They're Canceling Elections. We Told You This Was Coming.
- Kal Inois
- 3 hours ago
- 12 min read
About a year ago, we stood in rooms and said it out loud: they are going to try to cancel elections. Don’t be surprised when it happens. People looked at us like we were being dramatic. Conspiracy theorists, they called us. Alarmists.
Sound familiar?
We weren’t reading tea leaves. We were listening to the man himself.
In July 2024, †rump stood in front of a crowd of Christian conservatives in West Palm Beach and said it plainly: “Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” And then, moments later, in case anyone missed it: “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
Republicans called it a joke. Classic †rump-ism, they said. Nothing to worry about.
They told us exactly what they were going to do. We just weren’t supposed to believe them. And yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States helped deliver on it.
The Ruling That Started the Fire
On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais that effectively gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the last meaningful federal protection preventing states from drawing congressional maps that strip Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian American voters of their political power.
The ruling split along pure partisan lines. Six conservative justices voted to gut it. Three liberals dissented. Justice Elena Kagan called it “the latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” She was so disgusted she dropped the word “respectfully” from her closing line, a rare signal from a sitting justice that she considered the majority’s reasoning not just wrong, but in bad faith. PBS NewsHour breaks down exactly how this decision weakens the Voting Rights Act nationwide, and it is worth watching.
This was not an accident. Chief Justice John Roberts spent his early career as a Reagan DØJ lawyer fighting the 1982 rewrite of Section 2 and lost. He has spent four decades since pursuing the same goal from the bench. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote Wednesday’s majority opinion, has been equally consistent in his hostility to race-conscious voting protections. What the Court handed down yesterday was not a legal interpretation. It was the completion of a decades-long personal project.
The Brennan Center’s Michael Li put it plainly: the ruling makes Section 2 “functionally unusable.” The ACLU called itthe elimination of “the remaining enforcement mechanism in all but name.” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said: “The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy.”
But as devastating as the ruling is on its own, what happened the very next morning proves it was not the end of the story. It was the starting gun.
The Morning After: A Governor Cancels Elections
Less than 24 hours after the ruling came down, it became official. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry officially suspended the state’s congressional primary elections on Thursday morning. As PBS NewsHour confirmed, the Associated Press reported the suspension is now a done deal. The Daily Beast called it what it is: an “insane racial power grab.”
The plan is straightforward and brazen: cancel the elections, redraw the congressional map to eliminate the majority-Black districts, then hold new elections under the new gerrymandered map. Not next cycle. This year. Now. Before the ink on the Supreme Court opinion is even dry.
In their joint statement, Gov. Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill framed the cancellation as legally required, saying the state was “currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map” and that they were “working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.” Do not let that framing fool you. This is a political choice dressed up in legal language. The state legislature is in charge of redrawing the maps, subject to the governor’s veto, and the House Speaker and Senate President were in conversations with the executive branch immediately following the ruling to determine their plan of action. They had options. They chose this one.
What that “path forward” leads to is the elimination of at least one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts. Two Democratic seats are now in the crosshairs. Rep. Cleo Fields, who represents Louisiana’s sixth district, faces losing his seat outright if the legislature redraws the maps. Rep. Troy Carter, who represents the second district covering much of New Orleans, could also be in trouble, though his district remained largely unchanged from the 2022 to 2024 maps. The Republican Party is expected to gain one or two House seats as a direct result. Even House Majority Leader Steve Scalise could find his own seat becoming uncomfortably competitive if Republicans push to eliminate both majority-Black districts.
Here is the part that makes this even more absurd and infuriating. The maps created after the 2020 census were themselves ruled unconstitutional because they failed to sufficiently account for Louisiana’s Black population, which makes up roughly a third of the state. The 2024 maps fixed that problem by creating a second majority-Black district. The Supreme Court just ruled that the fix itself was unconstitutional. They created a problem, refused to accept the solution, and are now using the resulting chaos to eliminate Black representation entirely. That is not jurisprudence. It’s moving the goalposts until the outcome is predetermined.
Early voting was set to begin this Saturday. Overseas ballots have already gone out. Absentee ballots have already been submitted by voters who cast them in good faith under a lawfully scheduled election. None of that matters. NOLA.com reports that the suspension has left voters and election officials across the state in limbo, with no clear path forward established.
Critically, the Louisiana Illuminator reports that the suspension is expected to affect only the House races. Elections for the state school board, the Louisiana Supreme Court, two Public Service Commission positions, and five constitutional amendments are all expected to proceed on May 16 regardless. It is also worth noting that this is the first closed party primary Louisiana has held since 2010, a system Landry himself pushed through, meaning only registered party members can vote in their party’s primary. Any future rescheduling of the House races will have to navigate that added layer of logistical complexity.
