American Muckrakers
Parallax Advisory
Election Integrity Watch Election Integrity Watch
EIW is a joint project of American Muckrakers and Parallax Advisory
Updated: 01:20 PM
Welcome to Election Integrity Watch, a joint project of American Muckrakers and Parallax Advisory. Conceived and curated by David B. Wheeler.EIWJan 2026: FBI seizes 2020 Fulton County GA ballotsEIWDOJ suing 24 states + D.C. demanding voter registration listsEIWCISA gutted — federal election security infrastructure dismantledEIW26 Secretary of State races pivotal — 6+ election-denier candidates announcedEIWDemocracy Docket · ACLU · Brennan Center — active litigation in 30+ statesWelcome to Election Integrity Watch, a joint project of American Muckrakers and Parallax Advisory. Conceived and curated by David B. Wheeler.EIWJan 2026: FBI seizes 2020 Fulton County GA ballotsEIWDOJ suing 24 states + D.C. demanding voter registration listsEIWCISA gutted — federal election security infrastructure dismantledEIW26 Secretary of State races pivotal — 6+ election-denier candidates announcedEIWDemocracy Docket · ACLU · Brennan Center — active litigation in 30+ states
Election Risk Condition ELECTCON Alert Level & Signal Indicators ⓘ Hover any condition or signal for details
EIW Summary of Current Status: Organized, multi-front interference underway — defender capacity under pressure
5
ELECTCON 5
Normal · No significant threat
ELECTCON 5 — Normal
No credible threats to election integrity detected. Standard monitoring protocols in effect. Democratic institutions operating normally.
4
ELECTCON 4
Elevated · Threat actors active
ELECTCON 4 — Elevated
Known threat actors are active. Disinformation campaigns detected. Isolated legal challenges to voting access. Heightened vigilance warranted.
3
ELECTCON 3
High · Organized interference
ELECTCON 3 — High
Organized, multi-front interference underway. Coordinated legislative and executive action targeting election administration. Defender capacity under pressure.
2
ELECTCON 2
Severe · Active subversion
ELECTCON 2 — Severe
Active subversion of election systems or procedures. Federal override attempts. Courts partially blocking but institutional capacity strained. Urgent mobilization required.
1
ELECTCON 1
Critical · Democracy at risk
ELECTCON 1 — Critical
Imminent or active threat to free and fair elections. Institutional checks failing. Emergency legal and civic mobilization required. Democracy at immediate risk.
ERC Score: 6.0 / 10 (7/7 inputs)
⬆ Threat Signals  — hover label for details
Gov. Coordination ⓘ
Gov. Coordination
Measures degree of coordination between federal actors and election-interference networks. Tracks documented meetings, joint actions, and shared legal strategies.
82% ↑
9 active coordination incidents
Legal Exposure ⓘ
Legal Exposure
Tracks volume and severity of litigation, executive orders, and legislative actions that directly threaten voting rights or election administration.
76% →
14 active legal challenges
Threat Urgency ⓘ
Threat Urgency
Composite of recent high-severity actions, public statements, and escalation signals from tracked threat actors. Weighted toward the last 14 days.
88% ↑
3 escalation events this week
⬇ Resistance Signals  — hover label for details
Legal Resistance ⓘ
Legal Resistance
Strength of active litigation defending voting access. Includes case volume, win rate, and geographic coverage across Democracy Docket, ACLU, and Campaign Legal Center.
61% ↓
Democracy Docket · 50+ cases
Political Will ⓘ
Political Will
Measures visible political resistance from elected officials, including floor speeches, public rebukes, coalition letters, and cross-party defections.
44% ↓
Bipartisan opposition signals
Institutional Hold ⓘ
Institutional Hold
Tracks resilience of election administration infrastructure — secretary of state offices, county boards, CISA capacity, and inspector general activity.
53% →
12 state SOS offices resisting
◀ Threat Pressure Resistance Strength ▶
Threat pressure exceeds resistance by 29 points — defenses under strain
Active Issues Tracked Threat Fronts
01
National Emergency Declaration Push
Activists pressing Trump to declare national emergency to override state-run elections for 2026 midterms.
Active
02
Draft EO: Ban Mail-In Ballots & Voting Machines
Circulating draft executive order would eliminate mail-in voting and electronic voting machines federally.
Watch
03
Court Blocks on Election Executive Orders
Courts have largely blocked Trump's earlier efforts to reshape elections through executive action.
Blocked
04
DHS / Ethics Rule Violations
