How rogue counties could help Trump and throw the midterms into chaos after Election Day

Four years after Republican Vickie Marquardt refused to certify an election in Otero County, New Mexico, she isn’t ruling out doing it again this fall.

Marquardt was one of the three Republican county commissioners who unanimously refused to certify the 2022 primary election results, citing debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines. 

The standoff only ended after New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D) sued and the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered the county to certify the election.

Marquardt and another commissioner ultimately relented.

But with the 2026 midterms fast approaching, Marquardt still isn’t convinced certification should be automatic. 

“I would do it again if I felt strongly about it because I don’t think it’s right to certify something you don’t think is right,” Marquardt said recently. She remains an Otero County commissioner and said she continues to have concerns about mail-in ballots, voting machines and drop boxes.

Should other officials like Marquardt refuse to certify in the days and weeks following Election Day, they could throw the midterms into chaos and undermine faith in the outcome — a serious danger at a time when President Donald Trump has launched a whole-government attack on elections.

“Given the growth of election denialism and conspiracy theories since 2020, we are likely to see some officials attempt to use refusal to certify to delay the conclusion of the 2026 election if they disagree with the results,” the pro-voting group Protect Democracy wrote last month.

A single county official cannot simply overturn an election by refusing to certify it. But since 2020, certification has increasingly become a tool for fringe local officials to delay results, force state intervention and cast doubt on votes they are legally required to finalize. 

Marquardt is hardly the only county official who has resisted certifying election results in recent years.

In neighboring Nevada, Washoe County Commissioner Jeanne Herman has voted against certifying every election since 2020, including her own reelection. The elections were certified with the support of other commissioners.

And in Shasta County, California, Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis, who will oversee this November’s election, recently said he tried to stall the county board’s final declaration of the June primary while officials looked into his suspicions about ballots. 

Curtis had already certified the results and lost his own reelection bid in the same election. He later acknowledged that his suspicions did not provide a legal basis to refuse certification.

None of those right-wing attempts have overturned an election. Courts and state officials have repeatedly ensured that reluctant counties ultimately complete the process.

But that doesn’t make a certification standoff between a county and state harmless.

“Refusing to certify accomplishes two things for election conspiracists, even if refusal is ultimately unsuccessful,” Protect Democracy added. “First, it amplifies election conspiracy theories and further undermines public confidence in our election system. Second, it can lead to delays in the post-election process, particularly if state officials and candidates aren’t prepared to respond quickly.”

A single county that refuses to certify can force costly emergency litigation, burn through critical post-election deadlines and inject uncertainty into a close race as officials race to finalize statewide results.

And unlike a presidential election, where Congress reformed the process for counting electoral votes after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the midterms involve hundreds of congressional contests moving through different state and county certification systems.

That raises a consequential question less than two months before Election Day: How much disruption can a single county cause by refusing to certify the 2026 midterms?

What actually happens after Election Day?

When the polls close on Nov. 3, news outlets may call some races, and some candidates may declare victory — but the election is far from over. The results Americans see on election night are still unofficial. 

Election officials still have to process eligible mail-in, provisional and military ballots, reconcile the number of ballots cast with voter records and complete other checks required under state law.

That process is generally known as “the canvass.”

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission describes it as the process of aggregating and confirming every valid ballot cast and resolving discrepancies before results become final. Only after that work is complete do officials certify the election by formally attesting that the results are an accurate accounting of the votes cast.

Who performs those duties and how long they have to do them varies widely.

In California, for example, county election officials have until Dec. 3 to certify the Nov. 3 general election. The secretary of state then certifies statewide results Dec. 11. 

Arizona county boards have until Nov. 19 to complete their canvasses, followed by the statewide canvass Nov. 23.

Those deadlines matter because certification generally isn’t an opportunity for local officials to decide whether they personally trust an election.

Voting rights groups that reviewed state certification laws ahead of the 2026 midterms concluded that certification is a mandatory duty and that state officials or courts can compel officials who refuse to act. A coalition of pro-voting groups released updated guides last month after documenting at least 17 attempts to interfere with certification during the 2024 election cycle alone. 

Every one of those elections was ultimately certified, though some attempts caused significant delays.

“Before the 2020 presidential election, local officials responsible for certification rarely voted against certification or threatened to refuse to certify,” the groups wrote. “After 2020, such attempts to disrupt an election became a trend.”

