How could Trump rig the midterms?

For the past year and a half, President Donald Trump has been trying to take control of U.S. elections.

He largely hasn’t succeeded. The reason is simple: The U.S. Constitution gives the president no lawful authority over how states run elections. And courts have said as much while knocking down many of his efforts.

But with each loss, Trump has grown more desperate and his actions more brazen, raising the risk that he will try something even more lawless as he struggles to stave off a Republican loss in the midterms.

With just under three months until Americans head to the polls, election officials across the country have been meeting privately to discuss how Trump may try to undermine a fair vote and to game out their responses to such attempts.

While officials have largely been tight-lipped about what scenarios they are preparing for, it’s not difficult to identify — based on the statements and actions of Trump and his allies — several alarming ways the president could undermine Americans’ right to vote this year.

This is the first in a series of stories by Democracy Docket examining the Trump administration’s grave threats to the 2026 midterms. It offers an overview of the multiple ways Trump could interfere with the vote — and threaten U.S. democracy.

Restricting mail voting

Though he’s voted by mail several times, Trump has relentlessly attacked mail voting as a vehicle for election fraud, going back to his first run for president in 2016. 

“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” Trump declared on social media last year. 

And an attack on mail voting is an attack on voting: Nearly one in three voters cast a mail ballot in the 2024 general election, amounting to more than 48 million votes. Not coincidentally, more Democrats than Republicans voted by mail. 

Trump’s most blatant and dangerous attack on mail voting was a March executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to only deliver ballots to voters on pre-approved lists maintained by the federal government. 

If voters aren’t on the lists, they won’t receive a mail ballot, Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers earlier this year.

A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked USPS from carrying out Trump’s directive in June, but the Trump administration is still trying to get that voting restriction, and others in Trump’s order, in place before the midterms.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and a dozen Republican-led states asked the Supreme Court to lift the lower court block, claiming that it was issued prematurely because USPS never finalized a rule it proposed carrying out Trump’s instructions.

Under the proposed rule, state election chiefs would be required to give USPS a list of voters who requested a mail ballot. If states refuse to hand over that information, the Postal Service in turn would refuse to deliver ballots in those states.

The Court has yet to respond to the requests. But it very well could grant them — the Republican-appointed majority has rejected only a handful of emergency applications the DOJ filed in other cases.

Moreover, Trump’s mail voting restrictions could partially go into effect even if the Supreme Court rejects the requests. 

The lower court block only applies to the 23 blue states and Washington, D.C. that challenged Trump’s order. Though USPS previously said it would not move forward with the proposal in any state while the lower court ruling remained in place, it could change course, implementing it in some states but not others.

Should it go into effect — even in a limited number of states — the Postal Service’s proposal would affect a huge swath of voters. It would make it much more difficult for voters not on the federal government’s list to cast a ballot — especially in states like California, Colorado, Utah, Oregon and Washington where, today, mail voting is by far the most common way to cast a ballot.

Sending troops or law enforcement to the polls

For months now, prominent voices on the far right have called on Trump to deploy federal agents or members of the military to voting sites — a scheme clearly meant to harass and intimidate voters.

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House adviser who remains close to the administration, pledged earlier this year.

Trump and the White House have never ruled out the tactic. In fact, senior officials, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, have publicly supported deploying immigration agents during the election.

“I don’t understand what the concern is about enforcement of immigration at polling places anyways,” Mullin said at his March confirmation hearing. “Because honestly if you’re not a citizen you shouldn’t be voting anyways so technically there shouldn’t be illegals at the polling spot.”

Federal law bars the deployment of armed officials to polling places unless it is “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States” and prohibits members of the military from interfering with elections.

But, as demonstrated by his mass deployment of National Guard troops across the country last year, Trump is unafraid of flagrantly wielding the military and federal agents in legally dubious or outright illegal ways. And his stationing of hundreds of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at major U.S. airports showed his willingness to use immigration officers as his personal national police force.

Trump officials and far-right figures aren’t alone in wanting armed officials to monitor the midterm vote at election sites. In a poll earlier this year, over 70% of surveyed Republicans said they would support it.

Seizing ballots and voting equipment

Trump could also try to use federal agents or the military to take control of ballots — the raw materials of elections — or voting systems. That could allow him to disrupt ongoing vote counts and look for — or fabricate — proof of the unfounded election conspiracy theories popular among the MAGA movement.

