The Democratic National Committee has sued the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court in Washington, seeking records on whether the Trump administration has considered seizing ballots, voting machines, or other election materials in the weeks surrounding certification of the 2026 midterm elections. The complaint, filed August 20 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and docketed as DNC v. U.S. Department of Justice, 1:26-cv-00825, accuses the department of stonewalling public-records requests the committee submitted more than six months ago.
The lawsuit does not allege that a seizure has occurred or is imminent. Instead, it argues the DOJ has violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to respond within the statutory deadlines to requests seeking any “planned, anticipated, or potential” inspection or seizure of election materials in the 30 days before a federal election through certification, according to court filings reviewed by Democracy Docket and Courthouse News Service.
Rooted in a January raid on Fulton County records
The DNC’s concern traces back to an FBI operation in January at Fulton County’s Election Hub and Operation Center in Georgia, where agents seized more than 600 boxes of records connected to the 2020 presidential election. That raid, conducted as part of a federal inquiry examiners say was tied to unproven fraud allegations from the 2020 cycle, alarmed election administrators nationally and prompted the DNC to file two FOIA requests in February seeking to understand whether similar federal action could be directed at 2026 midterm materials.
A paper trail that went nowhere
According to the complaint, the FBI initially closed one of the DNC’s requests, calling it too vague, a decision the committee appealed without receiving a further response. A second request sent to the DOJ’s Criminal Division was routed among several offices, including the Civil Rights Division, but the DNC says none has produced responsive records nearly seven months later. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order the DOJ to conduct an adequate search and turn over all non-exempt material without further delay.
What Democrats say is at stake
DNC officials argue that any effort to inspect or remove ballots, voting machines, or chain-of-custody records before certification would threaten the integrity of vote counts and recounts nationwide, regardless of which party such action might be intended to benefit. “Voters deserve to know now, not after the fact, whether federal agencies are planning any action that could disrupt the counting or certification of their votes,” the DNC said in a statement announcing the suit, echoing language it used when filing a related, earlier records challenge against the department.
The Justice Department’s position
The DOJ has not filed a substantive response to the complaint and has publicly declined to comment on pending litigation. In prior public statements addressing the Fulton County raid and related inquiries, department officials have said federal law enforcement retains authority to investigate credible allegations of election-related crimes and that any records requests are being processed in the ordinary course, consistent with FOIA’s resource and exemption rules. Republican officials in Georgia have separately said the Fulton County seizure was a legitimate law-enforcement action unrelated to any broader plan targeting 2026 election materials.
A test case with a tight clock
Election law specialists say the case is significant less for what it might ultimately uncover than for the precedent it could set about how much transparency the executive branch owes the public about election-security planning in the run-up to a certification deadline. With midterm ballots going out in multiple states already and certification for federal races expected in the weeks after November 3, the DNC is pressing the court for expedited handling, arguing that records produced after the election would arrive too late to matter for 2026 and would leave the same uncertainty hanging over future cycles. A scheduling conference in the case is expected in the coming weeks, and both sides are likely to fight over how quickly, and how completely, the department must respond.
