The Dispute Index

Justin Levitt

Justin Levitt is a professor at Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University, and a scholar of election law and the law of democracy. He served as the White House's first senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights and worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. He served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division from 2015 to 2017 and as a White House adviser from 2021 to 2022. He wrote A Citizen's Guide to Redistricting.

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What DI has documented

DI has documented statements by Justin Levitt on 2026 Midterm Elections, Election Security, and Immigration Policy, among other topics. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.

Topics in this coverage

Statements by Justin Levitt

Justin Levitt

Role at the time: Loyola Law School election-law scholar

Mixed or conditional

Statement summary

Levitt says that if the Wisconsin Elections Commission had banned ICE from the polls entirely, it would have gotten the state in trouble, because a state cannot single out federal officials for special treatment.

“That would actually be getting Wisconsin in trouble because you cannot single out federal officials for special treatment.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Wisconsin officials debate federal agents observing at polling placesGault email, Sharpe response and Levitt and Trueblood interviews
Why we used this label

Relative to the prospect of ICE and other armed federal agents at polling places, Levitt agrees, as Votebeat reports, that armed agents are banned at the polls, but says a state cannot ban ICE from the polls entirely because it cannot single out federal officials. He treats armed presence as unlawful and objects only to a categorical ban, so mixed or conditional fits.

Read statementShould ICE and other armed federal agents be allowed at or near polling places in the 2026 election?

Justin Levitt

Role at the time: Professor of law at Loyola Law School and election law scholar, writing in Lawfare

Condemned

Response to this claim

The Riverside County Sheriff's Office lawfully seized the county's Proposition 50 ballots and other election materials under search warrants issued by a judge, because Elections Code section 15551(d) can be read to permit a seizure under a valid judicial warrant.

“The applications, like earlier investigations in Riverside, identified no probable cause to believe that the ballots to be seized would yield evidence of any criminal act. And that makes the warrants not only improper but also a misplaced displacement of authority from one sphere to another that the California Supreme Court can and should address.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Search Warrants for Election Materials Get Their Day in Court · LawfareLawfare article published 2026-09-02
Why we used this label

The reference point is the sheriff's seizure and handling of the ballots. Levitt says the applications showed no probable cause and calls the warrants improper, which expressly rejects the basis for the seizure.

Read statementWas Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco's seizure of about 650,000 ballots lawful?

A participant is a subject of the case. A speaker has a statement documented in it. A commentator has an opinion or editorial documented in it.