It’s not a novel idea for Trump. In the weeks after the 2020 election, he considered a plan prepared by conspiracy theorists that entailed ordering federal agents or troops to confiscate voting machines from swing states to find evidence of fraud.

Trump ultimately didn’t go through with the proposal — and he openly regrets it. Reflecting on his decision in an interview with the New York Times this past January, Trump said he “should have” directed the National Guard to take control of machines.

That temptation — and regret — will likely still be on the president’s mind come November. 

Trump could also attempt to pressure the DOJ to commandeer election materials or systems through sham criminal investigations. In fact, he’s already tried this.

Just weeks after Trump’s Times interview, the FBI executed a search warrant on an elections facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and took control of around 700 boxes of 2020 election records, including original ballots.

Appearing to have advanced knowledge of the raid, Trump directed then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to participate. At the time, she was probing election conspiracy theories about voting machines. After the raid, the president personally thanked some of the agents who conducted the search in a bizarre phone call Gabbard arranged.

The raid was allegedly part of a criminal investigation into potential violations of record retention law, but the affidavit underpinning it largely relied on long-debunked claims from notorious conspiracy theorists. 

Trump’s FBI also this year obtained records from a flawed “audit” of the 2020 vote in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Trump again resorted to conspiracy theories when he ordered the DOJ to investigate California elections, with his preferred candidate trailing in the state’s June gubernatorial primary.

In a future election, Trump’s loyalists could try to pull off the same gambit: Flood courts with misleading claims in hopes of securing a warrant to take control of election records. If that fails, Trump could try unilaterally sending in agents or troops as he hoped he did after 2020.

Voter roll purges

As part of its anti-voting crusade, the Trump administration has paid special attention to voter registration lists maintained by the states. It’s obvious why. In all states except North Dakota, voting starts with registration. And if you control who’s on the rolls, you ultimately control who votes.

Under Trump, the DOJ has demanded sensitive registration records from all states that maintain rolls. Some states have complied, while others have refused. In turn, the DOJ has sued 30 noncompliant states and D.C. to force access to the records. 

The department has claimed it needs the records to ensure that states are adhering to federal laws that require that registration records be up to date and accurate. But the lawsuits appear aimed at making it easier for the administration to pressure states to purge specific people from registration lists.

So far, 21 federal judges — including several appointed by Trump in his first term — have rejected the DOJ’s lawsuits, with many ruling that unredacted voter rolls are not records the federal government can demand from the states. Zero have ruled for DOJ. 

But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from trying other ways to force states to remove voters from rolls.

DHS Secretary Mullin sent letters to California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania — all led by Democrats — alleging that DHS discovered that 250,000 noncitizens may be on their voter rolls.

The department didn’t specify how it came up with those figures, but that didn’t prevent Mullin from demanding that those states work with DHS “to positively identify the individual non-citizens registered in your state.”

Around the same time he sent those letters, Mullin also publicly threatened election officials with criminal charges and prison time if they didn’t comply with other demands related to their voter rolls. 

One of Mullin’s orders was for states to feed their rolls through a DHS database that Trump officials have retrofitted into a flawed system to monitor and shape registration lists. Investigations have revealed, and experts have warned, that the system routinely flags eligible voters as potential noncitizens.

Pressuring Republicans to refuse to seat Democrats

The period between Election Day (Nov. 3) and the seating of the next Congress (Jan. 3, 2027) will be crucial. 

During that time, Trump and his allies will likely continue to ramp up election conspiracy theories — this time with the potential aim of pressuring congressional Republicans to challenge contests in the U.S. House and refuse to seat Democratic victors.

Citing false claims amplified by the White House and right-wing media, congressional Republicans could contest Democratic wins in hopes of retaining their slim majority in that chamber — and there might be little that courts, states, outside groups or voters could do. 

That’s because under federal law and Supreme Court precedent, the final say on who gets seated in the House is entirely controlled by a majority of its members — meaning, in this case, the lame-duck Republican majority. 

It wouldn’t be the first time. Parties have gained the House or expanded their majorities in the chamber by contesting elections multiple times in the past.

But that was a long time ago. Should Republicans attempt such a gambit today, it would be an attack on democratic elections unprecedented in modern U.S. history.