK, maybe “The Blair Witch Project” or “The Exorcist” are scarier — but at least those are only movies).

Luckily, the horror show that is the Trump administration’s effort to find mass voter fraud and relitigate the 2020 election has fallen flat. With all the chaos and noise Trump and his allies are creating around the midterms, it’s easy to forget that the election deniers are losing.

But this week was a good reminder: Not one, but two Trump administration officials tasked at least in part with proving 2020 voter conspiracies abruptly resigned — and both quit without proving anything. First was Kurt Olsen, a hardcore Trump loyalist who led a special White House task force probing 2020 election conspiracies, then moved to the Department of Justice.

The other was Andrew Bailey, a former Missouri attorney general and avowed election denier, who was the FBI's co-deputy director and helped lead the bureau’s raid on a Fulton County, Georgia election hub earlier this year.

They’re the latest in a string of resignations of administration appointees who were brought in to prove 2020 election conspiracy theories, or indict the president’s political enemies, and utterly failed to do so. Nearly half a dozen election deniers recently resigned — and there’s still no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged.

➤ Maybe this horror story has a happy ending?

We don’t have a crystal ball to tell us who will win the Texas Senate race this year. But with James Talarico* consistently leading Ken Paxton in the polls, it’s time to talk about what happens if Paxton loses and doesn’t accept the results.

The issue is, Paxton isn’t your average GOP election denier candidate — he’s also the Texas attorney general, and state law gives him some unique powers he could weaponize in his own race.

We checked in with a bunch of Texas legal experts for this story, and here are the main takeaways: First, Paxton has destructive election interference tools at his disposal, and he’s proven his willingness to use them. Second, experts have confidence that state and federal courts are up to the task of protecting the will of the voters.

In the story, we’ve explained some of the reasons why legal experts agree Paxton is a particularly large red flag for democracy. But the point isn’t to panic — it’s to be informed about the risks, pay attention to the processes as they’re unfolding and help support the many safeguards that protect our votes.

Disclosure: The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Talarico campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.

➤ What if Paxton won’t accept results?

Odds and ends

➤ South Carolina voters with disabilities lose key mail voting challenge

➤ Could Trump take over voting by declaring a ‘national emergency’?

➤ Judge greenlights challenge to Louisiana anti-voting law, citing discrimination claims

➤ GOP trained Wisconsin election observers to target voting machines in pivotal swing state

➤ DOJ now 0-26 after judge rejects demand for Georgia voter rolls

➤ GOP lawyer seeks to disenfranchise ‘albino unicorn’ overseas voters

Slack message of the week

What you can do