When the FBI showed up at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, to seize hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records this past January, County Commissioner Dana Barrett thought it looked less like a criminal investigation and more like political theater.

It’s been more than five years since the election, the results already had been investigated multiple times, and the ballots had been counted, recounted, and recounted again.

The lie that the 2020 election was stolen has persisted. And the “Stop the Steal” movement’s most ardent believers now hold unprecedented positions of power, including on the once-sleepy State Election Board in the important swing state of Georgia. A lawyer known for his willingness to take on long-shot election cases went from a little-known private practice attorney to a role in the White House, overseeing the country’s election integrity effort—despite being sanctioned by a court for making “unequivocally false” assertions around voting. And everyday members of the movement are trying to change what they fervently believe is a broken system—at the risk of actually breaking it in the process.

This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporter Abby Vesoulis and Reveal’s Najib Aminy examine how the long shadow of doubt over the 2020 elections is being weaponized and what it means ahead of the 2026 midterms.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2026.

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More To The Story: If you’ve ever listened to President Trump talk about our elections, you might hear something like this: Voter fraud is rampant. Noncitizens are voting illegally. Our elections are rigged. The president uses the bully pulpit to repeat these claims despite study after study showing they’re just not true. But it’s not just the president. There are many others at the ground level saying the same things to justify voting restrictions that could disenfranchise legal voters, especially voters of color. One of them is J. Christian Adams. He’s the president of Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter voter ID laws and sues states and local governments to remove voters from election rolls.

On this week’s “More To The Story,” Adams claims there’s systemic voter fraud in the US before abruptly ending the interview after host Al Letson challenges his assertions. Al then talks with Mother Jones National Voting Rights Correspondent Ari Berman about the lack of evidence from activists like Adams, the claims Adams and PILF have made that noncitizens are illegally voting, and what conservative activists who say election fraud is rampant are really trying to achieve.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Vincent Sherry | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Read: Your Private Data is Building Trump’s Voter Purge Machine (Mother Jones)

Listen: Stop the Steal Never Stopped (Reveal)

Read: Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It (Picador)

Read: The Myth of Voter Fraud (Brennan Center For Justice)

Learn more: Public Interest Legal Foundation

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More To The Story: Back in August, Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon did something few outside the state saw coming: She won Florida's Democratic US Senate primary. Her victory sent shock waves through the political world not only because her opponent Alex Vindman’s war chest dwarfed hers 19 to 1, but also because Nixon ran as a Democratic Socialist. Today, she’s one of a number of candidates around the country affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America who could be elected to Congress this November. The sudden rise in the DSA’s popularity is reshaping the Democratic Party and America’s political landscape. On this week’s More To The Story, Nixon talks to host Al Letson about going from community activist and comic book co-author to upstart US Senate candidate, being “the biggest thorn” in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ side, and whether her progressive message can win in deep-red Florida.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Read: Angie Nixon Goes on Trial in September. She Just Won Florida’s Senate Primary. (Mother Jones)

Listen: Black in the Sunshine State (Reveal)

Listen: How Redistricting Is Upending America’s Midterms (More To The Story)

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