My gut isn’t proof. But it’s what made me start looking.

The gut part

Since the large ICE surges early in this administration, I’ve worried that we’re being taught to see armed federal agents on American streets as normal.

Then came the stories about China hacking state voter rolls. Something about them bothered me. States run elections, and the federal government’s direct role is narrow. So why was so much federal attention pointed at state voter lists?

The memo

On Sept. 22, the Secretary of Defense signed a memo directing “the entire” Defense Intelligence Enterprise “to mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership under your command to defend our election infrastructure from foreign malign influence” D (the memo). It’s addressed to Cyber Command, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and it calls protecting the election a “no-fail mission.”

I stopped dead. Since when is the Defense Department vague in a public document about using every asset it has? So I looked up what the “Defense Intelligence Enterprise” actually is. It’s a defined term in federal law. Then I got to work figuring out what that word salad could actually reach.

The “big surprise”

On Oct. 6, the President told a crowd, “We have some big surprises coming up in a few weeks, right Russ?” D Russ is Russ Vought, the budget director and a Project 2025 author.

That’s when I decided election integrity, “fraud” and “foreign interference” had to come first, because that’s where all of these threads meet.

Six weeks later

I’ve read contracts, privacy notices, court filings, grant terms and a lot of footnotes. What I found isn’t one secret plan. It’s a lot of authority lining up quietly, one routine-looking document at a time:

• Federal agencies matching state voter rolls against immigration and Social Security data.
• A new federal fraud center with state election officials as partners.
• Grant money for local voter-fraud prosecutors, tied to cooperating with immigration enforcement.
• An emergency “significant incident” switch that has never publicly been pulled.

The tripwire board tracks all of it.

Then on Nov. 1, Reuters reported that the White House has been planning since April for what the President can do on his own if Democrats win Congress, including spending money without congressional approval R. I can’t prove that’s the same story as everything above. My read is that it fits the shape of what I’ve been tracking I, and I’m going to keep watching.

What this blog is for

I’m not trying to build a platform. I’m trying to help people who don’t have time to read a 200-page court filing or a federal grant notice. I do, apparently.

Here I’ll write about what I’m finding in plainer language, and with more personality than the evidence pages allow. Expect a few posts a week. The research underneath (the timeline, tripwire board and registry) updates more often, sometimes several times a day. When this election is certified, the work keeps going: 2028 is closer than it looks, and the contracts and data flows don’t stop moving between elections.

Start here

The 12-minute overview:

The one-minute Election Day field guide: five signs worth a phone call, and what to do if you see one.

Prefer paper? Here’s the one-page overview (PDF) and the brief.

Ask me things

If you’re a reporter, a researcher or just curious, and you want me to look for records on something, email amanda.everyballotcounts@gmail.com. I’ll search, and I’ll tell you what I found and what I couldn’t.

One last thing, as a lawyer: what officials say out loud, in public, is a record too. Somebody should keep it. So I am.

— Amanda