Local officials have tried this before

One of the highest-profile episodes unfolded in Michigan after the 2020 presidential election.

The four-member Wayne County Board of Canvassers initially deadlocked along party lines over certification, which temporarily put votes by more than 800,000 people in limbo. Hours later, the two Republican members reversed course, and the board unanimously certified the results.

Michigan has since made the limits on canvassers explicit. The state Constitution and election law describe certification as a “ministerial, clerical, and nondiscretionary duty” based on election returns — not allegations from outside the canvassing process. 

Then came the 2022 midterms.

In Cochise County, Arizona, Republican Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby delayed the county canvass past the statutory deadline despite the county elections department having submitted the results, citing concerns about voting machines that state and federal election officials said were unfounded.

The board’s lone Democrat, Ann English, consistently supported certification. 

After Arizona’s secretary of state sued, a judge ordered the board to certify that day. Crosby skipped the court-ordered meeting, while English and Judd voted 2-0 to approve the results.

The episode eventually carried consequences beyond the election itself. 

Judd pleaded guilty in 2024 to a misdemeanor charge of failing to perform her duty as an election officer. Crosby, who pleaded not guilty to separate charges, unsuccessfully argued that his certification vote was protected by legislative immunity. An Arizona appeals court held that canvassing was an administrative duty rather than a policymaking decision.

Two years later, the fight moved to Nevada.

Three Washoe County commissioners voted in July 2024 not to certify the results of two primary recounts. Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D) and Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) immediately asked the Nevada Supreme Court to force the board to act.

One week later, the commission reversed itself 4-1 and certified the recounts, leaving Herman as the lone dissenting vote.

The court ultimately dismissed the case because the county had already certified the results. 

What can stop a county from holding up an entire election?

The answer depends on the state, but the legal backstops can be significant.

Courts can issue writs of mandamus — orders requiring government officials to perform duties they are legally obligated to carry out. That was the mechanism officials used in Otero County, Cochise County and Washoe County.

Some states go further.

Michigan law gives county canvassers 14 days to certify. If a county misses that deadline, the records are transferred to the Board of State Canvassers, which takes over the unfinished canvass and must certify by the 20th day after the election. The county has to pay the costs. 

California strengthened its own guardrails last year. 

State law now expressly says that the election official’s duty to prepare certified results is “ministerial and nondiscretionary.” If a county election official fails to do so, the secretary of state must notify the county district attorney or attorney general and may assist the county in completing the official’s duties. 

In other states, officials who intentionally refuse their duties can face civil or criminal consequences.

Those safeguards are one reason certification refusals have so far failed to change an election result. But voting rights advocates warn that refusals don’t have to succeed to be harmful.

Once local officials themselves cast doubt on their own election, “the damage has already been done in terms of public confidence,” Voting Rights Lab Senior Vice President Charley Olena recently told The Washington Post.

The biggest vulnerability may be the clock

A county does not operate in isolation after Election Day.

County results feed into statewide canvasses. State certification determines who officially won congressional races. Candidates may also have recount or election-contest rights with their own deadlines.

Every day consumed by a dispute compresses the time available for the next step.

That could matter in a close congressional contest. Under the 20th Amendment, the new Congress begins at noon Jan. 3. Before then, the House has to determine which winning candidates are entitled to take their seats based on the official election results and credentials sent by the states. 

If a race is still disputed, the Constitution gives each chamber of Congress the final authority to decide who was properly elected to serve. The House also has a formal process for candidates to challenge congressional election results.

That does not mean one county commissioner can simply stop a member of Congress from taking office. But a county certification fight that drags on long enough can push a dispute further up the chain — from local election officials, to state courts, and potentially all the way to Congress and U.S. Supreme Court.

So far, those guardrails have held. 

Since 2020, local officials who refused or threatened to certify election results have ultimately been overruled, reversed course or been compelled to act by courts and state officials. States have also strengthened some of their laws to make clear that certification is a mandatory duty. 

But those episodes have also shown how an administrative step once considered routine can become a major flashpoint and how much disruption can happen before the system catches up.

For the 2026 midterms, then, the question may not be whether a single county can permanently stop an election from being certified. It may be how much chaos and distrust it can create before a court or state official forces the process forward.