The strategy to stop Trump’s election theft machinery is straightforward: Democratic attorneys general and prosecutors in blue cities must sue the federal government whenever it violates constitutional voting rights.
That’s the message from Marc Dann, former Ohio Attorney General who took on Wall Street during the mortgage crisis. During our NARATIV LIVE conversation, Dann outlined an urgent legal counter-offensive against Trump’s multi-front attack on 2026: Heather Honey running DHS election policy, Cleta Mitchell training poll workers, gerrymandering in Texas and North Carolina, and tomorrow’s Supreme Court arguments that could eliminate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
“Particularly in states with Democratic attorneys general, Democratic prosecutors in certain cities — if the federal government is violating somebody’s constitutional right to vote, they need to step in and sue,” Dann said. The courts have held firm so far, with district judges blocking Trump’s most egregious moves. But Dann sees the edges fraying as more Trump loyalists fill DOJ and the judiciary.
The Justice Department’s plan to send observers to New Jersey and Virginia for 2025 elections isn’t about monitoring — it’s about manufacturing fraud claims. Dann cited Ohio’s attorney general indicting a dead person for voter fraud without checking if they were alive. “The truth doesn’t seem to have any relationship to the lawfare these folks are waging,” he said. When fabricating cases becomes standard practice, the urgency for defensive litigation becomes existential.
Dann knows fraud machinery when he sees it. As Ohio AG, he mobilized task forces, recruited 1,200 volunteer lawyers, and secured a $12.9 million settlement against Wells Fargo for deliberately denying homeowners loan modifications. He prosecuted over 25 mortgage servicing class actions, going after the biggest criminals in banking during the 2008 crisis.
Then he resigned after a scandal — an extramarital affair that made headlines, though the deeper issue was office management failures under his watch. Dann took responsibility and walked away. That act of accountability seems almost archaic now. “When is the last time that’s happened?” he asked, comparing it to Japanese executives who resign over earnings misses.
Dann didn’t stop fighting. He founded his law firm and kept prosecuting financial predators. But he recognizes the same legal architecture that enabled mortgage fraud has been repurposed for election manipulation. The nested corporate protections, the business judgment rule that shields decision-makers, the layers of plausible deniability — Trump has mastered this machinery across six bankruptcies and decades of fraud allegations.
Now that machinery targets democracy itself. Each component provides cover for the next: gerrymandered maps manufacture safe seats, DHS operatives provide federal infrastructure for challenging results, Mitchell’s trained poll workers execute the ground game, the Supreme Court eliminates legal recourse.
Dann’s prescription extends beyond litigation. He floated creating a “rule of law party” — not Democratic or Republican, just committed to enforcing laws equally, protecting consumers, holding fraudsters accountable. “Let’s have a party that rewards people who work hard and play by the rules and don’t try to find some edge all the time,” he said. The fact that neither major party fully represents this basic governance standard shows how far the system has drifted.
For Democrats seeking attorney general positions, Dann’s advice is direct: “Be a law and order attorney general. Follow the law. Fund schools properly. Stand up for ethical businesses competing with people who are cheating.” It’s a centrist platform that should be obvious but has become radical in its simplicity.
The urgency is immediate. As Trump installs loyalists throughout the justice system and the Supreme Court considers gutting the Voting Rights Act, the window for defensive legal action narrows. Dann spent his career dismantling fraud schemes. He knows what institutionalized theft looks like when the perpetrators control the machinery meant to stop them.
The plot to steal 2026 succeeds if it’s treated as normal politics. It fails when Democratic prosecutors and attorneys general recognize it as fraud and respond with the full force of law.
Marc Dann’s firm represents consumers against financial predators nationwide at dannlaw.com
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