Welcome to Talking Fed's one-on-one, deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues defining our culture and shaping our lives.

I'm your host, Harry Littman. Our guest is somebody I think about

at least twice a week when I read anything, I mean anything at all having to do with elections

and voting rights, because that is an area that seems to be very ripe for different kinds of attacks from the Trump administration and Project 2025.

I speak, of course, of Mark Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, a leading digital news outfit covering the fight to protect voting rights and elections in the courts.

And he's also the firm chair at Elias Law Group.

He is both the theory and practice of voting rights top person in the country and a nationally

recognized authority in voting rights redistricting and law.

Mark, always a pleasure to be with you.

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

All right, let's cut right to the chase because a few weeks ago, we got what seemed like a pretty

alarming report of a broad effort from within DOJ, though maybe launched from other parts of the administration, just to kind of

get their fingers in, as best I could tell, state and local voting apparatuses and processes.

What the hell are they doing there?

Yeah, so look, this is one of the most concerning trends that I think has been underreported

on.

So I'm glad you, I'm glad you started with it.

We are watching as in state after state after state, the Department of Justice is seeking

really very granular confidential information about voters and voter roles in those states.

You know, every state obviously has to maintain a statewide voter database of who has voted

where they live, you know, when they registered, whether they voted in one primary

other. Obviously, they don't know who you voted for.

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