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When new The administration moves to Washington, D.C., always there Changes On policy and personnel priorities. Alex, a lawyer at Ministry of Justice The voting division had survived Donald Trump’s first term and thought it could make it through the second.
Within hours of President Upon his inauguration, he knew he had misjudged the situation.
“I was wrong,” he says. “It was very different from what the first Trump administration was. There was a feeling that it was not going to be the same. Then in the voting department, what happened is they just started rejecting cases.”
The Voting Section of the agency’s Civil Rights Division was created in the wake of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 to ensure every American has an equal right to vote.
Alex, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is one of dozens of lawyers who have been fired since Trump returned to the White House.
There were about 30 lawyers in the voting division when Trump was inaugurated in January 2025. Three months later, only two remained. The departing attorneys have since been replaced by six new hires who had little experience in federal court and made a series of basic errors in court filings. They also appeared more willing to comply with Trump’s anti-voting directives, filing dozens of lawsuits in an attempt to force states to vote. Submit unredacted voter lists.
WIRED spoke to dozens of experts and former Voting Division lawyers about the sweeping destruction of the Justice Department’s Voting Division under Trump. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.
As the November midterm elections approach, multiple sources tell WIRED that the damage to the Justice Department’s voting division may be irreparable. They worry that the ultimate goal is to provide Trump with so-called evidence to wrest control of the election from the states. “I think in the long run it’s about finding material to challenge or undermine the election,” says Alex, who has worked in the voting department for many years.
“They have turned what was once the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Division, the Voting Division, into a weapon against voters,” Michelle Kanter-Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at the Center for Fair Elections, tells WIRED. “This was a department that enforces people’s voting rights, works against intimidation, enforces federal voting laws meant to protect people from discrimination and aims to make voting fair and accessible. It’s being turned into a political tool to advance the Trump administration’s conspiracy theories.”
Former lawyers from the voting department agree. “I spent eight years in the Voting Division as a trial attorney doing what had been the core work of the Division since its inception, which was enforcing the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws that protect the right to vote,” Eileen O’Connor, now senior counsel at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice, tells WIRED. “The work they are doing now is the opposite.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment about the Voting Division’s new attorneys, but spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told WIRED that “the Civil Rights Act, the National Voting Rights Act, and the Help America Vote Act all give the Department of Justice full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls.”
Voting rights
In the days and weeks following the 2020 presidential election, Trump sought to weaponize the Justice Department Appointment of special advisors To investigate election conspiracy theories. It didn’t work. At every turn, officials and political appointees in the ministry resisted, even threatening mass resignations.
Now Trump is once again seeking to use the Justice Department’s power to undermine confidence in the electoral process. This time, sources tell WIRED, there’s no one to back down.