DOJ looses Illinois Voter Data Access Challenge

🚨BREAKING: Federal Court DISMISSES Department of Justice lawsuit to compel Illinois to provide its complete statewide voter registration database. Another big victory for Elias Law Group and its clients.

DOJ is now 0-19 in these cases. ELG remains undefeated. www.democracydocket.com/cases/illino…

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— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) 1. august 2026 kl. 00.27

This is great news. Once again an attempt to attack democracy by the Trump administration has been defeated.

As Democracy Docket explains in the linked page:

This marks the latest escalation in the DOJ’s efforts to obtain sensitive voter registration data from states across the country. In recent months, the DOJ has intensified its demands for voter information as part of a broader, politically charged push aimed at pressuring states to remove voters from the rolls and advancing the Trump administration’s unfounded claims of widespread illegal voting. The DOJ has now sued 30 states, plus Washington, D.C. — California, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, Virginia, Idaho and Washington — all of which have refused to hand over unredacted voter files containing highly sensitive personal information.

Manchester mayoral results

Due to Andy Burnham stepping down as Mayor, in order to get elected to Parliament, so he could become the leader of Labour, there was a by-election to elect a new Mayor. Reform’s candidate was seem as having a good chance at winning, though most serious analysts expected Labour’s candidate to win.

Greater Manchester mayoral results in full: Bev Craig secures dominant win over Reform in key by-election

Bev Craig will succeed Andy Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester, securing a comfortable Labour victory over Reform on a historically low turnout.

Only one in four of the more than 2 million eligible voters across Greater Manchester cast ballots as Ms Craig defeated Reform UK’s Sian Astley in the second round – the first electoral test of Mr Burnham’s premiership.

Ms Craig won 47.15 per cent of votes in the first round, just short of the 50 per cent needed to win outright in the Supplementary Vote system, with Ms Astley, on 20.99 per cent.

It was the first time that a Greater Manchester mayoral election has gone to a second round, which Ms Craig won with 309,525 first and second place votes, ahead of Ms Astley on 157,178, to give her one of the country’s most powerful political jobs outside of Westminster.

By-elections, especially by-elections with low turnouts, usually favour the protest parties, so Reform ought to have been able to benefit from that, if they really were as popular as a lot of people claim they are. Instead they got solidly beaten by the establishment party.

There is a good analysis over at Bearly Politics: Turns Out Reform Isn’t Inevitable After All