A prominent libertarian legal fellow publicly dismantled a social media post from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee this week, questioning whether the senator surrounds himself with advisers capable of fact-checking him.
Stephen Richer, a former Maricopa County election official and current fellow at the Cato Institute, fired back at Lee on X after the senator posted a misleading breakdown of how red and blue states have responded to the Trump administration’s push to collect state voter registration databases.
Lee’s post framed the standoff as blue states stonewalling a reasonable federal request, while red states cooperated willingly.
Richer catalogued at least seven factual problems with that framing.
He pointed out that only 12 states have actually handed over their full voter registration databases.
He also noted that Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Lee’s own state of Utah are among the 29 states the Department of Justice has sued for refusing to comply.
In every case that has reached a ruling on a motion to dismiss, the states have won.
“I suspect the states will go 29-0, or 28-1, on these lawsuits,” Richer wrote, adding that Lee, as a trained attorney with access to knowledgeable legal counsel, should know better than to misrepresent the litigation landscape.
Richer also took aim at Lee lumping January 6 in with climate change as examples of liberal talking points, calling that framing “really something.”
He closed his critique with a pointed question: “Does he not have any smart friends who ask him why his social media account always plays to the lowest common denominator?”
The exchange comes as the Trump administration presses its long-running effort to audit voter rolls for non-citizens, a push tied to the president’s claims of widespread foreign national voting.
Critics, including election law experts, have argued that non-citizen voting is nearly nonexistent, with existing safeguards making it exceedingly rare.
Some opponents of the data collection effort have also raised concerns that access to the rolls could be used to target legitimate voters in Democratic-leaning areas.
Lee has been a vocal supporter of the administration’s election agenda, including backing the SAVE America Act, which he referenced in the post that drew Richer’s rebuke.
Richer acknowledged his history of regard for Lee’s family before launching his critique, writing that he was compelled to respond precisely because he holds Lee to a higher standard.
