“Constitutional” Sheriffs Have Already Shown Us How the Trump Administration Might Attempt To Overthrow Elections
There’s already concern that President Donald Trump may try to use the power of the presidency to take control of the 2026 election, or otherwise undermine the vote.
Key Trump allies are excitedly predicting that he will use federal law enforcement or the military to crack down on the voting process. And one leading anti-voting activist said recently she expects him to “exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections.”
Over the past decade, I’ve been closely tracking a group of MAGA supporters that has already been testing out some of the same strategies that Trump could use to discourage voters and cast a cloud over elections: “Constitutional” sheriffs.
These sheriffs believe that, as elected officials without direct oversight, they are the supreme legal authority in their county. Like other right-wing movements, constitutional sheriffs use this belief to contravene gun laws, cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement even when state law prohibits it, and tout a variety of conspiracy theories, including unfounded rumors about widespread voter fraud.
Trump has mused about deploying these allies for elections before.
“We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have, hopefully, US attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorney generals (sic),” he said ahead of the 2020 election.
These “constitutional” sheriffs have used their political and policing powers to harass local officials, criminally investigate select individuals, and intimidate voters with displays of force. Their historical plans, however, provide a roadmap for what is ahead.
First, the right-wing spreads propaganda to plant seeds of doubt. Even if most people never witnessed anything close to election fraud, simply talking about it stirs concern in the population that there is something to watch for. Take, for example, the debunked “documentary” “2,000 Mules,” in which Dinesh D’Souza purported to show that people were cheating via absentee ballots. (They were not.) Even though the film was thoroughly debunked and D’Souza admitted it was erroneous, the idea that a shadowy network of groups used absentee ballots to swing the election remained potent in the minds of many people.
These “constitutional” sheriffs have used their political and policing powers to harass local officials, criminally investigate select individuals, and intimidate voters with displays of force.
Sheriffs also used their power as law enforcement in attempts — mostly failures — to thwart election outcomes. A Michigan sheriff named Dar Leaf, for example, worked with other election deniers to seize voting machines and attempt to disassemble them. Other sheriffs and right-wing militias threatened to patrol ballot boxes and “protect” ballots. One Kansas sheriff tried to use his policing powers to chaperone ballots as they were transported from place to place; he also hinted that he had received unvalidated complaints about election fraud as a way to imply a widespread problem.
Thankfully, most of these efforts did not succeed. Many government workers and election officials refused to assist election deniers. Lawyers filed lawsuits to prevent election inference. And many of the theories around election interference — bamboo-laced ballots from China! Venezuelan hackers! — were too wacky for most people to purchase. We already know that Trump wanted to use the military or federal agents to seize voting machines in the 2020 election, but it never came to fruition.
But what did take root was a culture of distrust in the election system and other voters. For one thing, the idea of a massive conspiracy to contort election results caused many determined individuals to snitch and spy on their neighbors. Many of these “tips” generated actual criminal investigations that were tainted with racism and political animus. Yet, there is simply no evidence that voter fraud is a pervasive problem. The current system works very well to ensure integrity in voting procedures.
Second, a number of election officials were also targeted. According to the Brennan Center, around one-third of election officials in 2024 “knew at least one colleague who resigned at least in part due to fear for their safety, of increased threats, or of intimidation.” Many election officials worried about threats and political violence. As a result, some have left office, leaving other less-experienced and more politically motivated people in their place.
Criminal prosecutions should be seen as selective warnings rather than good faith attempts to preserve election integrity. While seizing machines did not succeed in changing the election outcome, “constitutional” sheriffs have set the stage for other Trumpian tactics that both threaten community trust in voting and place many people in actual danger of criminal prosecution simply for exercising their right to vote. When citizens fear prosecution for voting — especially people with prior felony convictions or who have no stable home address, for example — they are concerned that going to the polls means that they are a target for prosecution. The threat, even if a perceived threat, of losing one’s family, job, home, and stability is an unfair burden for voters. Plus, given the selective prosecutions by governors like Ron DeSantis in Florida, there is good reason for people to be alarmed.
Most concerning? The Department of Justice is staffed almost entirely by Trump loyalists. While many of Trump’s 2020 voter suppression tactics never came to fruition, there is a greater chance that Trump sycophants in the DOJ will enact his instructions this time around. Trump has already called for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election and Ed Martin, a MAGA soldier who represented many of the Jan. 6 defendants, is heading up what he calls the “Special Unit: Election Accountability.”
For this reason alone, we should be concerned about DOJ efforts to obtain information on voters from the states. If states share this information with Pam Bondi’s DOJ, there is good reason to think that the Attorney General will take it upon herself to prosecute individuals. This abnormal: election laws are enforced by the state, not the federal government. However, we have already seen a DOJ and presidential administration eager to seize power through prosecution.
The Department of Justice is staffed almost entirely by Trump loyalists.
The good news is that other law enforcement officers and state officials have tried to do this before. It is not new, even if the scope is larger. Thus, communities can prepare for the challenge. Most importantly, local election officials can ensure that their data is not turned over to the federal government and prevent its use for nefarious ends. Government workers from both sides of the aisle worked to prevent the specter of “voting fraud” from nationwide acceptance. They can do so again, given the proper support and determination not to let election fraud lies win the day.
Jessica Pishko is an independent journalist and lawyer who focuses on how the criminal justice system and law enforcement intersects with political power. As a Democracy Docket contributor, Jessica writes about the criminalization of elections and how sheriffs in particular have become a growing threat to democracy.