Overview

Background

Mitchell is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and its College of Law, is licensed to practice law in Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice before multiple federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. She is a former Democrat who served eight years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1974 to 1984. She subsequently moved rightward and built a career as a Republican election lawyer. She has served as outside counsel to the NRCC, NRSC, NRA, and numerous Republican members of Congress, state parties, and conservative organizations.

Mitchell is an attorney, licensed in Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, who has practiced election, campaign finance, and political law for decades. After leaving the law firm Foley and Lardner, Mitchell began working for the Conservative Partnership Institute in 2022. The Conservative Partnership Institute, founded by former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows among others, functions as a hub of the post-2020 conservative movement. Mitchell serves as Senior Legal Fellow there and founded the Election Integrity Network in 2021.

Public Role in the Second Trump Administration

The Georgia Phone Call and Post-2020 Activities

Though Mitchell has no official role in the Trump administration, she is well-connected in Trump World. Her connection to that world was forged most visibly in December 2020. Mitchell played a key role in President Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election, joining the phone call in which Trump tried to pressure Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" him enough votes to win the state. That participation, widely reported and later examined by the House January 6th Committee, became a defining episode for Mitchell's public identity. She subsequently departed Foley and Lardner, widely reported to be under pressure from partners following the controversy.

In late 2021, Mitchell was given a seat on the advisory board of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan government entity that provides voting resources and information to election officials. American Oversight sued the EAC in August 2022 for the release of communications between select commissioners and election conspiracy theorists and voting-restriction advocates, including Mitchell, and through those records uncovered correspondence in which she used unfounded claims of voter fraud to oppose expanded access to absentee and mail-in voting.

The Election Integrity Network

The organizational vehicle through which Mitchell has exercised the most durable influence is the Election Integrity Network, which she founded and chairs. Mitchell founded the Election Integrity Network as an affiliate of the influential Conservative Partnership Institute, creating a network for like-minded activists to organize in their states, with chapters in politically important states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The group has hosted Election Integrity summits in key states around the country, which have featured speakers from the Republican National Committee.

Mitchell has been leading Election Integrity summits in swing states across the country, backed by key figures from Trump's orbit and funding from Trump's political operation. NPR acquired audio of an elections panel Mitchell led for state lawmakers at a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is a conservative organization that helps draft state-level legislation. The network has functioned as a coordinating body between grassroots volunteers, conservative donors, and sympathetic Republican legislators at both the state and federal levels.

The SAVE Act and Legislative Advocacy

The legislative focus of Mitchell's advocacy in the second Trump term has been the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — known as the SAVE Act — which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Mitchell has been heavily involved in promoting the legislation and was present on the Capitol steps when Speaker Mike Johnson announced the bill's introduction in the House. According to the bill's sponsor, Mitchell had "a significant hand" in the House passage of the SAVE Act.

As the House prepared to bring the SAVE America Act to the floor in February 2026, the Republican Study Committee convened over two dozen House Republicans for an election integrity roundtable featuring Mitchell, who urged members to seize the moment and send the bill to the Senate. With the SAVE America Act before the Senate, a bill that could radically transform elections, Mitchell is approaching the apex of her influence. Critics argue the measure would erect bureaucratic barriers that could suppress voting by citizens who lack readily available documentation, and some analysts have noted, as reported by Salon, that the bill's burdens could fall disproportionately on demographic groups that include conservative voters — including married women who have changed their names. Mitchell has dismissed those concerns, asserting that Democrats must not know many women who have changed their names.

Access to the Executive Branch

Mitchell's Election Integrity Network received a briefing from a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security on how a database run by the department can be used to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. A September 2025 email sent by Mitchell to members of the Election Integrity Network advertised an "EAC update" as part of the agenda for an upcoming call, and the email was obtained by ProPublica as part of its reporting on a meeting of anti-voting activists and administration officials. These contacts suggest a degree of informal coordination between Mitchell's outside network and federal agencies that goes beyond ordinary lobbying.

Mitchell and activists from her group met to discuss plans to push for severely limiting early and mail voting — restrictions close to what President Trump has called for — that would radically curtail access to the ballot, taking the United States back to the era of one-day elections. Mitchell told fellow activists that the group wants nearly all voting to take place in person on Election Day.

Recent Developments

Mitchell stated publicly that President Trump may declare a national emergency to allow him to take control of national elections, comments that added to growing concern that Trump is plotting a way to use his power over the military and federal law enforcement to influence elections. In that same interview, Mitchell also said Trump has the power to issue an executive order requiring voter ID, because some states already require it. Legal scholars quickly disputed the constitutional basis for presidential takeover of state-administered elections, but the remarks underscored the degree to which Mitchell is willing to advocate for expansive executive authority in the service of her electoral agenda.

According to Democracy Docket, the Election Integrity Network granted a consulting firm associated with a Pennsylvania election activist more than $72,000 in one fiscal year and $121,284 for consulting services in 2025. That activist had previously misrepresented 2020 election data by falsely claiming Pennsylvania had more votes than registered voters, faulty findings later cited by Trump in his January 6, 2021 speech at the Ellipse. The financial relationship drew scrutiny as an illustration of the overlapping networks Mitchell helps sustain.

Mitchell, as co-founder of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, has argued that states retain flexibility in verifying citizenship under existing Supreme Court precedent, even absent federal legislation. That framing has become the fallback position for the movement as the federal SAVE America Act continues to navigate a difficult path in the Senate.

Outlook

For many years, Mitchell has managed to make herself relevant in the MAGA universe despite never officially joining the administration. That posture — influential outsider rather than confirmed official — has arguably given her more freedom of action and durability than many figures who entered government directly. She can convene activists, brief legislators, advocate publicly, and maintain informal channels to agencies without being subject to the constraints or scrutiny that attend formal government service.

Whether the SAVE America Act ultimately passes the Senate will test the limits of her legislative influence. The bill has faced procedural difficulties in the upper chamber, and some Republican senators have expressed concern about the administrative burdens it would impose on states and voters. Even if the legislation stalls, Mitchell has positioned the Election Integrity Network as a durable infrastructure for state-level action, making it likely that proof-of-citizenship requirements and restrictions on early and mail voting will continue to advance in Republican-controlled states regardless of the federal outcome. Her trajectory suggests that she will remain a significant, if informal, force in Republican election politics through the 2026 midterm cycle and beyond.