President Donald Trump has long flirted with dispatching federal forces to polling sites as part of a broader and oftentimes martial emphasis on election security. Now, with the midterms just months away and Democrats looking increasingly likely to make major gains in November, party figures are starting to take Trump’s threats seriously.
‘War room’ preparations
This month, a “group of powerful” Democratic lawmakers “rehearsed for some of their darkest fears” about the midterm elections,” said MS NOW. Among those concerns: “disinformation triggering voter-roll purges,” soldiers “deployed to polling places” during open voting hours, and the “machinery of a free election seizing up in real time.” The session was part of a larger effort by the party to “prepare for anything ahead of November.”
It “doesn’t matter” what the White House “tries to throw at us,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a recent Senate speech. Planning sessions like these “ensure we’ll be ready to respond.” Democratic senators have also introduced legislation to “limit the potential for armed military personnel or federal law enforcement at election polling places,” said CBS News.
The “sad reality” necessitating these “war rooms” is that the federal government, once a trusted election partner, is now “our biggest concern,” said Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown to The New York Times. After Trump “declined to rule out” sending National Guard troops or DHS agents to polling sites on election day, a coalition of Democratic district attorneys calling itself the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach also warned the White House that “any federal agents sent to polling places within their jurisdictions will be prosecuted,” said Politico.
Wobbly guardrails
Although attorneys general and secretaries of state often work closely together in a particular state, they “rarely work” with corresponding figures from another, said the Times. Given Trump’s threats, Democratic figures say “creating a national network of these two offices is necessary.”
The “most realistic threats” from the Trump administration “create confusion, trigger litigation, delay certification or further undermine public confidence,” said Ari Mittleman, the executive director of the nonpartisan Keep Our Republic election group, to Newsweek. “The guardrails are real.” But they “depend on courts acting promptly, officials following the law and political leaders refusing to promote” election lies. |
