'Someone should read the Constitution': Melanie D'Arrigo reminds Mullin of his power's limits

Melanie D'Arrigo, a prominent progressive activist who previously ran for Congress in 2022, did not mince her words when she directed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin to a copy of the U.S. Constitution after he said states would be forced to make mandatory changes in how they conduct elections. "Someone should read the Constitution, because the Executive Branch cannot mandate states to make changes to how they administer elections," she wrote on X.

Her retort comes in the wake of Mullin holding a news conference to discuss election security at White House. The Friday briefing followed on the heels of President Donald Trump's primetime speech Thursday night, in which he raised the specter of election fraud without evidence. "Everybody should be informed. Working with Secretary Lutnik, we are going to make our security enhancements mandatory," he said.

The 48-year-old revealed that the federal government seeks to hold states' grants and reimbursements for running federal elections as leverage to compel compliance. "They're going to have to implement security issues. Just security issues. We're not trying to get into anything else, but the machines have to be secured, and your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed. We need to make sure that individuals that are legally able to vote are voting," he said during the briefing.

In a nearly 30-minute press conference, the secretary warned that the Trump administration would prosecute anyone who votes illegally in the upcoming midterm elections. This followed claims that foreign adversaries had hacked voting machines and that dead people were still on electoral rolls. Mullin also threatened fines, penalties, or prison time for state election officials who refuse to cooperate with DHS.

The department has been on a war footing, in what it describes as an effort to safeguard the integrity and security of elections, sending letters to the secretaries of state in four states warning them about tens of thousands of non-citizens allegedly on the states' voter rolls. The letters were sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, New Jersey Secretary of State Dale Caldwell, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, and Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt.

In a press release, the department said that it had identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote across the four states—including 190,832 in California, 35,152 in New Jersey, 15,903 in Nevada and 14,576 in Pennsylvania. Mullin called on the secretaries of state to respond within two weeks and confirm their intentions to collaborate with DHS to ensure "free, fair and honest elections."