What did Donald Trump do today?

He got slapped down by a judge in his attempts to disenfranchise voters during an ongoing election.

A federal judge today denied the Trump administration's request to force California to suspend the ballots of some 20,000 people that it contends are not eligible to vote. 

In a blisteringly contemptuous ruling, federal district judge David O. Connor rejected Trump's claim to be the "sole sovereign" over elections that, per the Constitution, are solely under the authority of the states. He flatly called the Trump administration's claims "not credible." He also drew the somewhat obvious conclusion that Trump was simply trying to disrupt the election for the sake of disrupting it, rather than because of any real belief that the targeted voters (or anyone else) were casting illegal ballots.

Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch. In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too.

The right to vote has long been understood as integral to both citizenship and participation in our democracy. Ronald Reagan described this right as “the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished.” Remarks on Signing the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982 (June 19, 1982) (extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965). But access to voting has always been contested. At the inception of our country, African Americans and women of all ethnicities were denied access to the ballot. Their push to be recognized as equal citizens of this nation led to the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 and the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which declared that the right to vote could not be denied due to someone’s race or gender. But these amendments did not guarantee all citizens’ enfranchisement in practice. Minority communities continued to fight for suffrage. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and other obstacles were further used to prevent individuals from casting their vote.

Every generation in our history has witnessed repeated clashes between those who seek to limit access to the ballot and those who fight to ensure it. In this case, the federal government seeks to segregate and exclude over 20,000 ballots. This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections. If Plaintiff’s last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve.

…The Executive’s requested relief …would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens. The Executive Branch cannot replace the remedy Congress carefully enacted with its own unlawful and unconstitutional solution instead. Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred. If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger.

This Court declines to be a party to such process. 

It's worth noting that Trump has made similar claims in other states: earlier this year, his administration insisted that some 16,000 Nevada voters were noncitizens and therefore ineligible. The state investigated and found that every single person on that list was fully entitled to vote. In that case and the California one ruled on today, the Trump administration has refused to say by what method it came up with such inaccurate lists.

Trump's actions in the California case appear to be designed not to win on the legal merits, but to cast doubt on the integrity of American elections. This is also true of his fruitless attempts to have the Alaska Senate election set aside if and only if his preferred candidate doesn't win, or his rejected demands to force states to turn over their voting rolls to the federal government.

Trump has never once agreed to abide by the outcome of elections unless he approves of the result, and who is still criminally liable for his role in attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 election once he leaves office. His party has slim odds of keeping control of the House of Representatives and may very well lose the Senate as well, in spite of—or because of—his "help" in campaigning for them.

Voter fraud in general is extremely rare, and intentionally casting an illegal ballot is even more so, and illegal voting by people who know they are not citizens is so rare as to possibly be without precedent in modern politics. 

Ironically, today saw the announcement of just such a prosecution for deliberate voter fraud: conservative "activist" James O'Keefe was charged with impersonating a dead person on Minnesota's voter rolls, dressing up in what he called "Muslim" clothes that obscured his face. (This is not the first time O'Keefe has committed crimes in pursuit of material for his video brand, which involves doctored footage that tries to embarrass politicians and public figures he doesn't like.) But O'Keefe—unlike the imagined undocumented immigrants casting ballots in Trump's claims—actually stood to make real monetary gain from the criminal scheme he's accused of, or would have if he'd gotten away with it.

Two days ago, Trump "offered" a $1 million reward for evidence leading to a conviction for voter fraud—though without giving any details or means of collecting the bounty. He has not commented on whether the state of Minnesota will be receiving $1 million if O'Keefe, an ardent supporter of Trump's, is convicted.

Why does this matter?

• Fucking with elections is not just what dictators do, it's what weak and incompetent dictators losing their grip on power always do.