National

Despite legitimate fears that the forces behind Jan. 6 would do their utmost to manipulate our elections, it was clear by Tuesday night that the just-concluded U.S. midterms survived President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks. We are in decent shape not because Trump’s attacks were weak, or because our electoral system is strong, or because we were just lucky—although the huge margins did make things “too big to rig.” The risk that Trump would interfere with our democracy in a way that made 2020 look harmless was quite serious, and it took the laborious efforts of thousands of lawyers and election administrators, along with key parts of civil society, to neutralize the threat from materializing. We should not walk away from 2026 feeling as if the mobilization against the forces of antidemocracy was overkill or unnecessary. We should be proud that, thanks to the efforts of thousands of people, the system held against a powerful barrage. Read Article

National: Trump threatened to interfere in the midterms. On Election Day, confrontation never came. | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The Trump administration spent months threatening to intervene in the midterm elections but when Election Day arrived on Tuesday, the extraordinary federal intervention that many election officials had spent months preparing for never came. By the end of the night, no major statewide or national Republican figure had disputed the results, and the process of certifying the election and preparing for a transfer of power appeared to be proceeding without major resistance. President Donald Trump himself told the New York Times he would accept the election results. Pam Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, cautioned against treating the absence of federal intervention as permanent. “It’s a welcome pause from the worst threats, but a pause, not a resolution,” she said. “Election officials once could count on the federal government as a partner; at minimum they shouldn’t have to treat it as an adversary.” Smith said the election also demonstrated the importance of the institutions and people responsible for protecting the process, regardless of the outcome. “Continuing to improve how we ensure safe and robust participation and well verified outcomes is what lets us withstand future challenges — even in close contests, not just when the margins are wide.” Read Article

National: ‘Just Another Tuesday’: Election Day Sees No Major Cyber Incidents | Rae D. DeShong/GovTech

Election Day 2026 concluded without any major cybersecurity disruptions, with threat activity limited to minor, localized incidents that were swiftly resolved. Reports from the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) noted brief public website interruptions, misleading text messages, temporary high HTTP activity, and a handful of non-credible bomb threats, none of which impacted voting integrity or ballot security. Former CISA Director Chris Krebs characterized the day as "just another Tuesday on the internet," highlighting that layered administrative defenses—including universal paper ballot backups, offline tabulators, and manual contingency procedures—ensured smooth operations even during routine technical hiccups. Read Article

National: Trump Tried to Undermine the Nation’s Elections. It Didn’t Work. | Richard Fausset and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Despite months of aggressive federal intervention, executive pressure, and unfounded claims of widespread voting irregularities by the Trump administration following its return to power in 2025, the 2026 midterm elections proceeded with remarkable administrative stability. Federal courts repeatedly struck down attempts to bypass constitutional state authority over elections while decisive Democratic sweeps across congressional and statehouse races produced margins too wide for post-election subversion. Although prominent conservative figures like Cleta Mitchell vxowed that election integrity networks will continue their state-level coalitions, and Department of Justice Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon resigned amid strategy disputes, election experts and bipartisan administrators credited robust contingency planning and resilient local systems with safeguarding the vote. Read Article

National: Election Deniers Aren’t Contesting Their Massive Losses | David Gilbert/WIRED

Following a historic wave election where Democrats secured majorities in both the House and Senate, prominent election-denying candidates across key state and federal races—including Andy Biggs in Arizona, Mike Rogers in Michigan, Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin, Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, and Jim Marchant in Nevada—conceded their losses without contesting the legitimacy of the vote or raising claims of widespread fraud. Concurrently, prominent activist groups and figures within the election integrity network, such as True the Vote, Cleta Mitchell, and Scott Presler, went largely silent or avoided questioning the election outcomes as results became clear. Even former President Trump acknowledged the outcome during a late-night call to Fox News, congratulating Democrats on their victory. Read Article

National: U.S. Finds Subdued Foreign Meddling Operations in Midterm Elections | Dustin Volz and Julian E. Barnes/The New York Times

