Hundreds gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, to protest Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could fundamentally change the Voting Rights Act. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Recently, West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner The US Department of Justice denied Demand for the release of state voting documents. The department cited the Help America Vote Act, which was passed under former President George W. Bush following the 2000 Florida presidential election controversy (Bush v. Gore). Trump’s Justice Department should be committed to helping us conduct true elections, but demanding these records is not helpful.
Trump’s administration is simply going around in circles. Now, according to Gallup, an astonishing thing 61% of Americans Are unsatisfied with democracy and its government. In 1984 it was 61% satisfiedmajor turnaround in just four decades.
President Donald Trump is a populist billionaire who was elected twice because of widespread public discontent — and the stunning political incompetence of two Democratic candidates and their strategic advisers who ignored issues like the economy and immigration. Trump says again that he wants to drain the swamp and give our government back to the people, so he and Musk created the Department of Governmental Efficiency fiasco. We know how bad that turned out.
Now he’s raiding the election office in Atlanta and confiscating 2020 election materials. It’s a county with a very liberal, predominantly black voter base, and Trump lost significantly there. This Fulton County office has been repeatedly audited, proving Trump lost. He’s also now asking West Virginia for state election records that the government has no right to. What’s next for this government?
We were not originally founded as a true democracy by our founding fathers. Instead, we were founded as a republic dependent on a remnant of the feudal system – the Electoral College.
The Founding Fathers had little faith in the average American voter. Isn’t it time for the supposed “man of the people” Trump to enact real electoral reform that allows the will of the people to be heard (as a true populist should)?
This is where the real problem lies. The Republicans (my former party) lost the popular vote twice in the last few decades (2000 and 2016) but still won the presidency via the undemocratic, unrepresentative, and antiquated Electoral College.
Republican politicians give stupid and see-through excuses, such as that using the popular vote would result in a few gigantic blue states dominating the presidency. The implication of this statement, of course, is that the current system provides for unfair dominance of smaller red states (like West Virginia). Is a non-representative dictatorship of smaller states better than “one person, one vote”? Next time it could be a Republican presidential candidate who is rejected by the Electoral College. If he wants, Trump can utilize this as a talking point and push for reform.
If he wanted, Trump could utilize his control of the Senate and House to fix some of our other problems related to our national, state and local elections, such as:
- Implement early voting and absentee voting provisions to make voting easier
- Changing election days to include weekends and making Election Day a holiday.
- End discrimination against minorities. Stop disenfranchising felons.
- Automatically issue photo IDs to all citizens. Institute for Automatic Registration of Americans at Birth.
- Allows all citizens to register by phone, email or mail.
- Stop gerrymandering. Stop creating artificial gerrymandering lines that disenfranchise minorities.
These reforms can strengthen the representative nature of our government. The only question is whether our supposedly populist president will stand up for them. So far he is going in the opposite direction, towards authoritarianism.