Honey briefed her former employer through DHS — likely violates prior ethics rules now rolled back.
Active
05
DOJ Mac Warner Ethics Violation
Warner attended the Gold Institute summit without required DOJ ethics approval; resigned the following day.
Watch
06
Federal Voter ID Legislation Push
Congressional push to mandate strict national voter ID requirements across all states.
Watch
National Political Landscape Political Actor Scorecard — Threatening vs. Defending Democracy ⓘ Hover any actor for details
🏛 National Political Landscape EIW AI Analysis · Live web search · Last updated: 12:43:37 PM
Actor
⬆ Threatening Democracy
⬇ Defending Democracy
Net
WH White House / Trump Admin
Multiple coordinated attacks on election integrity with structural safeguards st
White House / Trump Administration
Scored by EIW AI Analysis with live web search. Threatening = executive actions restricting elections, voting access, or democratic oversight. Defending = court compliance, reversals, or pro-democracy actions.
72%
28%
▲
R Senate GOP
Republicans pushing restrictive voting bill with unproven voter fraud claims.
Senate Republicans
Scored by EIW AI Analysis with live web search. Threatening = election-restricting votes, bills, or statements. Defending = bipartisan election-protection actions or pushback against restrictions.
65%
25%
▲
R House GOP
Mixed approach emphasizing ID requirements and transparency with federalism conc
House Republicans
Scored by EIW AI Analysis with live web search. Threatening = election-restricting bills, Speaker actions, or committee moves. Defending = cross-aisle votes protecting voting rights.
35%
65%
▼
D Senate Democrats
Democrats actively opposing restrictive voting bills while defending election in
Senate Democrats
Scored by EIW AI Analysis with live web search. Defending = voting rights legislation, floor actions, opposition to election restrictions.
42%
75%
▼
D House Democrats
Democrats responding defensively to threats but preparedness remains uncertain.
House Democrats
Scored by EIW AI Analysis with live web search. Defending = pro-democracy legislation, minority floor actions, and voting rights advocacy.
72%
58%
=
Scores generated by EIW AI Analysis using live web search. Updated hourly.
Contributing Conditions Environmental Factors Driving ELECTCON Risk ⓘ Hover any indicator for details · 100 = maximum democracy risk
📉 Economy & Public Sentiment MEDIUM
Unemployment Pressure ⓘ
Unemployment Pressure
High unemployment correlates with democratic instability and susceptibility to authoritarian appeals. Score reflects current unemployment rate vs. historical thresholds.
35%
Inflation/Cost Stress ⓘ
Inflation/Cost Stress
Economic anxiety from inflation erodes institutional trust and increases support for anti-democratic movements. Score reflects current inflation pressures.
55%
Voter Trust in Elections ⓘ
Voter Trust in Elections
Polling data measuring public confidence in election integrity. Lower trust = higher risk score. Tracks Gallup, AP-NORC, and Pew Research polling.
72%
Economic Uncertainty ⓘ
Economic Uncertainty
Consumer confidence index inverted — low confidence = high risk score. Economic pessimism drives political extremism and undermines democratic norms.
60%
📡 Media & Information Environment HIGH
Press Freedom Decline ⓘ
Press Freedom Decline
Based on RSF World Press Freedom Index and Freedom House rankings for the US. Higher score = greater press freedom erosion compared to prior years.
78%
Disinformation Velocity ⓘ
Disinformation Velocity
Tracks volume and spread velocity of documented election disinformation across social platforms. Score reflects current campaign intensity vs. baseline.
72%
Local News Desert Risk ⓘ
Local News Desert Risk
Measures expansion of local news deserts — communities with no local election coverage. More deserts = less accountability = higher risk score.
75%
Platform Election Policy ⓘ
Platform Election Policy
Tracks whether major social media platforms are enforcing or relaxing election integrity policies. Relaxed enforcement = higher risk score.
68%
🏛 Civic Infrastructure Health HIGH
Poll Worker Shortage ⓘ
Poll Worker Shortage
Measures poll worker recruitment gaps vs. needed levels. Shortages cause polling place closures and long lines that suppress turnout. 100 = severe shortage.
68%
Admin Vacancies/Turnover ⓘ
Admin Vacancies/Turnover
Tracks election administrator vacancies, resignations, and forced departures. High turnover destabilizes election administration. 100 = critical staffing crisis.
55%
Registration Barriers ⓘ
Registration Barriers