Foreign interference operations during the 2026 midterm elections remained minimal and subdued, with adversarial nations making little headway in disrupting the democratic process. While Russia and Iran engaged in minor covert and overt influence campaigns—including Russian AI-generated smear videos targeting select Senate races in Texas and Ohio, and Iranian propaganda efforts—their overall footprint was significantly reduced compared to presidential election cycles. Experts and former officials attributed the subdued meddling to several factors, noting that Russia's primary geopolitical goals already align with the Trump administration's posture on Ukraine, Moscow has shifted its primary information operations focus toward France's upcoming spring presidential election, and Iran likely sought to avoid jeopardizing potential diplomatic talks. Read Article

National: Trump threatened ICE agents at the polls. There was historic turnout instead | Alex Woodward/The Independent

Despite pre-election concerns that the Trump administration might deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to polling sites or declare a national emergency, Election Day concluded without federal law enforcement intervention or polling place disruption. A record 124 million voters participated in the 2026 midterms—marking the second-highest turnout rate for a midterm election in modern American history—as state officials and nonpartisan election monitors successfully implemented protective legal measures and voter reassurance efforts. Though the Department of Justice dispatched over 900 monitors nationwide, states such as California deployed their own observers alongside civil rights groups to ensure voting proceeded without intimidation. Read Article

National: The New Worst-Case Scenario for Election Officials: Federal Interference | Richard Fausset, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and David W. Chen/The New York Times

For the first time in modern American history, state and local election administrators from both major parties are actively training staff for potential federal interference ahead of Election Day. Scenario planning includes preparing poll workers and local law enforcement for potential ICE activity near voting sites, clarifying legal limits for Department of Justice election monitors, and reviewing protocols in the event federal agencies attempt to seize ballots or voting equipment. Supported by nonpartisan legal and election integrity networks, Secretaries of State and county clerks report that while constitutional checks and state sovereignty remain strong barriers against federal overreach, the need to prepare against potential executive interference marks an unprecedented shift in election administration. Read Article

National: False and misleading voting claims spread ahead of 2026 midterms | Melissa Goldin/Associated Press

False and misleading claims about the voting process are being spread online as voters cast their ballots in the 2026 midterms, with Election Day less than a week away. The posts often focus on alleged election rigging or voter fraud. However, closer scrutiny of the claim typically reveals a logical explanation. “I always like to say, get your facts straight from the source, and the source is your local election official,” said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. “Not your friends, cousin, uncle, on Facebook.” Smith encouraged voters to seek out information on the websites or social media accounts of those officials. She also suggested asking a poll worker who marks a ballot why they’ve done so if a voter has concerns. Read Article

National: Last minute Trump administration election challenges across country fuel concerns White House may challenge midterm election results | Dion Nissenbaum/Votebeat

The Trump administration has launched a series of late-stage election lawsuits and legal demands in the weeks leading up to the midterms. These include suing California and issuing demands to Washington state to set aside thousands of mail ballots over unverified claims of noncitizen registration, as well as suing Alaska to block certification of a tight U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola based on potential voter confusion caused by a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Federal judges have issued sharp pushbacks—such as Judge David O. Carter affirming state sovereignty in California—while state officials in California and Washington confirmed that DOJ lists were riddled with errors, including listing native-born U.S. citizens. Legal scholars and political scientists warn that these rapid-fire challenges are less likely to succeed on their legal merits than to sow public doubt and lay groundwork for challenging the midterm results. Read Article

National: Election officials brace for federal interference but expect to persevere | Kevin Hardy/Stateline

Despite mounting federal intervention, legal threats, and public pressure, state and local election administrators across both parties express overwhelming confidence in the resilience of the nation's highly decentralized electoral infrastructure. Nonpartisan experts and local election officials emphasize that constitutional checks, judicial oversight, strict statutory protocols, and bipartisan oversight mechanisms leave little room for executive overreach or improper manipulation of election outcomes. From tabletop contingency exercises in rural counties to firm pushbacks against federal demands by Secretaries of State, election workers remain anchored to their constitutional oaths, ensuring that the integrity of vote counting and the rule of law will prevail across all jurisdictions. Read Article

