In a call last month with election leaders from nearly every state, a senior “election integrity” official in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the department is not using voter registration data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — a claim that directly contradicts what DHS told Democracy Docket a month earlier. “I don’t know if she’s stupid or lying,” an election official who was on the call told Democracy Docket. Also in this week’s Eye On The Right: President Donald Trump once again teases an unlawful third term, the Trump administration will send election monitors to California and New Jersey, and more.

As always, thanks for reading.

Election conspiracy theorist denies DHS is using DOJ voter data

• Heather Honey, a senior “election integrity” official in DHS, said on a call last month with election leaders from nearly every state that the department is not using voter registration data collected by the DOJ to remove noncitizens from voter rolls — directly contradicting what DHS told Democracy Docket last month.
  
  
• “I don’t know if she’s stupid or lying,” an election official who was on the call told Democracy Docket. “She said she couldn’t speak for the DOJ, but she really didn’t have any use for [their voter data] at Homeland Security, and wasn’t interested in it.”
  
  
• The dueling claims add further confusion to what’s known about the administration’s sweeping effort to collect sensitive voter data from every state — and what they plan to do with it. DHS previously said it was receiving DOJ’s data as part of a broad push to remove noncitizens from the rolls.
  
  
• When I asked DHS about the conflicting claims, they didn’t answer my question. “Heather Honey, has been an election system expert for over half a decade and has thirty years of expertise in auditing and intelligence analysis,” a DHS spokesperson said. “We are not going to recount every conversation an employee has or has had, that would be insane.”

Trump once again threatens an unlawful third term

• In comments to reporters Monday, Trump once again mused on the possibility of serving a third presidential term in 2028, which the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits.
  
  
• “I would love to do it,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Japan. “I have the best numbers ever. Am I not ruling it out? You’ll have to tell me.” (Trump does not, in fact, have the best numbers. His approval rating is in the low 40s, according to most poll trackers — weak for this stage in his term, even by modern standards.)
  
  
• This isn’t the first time Trump — or his advisors or closest supporters — has suggested the president defy the Constitution by running for a third presidential term. Former Trump senior advisor Steve Bannon said in an interview last week that, “Trump will be president in 2028 and get a third term. People oughta get accommodated with that.”

• As I’ve reported before, legal scholars have been clear about this, and I think it’s worth repeating any time Trump or his followers discuss a third term: The only way a third Trump term can happen is through illegal means. Full stop. 

Hardcore election denier Mac Warner is probing 2020 election conspiracies at DOJ

• Speaking of DOJ, Andrew McCoy “Mac” Warner, former West Virginia secretary of state and notorious election denier, is now a senior lawyer in the DOJ’s Civil Rights division. And he is reportedly investigating false claims about the 2020 election as part of an inter-agency task force.
  
  
• While DOJ has not publicly detailed Warner’s job responsibilities, earlier this summer he reportedly contacted at least two Missouri county clerks requesting “permission to access, physically inspect and perhaps take physical custody” of Dominion voting machines used in the 2020 election. Both clerks rejected the request.
  
  
• Warner has a long history of pushing election conspiracies, but his most egregious claim is that the CIA stole the 2020 election for former President Joe Biden.
  
  
• “The 2020 election was stolen, and it was stolen by the CIA,” Warner said during a Republican gubernatorial debate in 2023. “They colluded to sell a lie to the American people two weeks before the election. I don’t want three-lettered agencies determining the outcome of presidential elections.”

Trump admin to monitor voting in California and New Jersey 

• With crucial state elections coming up next week, DOJ announced Friday that its sending election monitors to polling sites in California and New Jersey — a move that Democrats and democracy advocates warned may be a potential step toward the Trump administration seizing control of voting.
  
  
• While it’s not unusual for DOJ to send election monitors to polling sites in the days before an election in order to prevent intimidation, it doesn’t usually send them during an off-year election when there are no candidates running for federal office. In the past 20 years, DOJ has only sent election monitors in off-year elections twice — in 2007 and 2013.
  
  
• “The US DOJ has no business or basis to interfere with this election,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of California, which is asking voters to approve a new congressional map drawn in response to Texas’ GOP gerrymander. “This administration has made no secret of its goal to undermine free and fair elections. Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote.”
  
  
• Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, sounded a similar alarm: “I’m unaware of any fact-based reason why DOJ would dispatch election monitors to observe a state ballot question vote since it is not a federal election,” Eddington said in an email to Democracy Docket.