Trump’s Plan to Control Elections Is Coming Into Focus
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has many times outlined his extreme vision for U.S. elections.
In the first cabinet meeting of his second administration, he falsely asserted that U.S. elections are “extremely dishonest” and called for restrictive voting reforms, like eliminating early voting. During a meeting with governors, Trump called on state leaders to pass laws eliminating mail and electronic voting while falsely claiming they are sources of election fraud.
Now, Trump and his allies are acting on his words. In recent weeks, the administration has pulled back on efforts to fight racial discrimination in voting, weakened protections against foreign interference in our voting systems, and potentially laid the groundwork to increase Trump’s personal control over independent agencies, among other steps.
The administration has attempted to justify its acts through false claims of widespread election fraud, which is exceptionally rare in U.S. elections.
Taken together, experts say, the moves threaten to undermine the single most important plank in our democratic system: free and fair elections.
Tara Malloy, a senior director at the elections watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, told Democracy Docket that it’s alarming that this attempt to influence elections is occurring within a broader plan to expand presidential power.
“There’s a way in which it’s not just an aggrandizement of presidential power but a way to perpetuate presidential power,” Malloy said. “Because of course you could be influencing the outcome of elections, not just their operations.”
“There’s a concern that it’s not just a one time problem but an attempt to entrench — whether it’s this president, his party or his ideological supporters — in a way that is less easy to reform or change in the future,” Malloy added.
Using independent agencies to influence elections
Since January, Trump has launched a broad offensive to assert power over regulatory agencies that were created by Congress to operate without direct control from the White House.
That assault has included an effort to assert control over the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), potentially making it easier for Trump to tilt elections in the GOP’s favor.
Charged with administering and enforcing the federal campaign finance laws and investigating campaign finance violations, the FEC is key to upholding the integrity of federal campaigns, reducing political corruption and providing transparency about who is spending money on federal elections.
Trump last month moved to fire Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic member of the commission, without cause, something no other president has ever done. Weintraub hasn’t filed a lawsuit challenging her dismissal, but former FEC officials believe the attempt is likely illegal.
Whether through a lawsuit over Weintraub’s dismissal or challenges to other firings, courts — specifically the Supreme Court — could ultimately give Trump the ability to fire FEC commissioners.
Daniel Weiner, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Democracy Docket that would “significantly” increase the possibility of the FEC being weaponized against Trump’s political opponents, as his administration would have increased influence to weigh in on its regulatory and enforcement decisions.
“What we’ve seen with this administration is that they really do seem to want to go after their enemies,” Weiner said. “No other president in recent history has been so overt about weaponizing the government against his political opponents.”
Additionally, Trump may sign an executive order that dissolves the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and incorporates the service into the Department of Commerce, according to the Washington Post.
Doing so would give Trump and his political appointees direct control over the agency that handles mail ballots. Experts told Democracy Docket that not only could this shake voter confidence in mail voting, but the administration could make voting by mail more difficult by changing postage requirements for mail ballots or influencing how states mail ballots to voters.
Trump could also use newfound influence over other independent agencies unrelated to elections to target political opponents. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), for example, reopened its inquiry into a previously dismissed complaint against CBS for coverage during the 2024 presidential election.
The complaint, filed by a conservative law firm, claimed an interview on “60 Minutes” with presidential candidate Kamala Harris amounted to “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference.”
Just before Trump tapped him to chair the FCC, Brendan Carr linked the complaint with the FCC’s review of license transfers involving CBS, essentially pitting the company’s First Amendment rights against its business imperatives.
“That is really, really, really unprecedented,” Weiner said.
Free speech and journalism organizations have criticized the move as an affront to free speech and press freedoms that could influence editorial judgments in future elections.
Opening elections up to foreign interference
By gutting election security programs in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Trump administration may be exposing future elections to external threats, experts warn.
The agency has been crucial to helping state and local election officials secure elections from foreign and domestic cyber attacks and handle disinformation and influence campaigns that seek to erode Americans’ faith in democratic institutions. Such election interference operations have grown both in scope and sophistication over the past decade, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence.
The Trump administration placed employees that worked on CISA’s election programs on administrative leave and stripped federal funding for systems that alert thousands of state and local governments to cybersecurity and election threats. State and local election officials have told Democracy Docket they fear that dismantling these programs will leave future elections less secure.
Additionally, the administration disbanded an FBI special unit tasked with confronting foreign threats to elections, creating what a former FBI counterintelligence head called “a free for all for foreign intel services seeking influence.”
Trump may be able to meddle with the nuts and bolts of election systems by controlling the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). With a similar leadership structure as the FEC, the EAC helps state and local officials improve how elections are conducted. It distributes grants to improve election infrastructure, certifies voting equipment and analyzes state-by-state data to determine best practices in election administration.
The EAC has long been targeted by Republicans, and if Trump gains the ability to fire its board members at will, he could cripple the agency or influence how it certifies — or decertifies — voting system hardware and software.
The Trump administration has already attempted to influence the EAC’s work by including $55 million in election security grants administered by the agency in its massive indefinite federal funding freeze earlier this year. The administration rescinded the freeze after it set off a wave of legal challenges.
Institutionalizing the Big Lie
To bolster his efforts to control elections, Trump has stacked the Department of Justice (DOJ) with officials who have supported his baseless claims of rampant voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and who may have worked to overturn state election results on behalf of his campaign.
These include top officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel — both of whom would not say who won the 2020 election during their confirmation hearings. But it also includes those selected to lead offices that enforce federal laws protecting the right to vote.
Trump nominated Harmeet Dhillon, one of his loyal allies who has been involved in dozens of lawsuits challenging voting rights laws, redistricting and election processes, to lead the Civil Rights Division. Often referred to as the “crown jewel” of the DOJ, the division is core to protecting civil rights and liberties.
Dhillon has yet to be confirmed, but the Civil Rights Division has already abruptly shifted away from defending voting rights. So far, it’s dropped voting rights lawsuits against Texas, Virginia and Alabama. It also retracted a previous request to participate in a lawsuit over unfair voting maps in Louisiana that’s set to be heard by the Supreme Court.
Weiner, the Brennan Center director, said that the country, even in Trump’s first term, never had a DOJ so readily turned into “the president’s personal law firm.”
“Which is just not what the DOJ is. It’s just not what anyone has understood the DOJ to be,” Weiner said. “But it is incredibly risky.”
In future elections, such officials may be more willing to not act if voting rights are threatened, or could oppose efforts to protect voting rights. They may also be more likely to pursue criminal investigations, and even prosecutions, against voters and election administrators over spurious allegations of fraud.