"That is why the Justice Department is fighting back," Garland said. "That is why one of the first things I did when I came into office was to double the size of the voting section of the civil rights division.

That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements."

They have also more recently come under fire from former President Donald Trump, who made false claims that such methods were used by his opponents to conduct widespread voter fraud, which he falsely blames for his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

These ideas, though widely debunked by Democrats and independent experts, have been adopted by followers of his "Make American Great Again" (MAGA) movement, who responded to Garland's comments from Sunday with vitriol.

"Merrick Garland makes it clear the Biden regime intends to cheat in the 2024 election," former Fox News producer Kyle Becker wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter. "The Biden AG said election integrity measures like voter IDs & drop box bans are 'discriminatory, burdensome & unnecessary.' This is how cheaters talk. The fix is in."