Axios New Orleans reports that ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Alanah Odoms predicts lawmakers will draw either six majority-white districts or five majority-white and one majority-Black district. State lawmakers are likely to take up redistricting during the current legislative session, which ends June 1.
It is also worth noting that the suspension may not only affect House races. Sen. Bill Cassidy is up for reelection in 2026 and is currently trailing in his own primary against Louisiana state treasurer John Fleming, Rep. Julia Letlow, and businessman Mark Spencer. Whether the Senate primary is swept up in the suspension is still unclear, but all six Louisiana House seats and the Senate seat are technically on the table.
When asked about the ruling on Wednesday, Landry said it had “affirmed what we have said for years: drawing districts for political reasons is the States’ prerogative, not a federal civil rights violation.” A spokesperson for his office declined to comment on the election cancellation plans when contacted by the Daily Beast and the Washington Post.
Worth noting: Landry is not just Louisiana’s governor. He also serves as †rump’s envoy to Greenland, making him one of the regime’s closest political allies in the South.
Rep. Fields confirmed to CNN that Landry told him personally an executive order is coming and that he expects immediate legal challenges. “People have already voted,” Fields said. “Early ballots have been submitted.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who originally defended the majority-Black district before switching sides to argue against it, celebrated the ruling and gave the game away entirely. The legislature, she said, could simply suspend the primary election dates and “push them into the future.” “They’re dates that we set. I think that they can be changed,” she said. “The election is not actually until November. So there’s time if they want to change those dates.”
Yes. She actually said that.
This is what “we’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote” looks like in practice.
This Was the Plan All Along
None of this is new. None of this is improvised. We were watching them build this for years.
During a special legislative session at the end of 2025, Louisiana Republicans moved the state’s primary date from April 18 to May 16 in a party-line vote, explicitly to buy time in case the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Callais. Democrats called it out on the floor in real time. “What they’re doing is trying to give themselves the greatest amount of time in an effort to really take away the voting strength of minority voters,” one Democratic lawmaker said.
They were ignored. And now here we are.
The †rump regime spent the past year dismantling every institution designed to enforce the voting rights laws that the Supreme Court just finished gutting. The DØJ’s Civil Rights Division lost approximately 70% of its attorneys since the regime took power. Its voting rights section had all senior managers removed and all active investigations suspended. Attorney General Pam Bondi then redirected what remained of the division to investigate and penalize DEI programs, turning the agency created to protect civil rights into a weapon against them.
When †rump said it, his allies said he was joking. But look at what the regime has actually done: installed a captured Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act, hollowed out the DØJ that enforces it, and cleared the path for governors to cancel elections and redraw maps before the bodies of cast ballots are even cold.
That is not a joke. That is a blueprint being executed in real time. And it has a name: Prøject 2025.
Prøject 2025 is the 900-page Heritåge Foundåtion playbook, authored by former †rump officials, that serves as the regime’s governing manual. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund documented that Project 2025 specifically proposes to limit the political participation of Black and other marginalized communities by weakening the DØJ’s capacity to defend voting rights. The ACLU confirmed that Attorney General Pam Bondi was an ardent Prøject 2025 supporter actively working to implement it before †rump nominated her. The Union of Concerned Scientists documented that Prøject 2025 specifically targets the Civil Rights Division, proposing to transfer election crime enforcement away from civil rights lawyers and toward criminalizing the act of voting itself. The gutting of the DØJ. The national voter database. The Supreme Court ruling. The election cancellation. This is not a series of coincidences. This is a plan being executed chapter by chapter.
ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Alanah Odoms said after Wednesday’s ruling: “Today, we lost one of the last seatbelts of our democracy.”
We are past the point of being shocked. We are at the point of fighting back.
What You Must Do Right Now
The Supreme Court’s ruling and Louisiana’s election cancellation are two parts of the same story. The Court provided the legal cover. The governor is acting on it. The †rump regime built the conditions for both. The response has to work on all three levels: the courts, the Congress, and the ballot box.
1. Demand Supreme Court Reform
Let's be direct about something first. The Supreme Court is not an independent institution right now. It is a partisan one. Gallup polling shows that 75% of Democrats and 46% of independents believe the Court is too conservative, while 81% of Republicans trust it, the clearest evidence that Americans across the political spectrum view the Court as a right-leaning political body, not a neutral arbiter of law. The Annenberg Public Policy Center found that more than half of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court, with trust hitting its lowest point in nearly two decades. This is not a partisan talking point. It is the documented reality.