National: Massive Groups of Volunteers Are Ready to Face Down ICE at the Polls | David Gilbert/WIRED

Across key battleground states, grassroots organizations—including Common Cause, the ACLU, Indivisible, and local groups like 614 ICE Watch and NorCal Resist—have built a multi-state volunteer infrastructure to observe polling sites and track potential ICE activity. Utilizing encrypted messaging chats, unlisted heat maps, and de-escalation methods, thousands of trained volunteers aim to document federal immigration enforcement near voting locations and protect immigrant voters against intimidation. While federal officials maintain that ICE does not target polling places, community organizers emphasize that active neighborhood patrols and rapid-response monitoring are necessary safeguards to maintain voter confidence on Election Day. Read Article

National: How Trump and his allies are sowing doubt ahead of the midterms | Laura Meckler, Chris Hacker, and Patrick Marley/The Washington Post

President Trump, the Justice Department, and high-profile right-wing influencers are conducting a coordinated messaging campaign focused on questioning election integrity, priming supporters to doubt the midterm results if Republicans lose. Digital claims questioning election procedures—particularly focusing on noncitizen voting and mail-in ballot fraud—have doubled compared to 2024, largely supplanting past conspiracy theories regarding voting machines. While noncitizen voting remains illegal and documented cases are statistically rare, the administration has used unverified claims to launch preemptive lawsuits in California and Alaska, deploy expanded federal election monitors, and propose cash rewards for fraud reports. In response, Democrats and nonpartisan voting rights coalitions have run tabletop exercises to prepare for 162 potential post-election challenge scenarios—including potential disputes over congressional seating, executive emergency declarations, and attempts to leverage the Department of Justice to block election certifications. Read Article

National: Behind Cleta Mitchell’s Relentless Effort to Overhaul U.S. Elections | Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

A detailed investigation by ProPublica traces how conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell turned post-2020 election skepticism into a national movement that now heavily influences federal and state election policy. Through her organization, the Election Integrity Network (EIN), Mitchell built a multi-million-dollar coalition of state chapters, researchers, and policy shops dedicated to enacting stricter voting rules, purging voter rolls, and ending private election funding ("Zuckerbucks"). The report highlights her key role in drafting the SAVE Act and SAVE America Act, as well as her influence on White House staffing and executive actions regarding noncitizen voting checks and federal election monitoring. Despite significant administrative and judicial pushback against some of her network's most radical proposals—such as attempting to eliminate the Senate filibuster for voting legislation or invoking emergency executive powers—Mitchell remains a primary architect of conservative election strategy heading into the midterms. Read Article

National: Hackers target US FEC system, disrupting campaign finance disclosures days before midterms | Dawn Kopecki/Reuters

A cyber incident targeting the Federal Election Commission’s website forced the agency to temporarily take its electronic filing system offline days before the midterm elections. While the FEC plays no role in election administration or ballot counting, the outage disrupted mandatory 24-hour and 48-hour spending reports, temporarily obscuring disclosure of massive last-minute expenditures by super PACs and dark money groups in the most expensive election cycle in U.S. history. IT staff and federal cyber officials moved to identify the issue and implement fixes to restore public disclosure access. Read Article

National: The State Officials Defending the Midterms from the President | Barton Gellman/The New Yorker

An extensive profile by Barton Gellman examines how chief state election officers across the country—most notably Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, a Republican—have served as a primary bulwark against federal efforts to reshape midterm administration. Despite escalating pressure from the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, including threats of criminal prosecution, state officials have consistently refused to surrender unredacted voter rolls or initiate last-minute purges, citing federalist constitutional protections, state privacy laws, and statutory deadlines. With federal courts repeatedly dismissing DOJ voter-roll lawsuits and blocking sweeping executive orders, election administrators and security experts have increasingly turned to crisis scenario planning to safeguard ballot chain of custody and protect local polling operations from potential executive interference on Election Day. Read Article

