The Trump administration is taking an everything, everywhere, all at once approach to getting its way in the midterms.
Item: In Alaska, the Justice Department has gone to court seeking to block certification of the Senate election if Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses by fewer votes than another candidate with the same name receives.
Item: In California, DOJ has demanded that at least 18 counties set aside the ballots of thousands of registered voters it suspects might not be citizens.
Item: Homeland Security political appointees reportedly sought to have the federal cybersecurity agency secretly hack a voting machine, keep any vulnerabilities from the manufacturer, and report the findings directly to the White House. Career officials resisted.
Item: Armed federal agents have been showing up at voters’ homes with so called “target lists” investigating suspected noncitizens. A federal judge has ruled that the operation likely violates the Voting Rights Act.
Item: The administration has tried to use the Postal Service to control who receives mail ballots, demanding voter lists and imposing last-minute ballot-envelope requirements after states had already prepared their election materials.
And it goes on.
Across the federal government, the Trump administration has opened fronts against nearly every part of the electoral process: who can vote, who gets a ballot, how ballots travel, which votes are counted, whether results can be trusted, and whether winners are certified.
Some efforts have succeeded. Others have been blocked. Some remain unresolved.
There may be no formal document laying out a strategy. But taken together, the overwhelming pattern is clear. These moves amount to a whole-of-government effort to put pressure on the midterm elections.
Alarming enough for the midterms of 2026. But consider if these were trial runs for the presidential election in 2028.
Scholars say perhaps the strongest defense against election manipulation is an overwhelming turnout, and a margin too large to dispute.
This may be what democracy now requires.
Sources
- CBS News: Alaska certification lawsuit
- CBS News: California ballot challenge
- ProPublica: CISA voting-machine proposal
- CBS News: DHS voter investigations
- ProPublica: Postal Service ballot restrictions
