WASHINGTON — The midterm elections in November will be the final test before the 2028 presidential race of whether states can hold the line against any illegal attempts by the Trump administration to interfere at polls or intimidate voters. State officials have not taken that test lightly.
President Donald Trump, who has spent a decade casting doubt on the nation’s electoral system — though only when he or the GOP loses — has repeatedly suggested the midterms should be “canceled” due to rampant voter fraud, particularly from people who aren’t U.S. citizens.
Despite zero evidence to support that claim and over 15 million votes cast securely in primaries so far, Trump this week failed to dismiss the idea of a takeover yet again, saying he might declare a national emergency to federalize the election if Congress fails to pass the SAVE America Act. The legislation would impose voting rules on states, including requiring proof of citizenship at registration and a photo ID to vote.
“We’re in a new era,” said Danielle Friedman, the legal director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, which studies public law and state-level democracy at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. “I and a lot of researchers are concerned about the potential for federal government activity that is really norm-breaking, what that will mean and how it will play out in a very disintegrated and destabilizing media environment.”
But this concern has meant public officials won’t be caught flat-footed if the federal government crosses a line by trying to intimidate voters or attempting to influence how elections are carried out. Instead, they told HuffPost, they’ve identified ways the administration could insert itself, and they’re ready to fight back.
The Constitution is clear that only the states have authority to control their own elections, and only Congress has the ability to make laws regulating them. And, in modern U.S. history, the federal government has mostly respected this boundary.
That respect has all but vanished under the Trump administration.
Trump’s Justice Department has sent threatening letters to election officials in all 50 states, warning of criminal prosecution should officials “aid and abet” noncitizen voting, and quietly canceled Election Day training sessions for the department. The department also removed its election protection manual from its website, a guide that has long advised how to prosecute election offenses or handle emergencies on Election Day. In another blow to election oversight, Trump ousted the last remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent entity that helps states run elections smoothly and verifies voting equipment. Trump has also attacked mail-in voting and is currently asking the Supreme Court to let him enforce an executive order that would direct USPS to deliver ballots only to people on mail-in voter lists rather than to anyone who might request them.
All of this has unfolded as Trump has refused to rule out whether he will order troops or ICE agents to polling centers and as the administration has tried and failed nearly two dozen times to wrest confidential voter rolls away from states — an attempt to identify illegal voters, gather reams of personal sensitive information and assert federal authority over elections. Judges have rebuffed every request so far, finding states are not constitutionally required to share that information.
The Department of Homeland Security told HuffPost this month that it is “not planning operations targeting polling locations,” but the agency couched the statement by saying it can conduct “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement.”
“If an active public safety threat endangered a polling location,” the statement to HuffPost said, people “may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”
Laws exist across all 50 states to prevent federal encroachment and intimidation — which can generally be defined as coercion, menacing, harassment, campaigning within 100 feet of a polling place or, in some states, carrying a gun or weapon — the pressure states are under to defend the law and administer a free and fair election is immense.
“There’s not one playbook states can follow to prepare them for the federal government acting as we anticipate they might [in November],” Friedman said. “What should a local election official do if they see federal troops at polling centers? Who is their first call? What is their chain of command? What needs to be documented about how it is happening? Even with a local elected official who has a ton of experience, they might not know how to respond or react on a legal and practical side.” (The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School published a study to educate states, and the public, about what tools they have at their disposal to combat federal overreach.)
States have appeared “resilient” in the primary season, she said.
Nevada has been organizing election administration efforts for the 2026 midterms since the day after the 2024 election ended, state Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D) told HuffPost. The last two years have seen the battleground state’s system transform into one of the most organized in the country, streamlining an election system that had already been deemed one of the best in the U.S. In an assessment of factors such as completeness of data, soundness of infrastructure and security, and accessibility, MIT ranked the state as the second-best-performing election system in the country in 2024. Only Minnesota ranked higher.
“We’ve done a lot to modernize and be innovative,” Aguilar said. “Nevadans can be proud of it.”
With 30% of the voter base in Nevada being Latino, Trump’s “nonsense” about noncitizen voters has the power to cast a chill over voters, Aguilar said.
“Their ability to tell the truth and be trustworthy doesn’t exist so we have to assume that they’re going to do the craziness that they’re going to do,” he said of the Trump administration. “They’re very reactive, they’re very emotional and that is because they are trying to appease one individual.”
Nevada has made sure it has legal pleadings “ready to go” if Trump tries to dispatch ICE or other federal agents with warrants to seize machines or ballots, Aguilar said. All county clerks are on high alert about the chain of command they must follow to retain state control of the election.
Similarly, all 1,600 precincts in the Republican stronghold of West Virginia have received intensive, dayslong training on how to keep elections on track, fair and free from intimidation.
“As long as the feds stay on their side of the Potomac River, we’ll all be in good shape.”
– West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner (R)
“Our heads are on a swivel,” Republican Secretary of State Kris Warner said. “We are constantly looking for any issues that might come up … I have no issue with ICE doing their job. We just have to be mindful that Election Day is not just any other day, and there are clear restrictions on whose presence is allowed inside our polling places or 100 feet within a polling entrance door.”
“On our flag you’ve got the words, ‘Montani Semper Liberi,’ or ’Mountaineers are always free,” Warner added. “As long as the feds stay on their side of the Potomac River, we’ll all be in good shape and we can conduct our elections here in West Virginia without their interference.”
In Michigan, which has many high-profile and contentious races, polling monitors sent by the DOJ kept an eye on the primary elections last month. Poll monitors are routinely sent to voting locations throughout the U.S., typically to ensure that civil rights are being observed. But officials in the state have already warned the Trump administration that they won’t be walked all over in November.
“Make no mistake, my office stands ready to hold accountable those who attempt to unlawfully interfere with or intimidate Michigan election workers,” state Attorney General Dana Nessel and state Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson wrote in a letter to the administration after the primaries.
Nessel’s office issued a memo to all law enforcement agencies in the state detailing exactly what can and cannot happen at the polls, and gave guidance on how police can help keep polls free from federal interference, said Michigan Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie. Law enforcement and state government all appear to be unified.
“The federal government cannot do anything in a national election without someone noticing it. The second that we would become aware that they were going to deploy troops or agents to Michigan, we’re going to file a lawsuit and we’re going to win,” Edevbie said.
Trump has become accustomed to arguing his decisions and the executive branch are totally unquestionable in civil or criminal matters. But the election space is different, Friedman said.
“When you look strictly at the Constitution and how it envisions elections being run, there is no role for the executive branch or president in that process,” she said. “This actually isn’t super technical or a complicated legal argument.”