How state officials prepared for possible Trump interference in the midterms

Trump has repeatedly questioned the integrity of US elections – notably his 2020 loss to former president Joe Biden – and has urged his party to "nationalise" voting in at least 15 places.

The Constitution gives the US states the primary authority to organise and administer elections, and the president has no direct role in running elections. 

US courts have so far rebuffed most of the Trump administration's legal challenges that have attempted to influence voting procedures or who is eligible to cast a ballot. 

The White House says it is protecting election security. 

With voting in the midterms under way, here are some of the potential flashpoints:

Who gets to vote

The Justice Department (DOJ) has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia to obtain their voter registration lists, saying it needs them to find non-citizens. It has lost more than two dozen of those cases in the courts.

It also demanded that ballots be set aside from about 20,000 people in California and more than 400 in Washington state whom it suspects are non-citizens. The US Supreme Court rejected the California request, handing the Trump administration a major reversal on the eve of the midterms. Washington state has also refused the demand.

Studies have repeatedly found non-citizen voting to be exceptionally rare.

The Justice Department has warned election officials in every state that they could face prosecution if they knowingly allow non-citizens to vote.

And Trump has offered $1 million for information leading to a voter fraud conviction, without offering details.

At polling stations

The Justice Department announced plans to send around 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states – its largest deployment ever.

At the same time, the Trump administration broke with two decades of precedent by not inviting elections observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the midterms. The decision drew widespread criticism from election integrity experts, human rights groups and Democratic lawmakers. 

Democrats criticized the Trump administration for aligning with autocratic regimes like Russia and Belarus, the only other OSCE members to reject independent obervers.

Election monitoring is a decades-old practice, but Democrats and voting rights groups fear monitors from Trump's DOJ could intimidate voters.

The department says they will be unarmed, barred from interfering with voting and drawn from neither the FBI nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The administration says it is not planning operations targeting polling places, although Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said ICE agents could serve warrants there.

Trump has declined to rule out declaring a national emergency or invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy troops at home.

A Civil War-era law bars troops and armed federal agents from polling places, and legal experts say an emergency declaration would not give the president power over elections.

  US Democrats have expressed concern that polling station monitoring by federal officials could amount to intimidation

Counting the votes

Federal agents could seek warrants or subpoenas for ballots, voting machines or records -- potentially disrupting the count.

In January, the FBI seized ballots and other 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia, a focus of Trump's false claims that he won that year.

Election officials warn that similar action during an active count could undermine safeguards tracking how ballots are handled.

Trump could allege fraud involving mail-in ballots, voting machines or votes counted after election night, fueling demands for recounts or attempts to halt counting.

But the US Supreme Court ruled in June that states may count mail ballots postmarked by election day that arrive afterward, and courts can intervene against unlawful disruption.

After election day

The Justice Department has sued Alaska to delay certification of its Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan narrowly loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, citing a second candidate named Dan Sullivan who it says is trying to confuse voters, which he denies.

Trump said he ordered the lawsuit.
Experts say federal law does not allow the department to block certification, which courts can compel officials to carry out.

Trump could pressure state officials to dispute results, as he did after losing the 2020 election.

Experts warn unresolved disputes could also delay the seating of newly elected lawmakers in January.

But courts have repeatedly upheld states' authority over elections, and Democrats and voting rights groups have assembled legal teams to fight any interference.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)