Measures obstacles to voter registration — purges, ID requirements, deadline restrictions. Inverted: 100 = maximum registration barriers vs. prior cycle.
0%
Security Funding Risk ⓘ
Security Funding Risk
Tracks election security funding levels from HAVA, CISA, and state sources vs. need. Defunding CISA and cutting grants raises this score. 100 = critically underfunded.
65%
State Political Actions Battleground State Election Risk Monitor ⓘ EIW AI Analysis · Live web search · Updated hourly
🗳 Arizona 11 EV HIGH
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
70%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
65%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
50%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
60%
🗳 Georgia 16 EV MEDIUM
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
0%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
0%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
0%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
0%
🗳 Pennsylvania 19 EV MEDIUM
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
65%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
55%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
50%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
60%
🗳 Wisconsin 10 EV MEDIUM
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
65%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
45%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
40%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
70%
🗳 Michigan 15 EV HIGH
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
65%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
70%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
75%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
72%
🗳 Nevada 6 EV MEDIUM
Election Denier Officials ⓘ
Election Denier Officials
Presence of election deniers in key state positions: SOS, AG, Governor, and county election boards. Higher = more risk.
35%
Restrictive Legislation ⓘ
Restrictive Legislation
Volume and severity of active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
55%
Voter Suppression Risk ⓘ
Voter Suppression Risk
Risk of voter suppression based on purge activity, registration barriers, polling place closures, and ID requirements.
65%
Admin Stability ⓘ
Admin Stability
Stability of election administration infrastructure — vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference.
25%
International Context Foreign Interference & Allied Democracy Health ⓘ EIW AI Analysis · Live web search · Updated hourly
🌐 Foreign Interference Threats CRITICAL
Russia Interference ⓘ
Russia Interference
Active Russian information operations, cyber activity, and election interference targeting the 2026 US midterms or US democratic institutions.
85%
China Interference ⓘ
China Interference
Active Chinese influence operations, economic coercion, and disinformation campaigns targeting US elections or allied democracies.
70%
Iran Interference ⓘ
Iran Interference
Active Iranian cyber operations, disinformation, and influence campaigns targeting US elections and democratic discourse.
55%
Disinfo Amplification ⓘ
Disinfo Amplification
Volume and reach of foreign-origin election disinformation being amplified on US social media platforms.
80%
🤝 Allied Democracy Health MEDIUM
United Kingdom ⓘ
United Kingdom
Current health of UK democratic institutions — press freedom, rule of law, electoral integrity, and government accountability.
0%
Germany ⓘ
Germany
Current health of German democratic institutions — coalition stability, far-right pressure, electoral integrity, and civil liberties.
0%
France ⓘ
France
Current health of French democratic institutions — political polarization, protest rights, press freedom, and electoral administration.
0%
Canada ⓘ
Canada
Current health of Canadian democratic institutions — press freedom, electoral integrity, rule of law, and government accountability.
0%
📉 Global Democratic Recession CRITICAL
Global Backsliding ⓘ
Global Backsliding
Number and severity of countries experiencing democratic backsliding globally, per Freedom House and V-Dem.
75%
Autocracy Expansion ⓘ
Autocracy Expansion
Degree to which authoritarian governments are expanding influence, territory, or model adoption globally.
72%
Global Press Freedom ⓘ
Global Press Freedom
Global press freedom trend per RSF and CPJ — declines here predict democratic erosion in 12-18 months.
78%
Int'l Rule of Law ⓘ
Int'l Rule of Law
Health of international legal institutions — ICC, ICJ, and multilateral treaty compliance — as a democracy backstop.
70%
Methodology How EIW Scores Are Calculated
🔴 ELECTCON Alert Level

