Trump administration pursues legal actions and voter-roll inquiries ahead of 2026 midterms
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The Justice Department and other federal officials have launched lawsuits and data-collection efforts that critics say aim to interfere with voting and certification in upcoming elections.
The Justice Department has filed a series of lawsuits seeking to obtain voter-roll data from states and to block certification of results in close races, including a pending case in Alaska that would halt certification if the Democratic Senate candidate wins. The department also delivered a list of alleged non-citizen voters to Los Angeles County and asked California to sequester ballots, a request the state rejected on cybersecurity and accuracy grounds. Similar demands were made in Washington state.
Legal scholars say the lawsuits are unlikely to succeed, noting that the Constitution assigns election administration to the states and gives the president no authority over voting. "The type of conduct we have seen from the administration right now is unlike anything we have ever seen as far as federal attempts to interfere with the elections," said Danielle Lang, a voting-rights attorney at the Campaign Legal Center.
Experts estimate the probability of the most extreme scenarios—such as large-scale ballot seizures or emergency-power seizures of voting equipment—at less than 50 percent, but they caution that even low-probability actions could create confusion. "There are risks of weird things happening, and you need to pay attention to them even if the risk is rather low," said Ned Foley, an Ohio State University professor who studies disputed elections.
The administration has also pressed for the possibility of deploying immigration agents at polling places, a move that federal law generally prohibits. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said agents would only be present if a warrant was being served, while Justice Department official Harmeet Dhillon told a news program there is no plan to use ICE or FBI agents as poll monitors.
Critics argue that the legal filings serve more as political pressure than viable legal claims. "The government’s case is so weak it would have little chance of succeeding before or after election day," said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School. Election lawyers expect courts to reject most of the challenges quickly, but they remain prepared for any attempts to delay certification after the vote.