Why are election experts taking Trump’s midterm threats seriously?

With the midterm elections just months away, President Donald Trump has been telegraphing his intent to dominate on election night, despite not actually personally being on the ballot. Whether threatening that the GOP could “take over the voting in at least 15 places” or insinuating that he might deploy Department of Homeland Security forces to polling locations, Trump and his aggressive posturing have caught the attention of candidates, party officials and electoral experts on both sides of the aisle. While polling and historic trends suggest the Democrats, as the party out of power, can expect a good showing in November, Trump’s rhetoric has alarmed and galvanized those who work to keep America’s electoral system running smoothly.

What did the commentators say?

Although the White House has “no explicit authority over elections,” it has, for generations, provided local election officials with “intelligence gathering and cybersecurity defenses” among other services that “only the federal government can provide,” said The New York Times. The administration’s newly combative posturing is a “sharp shift” for secretaries of state “after decades of close alliance with the federal government.”

The “vibes” at this year’s National Association of Secretaries of State conference were “completely different,” said CNN reporter Marshall Cohen to Vox. Democratic election figures are “terrified and strategizing” for a “potential assault by Trump on the integrity of the midterms.” In particular, officials are “very afraid about possible troop deployments” as seen in Chicago and California, as well as DHS immigration forces “being sent at the last minute when it might be too late to stop, but early enough to cause chaos and possibly intimidate or disenfranchise.”

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Trump’s threats have pushed the country into “uncharted territory,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to Face the Nation. There is a “very real threat” that “without reforms at ICE,” there could be DHS patrols at polling sites on election day. “You don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.” Trump intends to “subvert the elections,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to This Week, and will do “everything he can to suppress the vote.”

In particular, the “purpose” of the recent Tulsi Gabbard-led FBI raid for Georgia 2020 election data was to “establish a precedent for further federal intervention in state and local elections” as well as to “intimidate state and local officials from resisting such efforts,” said The Bulwark. Should Trump deploy federal troops, they could be used to “intimidate likely Democratic voters ahead of time,” as well as “affect the counting of the ballots.”

Congressional GOP pushes to enact laws like the SAVE and Make Elections Great Again acts, which would dramatically restrict voting access, “can be viewed as a continuation” of Trump's 2020 election denialism, said The New York Times. Similarly, they are seen by some Democrats, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), as “part of a larger pattern” including Trump’s nationalization rhetoric and regret over not having seized voting machines in 2020.

While this administration has worked to subvert the electoral process in the past, the “scope and severity” of his midterms effort is “unprecedented,” said Andy Craig at his UnPopulist Substack. Even so, although some of the threats are “more serious and pressing” compared to others, the overall “temptation to doomerism” is something that “we should reject.”

What next?

Unlike a “theoretical replay of 2020,” the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain local voter rolls and polling data are “operational now through four means,” said The New Republic: “Formal Justice Department demands, active litigation, seized election materials and scheduled federal briefings with state officials.” But while the effort seems designed to support Republicans at the expense of Democrats, “pushback has crossed party lines” with election officials in deep red states like Oklahoma and Kentucky bucking the White House’s initial asks.

The public should “take this seriously,” said CNN’s Cohen. Not because people should be “conspiracy theorists,” but because “we’ve lived through this before” with Trump’s many previous attempts to challenge elections. But “despite all this noise, despite all the fears, despite what you’ve been told that our system is garbage,” the “nonpartisan experts in election administration” agree America’s electoral structure is “quite resilient.” The public should ultimately “rest assured” that their ballots will be “counted fairly, despite all the drama.”