The ELECTCON level is computed live from a weighted composite of all scored inputs across the dashboard. As each section loads, scores feed into the Election Risk Composite (ERC) engine, which updates the gauge in real time.

ELECTCON 5ERC < 2.5 — Normal, no significant threat.
ELECTCON 4ERC 2.5–4.4 — Elevated, threat actors active.
ELECTCON 3ERC 4.5–6.4 — High, organized interference underway.
ELECTCON 2ERC 6.5–7.9 — Severe, active subversion detected.
ELECTCON 1ERC ≥ 8.0 — Critical, democracy at immediate risk.

ERC Formula (weighted composite, 0–10):

  • Threat Signal Bars avg — 20%
  • Resistance Signal Bars avg (inverted) — 20%
  • Actor Threatening avg — 15%
  • Actor Defending avg (inverted) — 10%
  • Contributing Conditions avg — 15%
  • State Political Actions avg — 10%
  • Foreign Interference avg — 10%

If a section hasn't loaded yet, its weight is redistributed proportionally across available inputs. The ERC score display shows how many of the 7 inputs are currently active.

📊 Signal Bars — Threat & Resistance

The six signal bars (3 Threat, 3 Resistance) are manually curated by EIW analysts using open-source reporting, court filings, legislative tracking, and news aggregation. Scores are 0–100. The 50% threshold line indicates the midpoint between minimal and severe risk. Trend arrows (↑↓→) reflect movement over the prior 14 days.

  • Gov. Coordination — Documented coordination between federal actors and election-interference networks.
  • Legal Exposure — Volume and severity of litigation and executive actions threatening voting rights.
  • Threat Urgency — Composite of recent high-severity escalation events, weighted toward last 14 days.
  • Legal Resistance — Strength of active pro-democracy litigation (Democracy Docket, ACLU, CLC).
  • Political Will — Visible political resistance from elected officials across party lines.
  • Institutional Hold — Resilience of election administration infrastructure at state and county level.
🤖 EIW AI Analysis — How It Works

The Political Actor Scorecard, Contributing Conditions, State Political Actions, and International Context panels are all scored by Claude (claude-sonnet-4-5) via the Anthropic API with live web search enabled. Each panel sends a structured prompt requesting current scores on a 0–100 scale, an overall risk level, and a one-sentence summary.

Scores are generated fresh each time the dashboard loads and refresh automatically every hour. AI scores reflect publicly available information at the time of the search — they are probabilistic assessments, not verified facts, and should be treated as analytical starting points rather than authoritative determinations.

Important limitation: AI scoring is subject to search result availability, model interpretation, and the inherent uncertainty of translating complex political situations into numerical scores. EIW does not represent these scores as objective ground truth.

🗳 State Political Actions Scoring

Six key battleground states are monitored: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. Each state is scored across four dimensions via live AI web search:

  • Election Denier Officials (0–100) — Presence of election deniers in SOS, AG, Governor, or county board positions.
  • Restrictive Legislation (0–100) — Active bills targeting mail voting, voter ID, poll access, or election administration independence.
  • Voter Suppression Risk (0–100) — Purge activity, registration barriers, polling closures, and ID requirements.
  • Admin Stability (0–100) — Vacancies, turnover, threats to officials, and partisan interference in boards.

An OVERALL badge (LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH / CRITICAL) reflects the composite risk level for that state.

🌐 International Context Scoring

Three international panels are scored via live AI web search: Foreign Interference Threats (Russia, China, Iran, and disinformation amplification), Allied Democracy Health (UK, Germany, France, Canada), and Global Democratic Recession (backsliding rate, autocracy expansion, press freedom, international rule of law).

Allied democracy scores use an inverse scale: 100 = democracy in serious crisis, 0 = fully healthy. This allows all panels to share a consistent visual language where red = high risk.

Sources drawn upon include Freedom House, V-Dem Institute, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and current open-source news reporting.

📰 Live RSS Ticker

The news ticker aggregates headlines from 9+ live RSS feeds including NPR Politics, Politico, NBC News Politics, The New York Times Politics, Bloomberg Politics, House Speaker, Senate Democrats, and Democracy Docket. Headlines are refreshed hourly via the EIW server RSS proxy.

Items published within the last 2 hours containing election-related keywords are flagged as ⚡ BREAKING ELECTION NEWS and surfaced first in the ticker rotation.

EIW is a non-partisan, public-interest monitoring project. For questions about methodology or to report corrections, contact [email protected]. EIW does not accept advertising or paid placements. All AI-generated scores are clearly labeled as such.