Supreme Court justices hold lifetime appointments under Article III of the Constitution. There are no term limits, no mandatory retirement age, and no enforceable ethics code. The Supreme Court is the only court in the country without one — every lower federal court, every state supreme court, and even Congress itself operates under ethics rules that do not apply to the nine justices with the most power in the land.
The most widely supported reform currently before Congress is the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act (H.R. 1074). It would establish 18 years of active service on the Court. After 18 years, justices would move to senior status, continuing to serve on lower federal courts and fill in on the Supreme Court when needed. Life tenure as guaranteed by the Constitution would be preserved. What would end is any single justice wielding full Supreme Court power for 30 or 40 years unchecked. Each president would appoint two justices per term on a regular schedule, so no single president could stack the Court the way McConnell engineered for the †rump regime.
There is an ongoing constitutional debate about whether term limits can be enacted by statute or require a constitutional amendment. Legal scholars are divided and both paths are being pursued in Congress right now.
On ethics specifically: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson have reintroduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act (SCERT Act) in both chambers. The SCERT Act would require justices to adopt a binding code of conduct, create a mechanism to investigate alleged ethics violations, mandate disclosure of gifts and financial conflicts, tighten recusal requirements, and require justices to publicly explain decisions not to recuse themselves. Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury vacations and gifts from Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and ruled on cases affecting Crow's interests without disclosing the gifts or recusing himself. Under current rules, nothing about that is technically illegal. The SCERT Act would change that.
Beyond term limits and ethics, two additional reforms can be passed by Congress today without a constitutional amendment: reform of the shadow docket the Court has used to quietly greenlight †rump regime policies in unsigned unexplained orders, and expanding the number of justices to restore balance broken by McConnell's blockade of Merrick Garland and the rushed confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. We agree. That is corruption. Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House. The question is whether Congress has the spine to use it. A Democratic Senate candidate in Maine has publicly called for the impeachment of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. We agree. Thomas accepted luxury vacations and gifts from Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and continued ruling on cases affecting Crow's interests. That is corruption. Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House. The question is whether Congress has the spine to use it.
Do this today:
Find your senators and find your House representative. Call or email them. Tell them you want their position on the record on all four reforms: term limits, a binding ethics code, shadow docket reform, and court expansion.
Ask them specifically whether they support H.R. 1074, the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act, and S.1814, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act.
Or demand the impeachment of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Tell them you will be sharing their answer publicly.
Read and share the Brennan Center's full Supreme Court reform agenda.
2. Demand Congress Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
The legislative remedy to Wednesday’s ruling already exists. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 14), reintroduced on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday by Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Senators Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), would directly restore what the Supreme Court destroyed yesterday. It would reinstate Section 2’s effects-based standard, restore preclearance for states with histories of discrimination, and expand federal observer access to elections. It is backed by more than 140 organizations. The Brennan Center has a full breakdown of exactly what it restores.
It has passed the House twice. It has been killed by the Senate filibuster both times. The path to passing it runs through the 2026 midterms.
Do this today:
Call your senators and representative. Ask them directly: do you support H.R. 14? Will you co-sponsor it? Tell them you will share their answer.
Read the ACLU’s full response to the Callais ruling and share it widely.
3. Support the Organizations Fighting in Court Right Now
Legal challenges to Louisiana’s election cancellation are being filed as you read this. This is where any of your dollars and attention should go right now.
Democracy Docket — Follow their litigation tracker for real-time updates. Share their case updates widely.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund — Argued Callais before the Supreme Court. Donate directly to their legal defense fund.
ACLU of Louisiana — On record calling this ruling an obliteration of voting rights. Sign up for their state-level action alerts today.
Power Coalition for Equity and Justice — The leading on-the-ground voting rights organization in Louisiana. Donate and amplify their work.
Black Voters Matter — Organizing in the communities most directly affected. Donate directly.
Brennan Center for Justice — Producing the clearest public analysis of what these rulings mean and what can be done. Share their research widely.
4. Register. Vote. Bring Everyone You Know.
†rump said in 2024 he would fix things so thoroughly that his supporters wouldn’t need to vote anymore. The governor canceling elections in Louisiana this morning is making good on that promise, to his voters, not ours. The people engineering this system are counting on one thing: that you feel too defeated to show up.
Do this today:
Register at vote.gov right now. It works in all 50 states and takes five minutes.
Know your state’s deadlines for the 2026 primaries and general election.
Vote in every election on your ballot, federal, state, and local. State attorney general races, gubernatorial elections, and state legislative seats are all part of this fight.
Bring five people with you who are not yet registered.
We warned them. Now we prove it.
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