National: The Limits of Trump’s Midterm Trickery | Quinta Jurecic/The Atlantic

While the Trump administration has deployed an unprecedented array of executive tools—including last-minute lawsuits in California and Alaska, demands for voter rolls, and threats of voter fraud prosecutions—legal scholars and election experts suggest these efforts face structural constraints. Because American elections are highly decentralized across hundreds of distinct local jurisdictions, attempts to disrupt outcomes rely heavily on razor-thin margins in key districts. Polling indicating a potential major surge for Democrats in the House, coupled with a fractured Republican caucus, could render localized disruption or post-election certification standoffs ineffective. Although legal experts remain cautiously optimistic that state-level safeguards and court checks will hold, they note that relying on a "wave" outcome to insulate elections highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in public trust and administrative stability. Read Article

National: Ballot Rejections Soared in Rural Counties After USPS Reduced Mail Service | Ken B. Morales, Jen Fifield, and Misty Harris/ProPublica

Data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas across the country. Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once. Read Article

National: Why reported challenges with touchscreen voting machines don’t signal election rigging | Ali Swenson and Melissa Goldin/Associated Press

As early voting gets underway for the midterm elections, social media reports have surfaced featuring voters—particularly Democrats in states like Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, and Kansas—claiming that touchscreen ballot-marking devices are switching their votes. Election administrators and voting experts emphasize that these anecdotes are almost uniformly the result of unintended touches, screen miscalibration, or minor user error rather than coordinated election rigging. Officials note that all machines undergo pre-election testing and that voters can review their printed ballot records, seek immediate assistance from poll workers, or have screens recalibrated to ensure their selections are accurately recorded. Read Article

National: Trump administration stokes concerns about Chinese-made parts in voting equipment, but experts say risks remain low | Dion Nissenbaum/Votebeat

The Trump administration and some conservative election activists argue that foreign-made components in voting machines present a national security risk, and believe the federal government should take steps to mitigate it for the midterm elections. But voting equipment manufacturers say it’s impossible to build the equipment without Chinese-made parts — and they already take precautions to protect against sabotage and foreign interference. The same Chinese-manufactured computer parts are used in critical infrastructure from ports and the electrical grid to telecommunications and water systems, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting. Smith said companies and election officials work to develop what she called “defensive depth,” a system of safeguards to protect against any attempts to manipulate results. “You may have a risk inherent in your supply chain, but that does not mean you won’t end up with a legitimate, correct, accurate, fully verified result at the end of the day,” Smith said. Read Article

National: Democrats sue to block Trump administration from usurping states’ authority on elections | Michael Kunzelman/Associated Press

Top Democratic congressional leaders and party committees filed a federal lawsuit in Washington seeking to block the Trump administration from encroaching on state-administered election authorities or intimidating local officials. The legal challenge asks the court to bar federal actions aimed at purging legally registered voters, blocking mail-in ballots, or prosecuting election workers ahead of the midterms, specifically pointing to Justice Department litigation targeting states over noncitizen voter lists. Plaintiffs argue the efforts constitute an unlawful attempt to seize control of state election processes. Read Article

National: Trump Appointees Asked a Federal Cybersecurity Agency to Secretly Acquire a Voting Machine — and Hack It | Andy Mannix and Doug Bock Clark/ProPublica

Political appointees within the Department of Homeland Security directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) during Trump's second term to covertly procure and hack a voting machine without notifying the vendor, alarming career staffers who feared the effort was intended to manufacture pretexts for invalidating unfavorable election results. The initiative ultimately stalled because necessary technical personnel had been laid off under federal workforce reductions, but it underscored a broader pattern of political interference. Investigative findings reveal that the administration has slashed CISA's workforce by roughly a third, dismantled information-sharing relationships, and published sensitive state election records, leaving state and local election officials largely on their own to secure infrastructure ahead of the midterms. Read Article

National: Blanche won’t rule out DOJ post-election action in a ‘doomsday’ scenario | Ryan J. Reilly and Jane C. Timm/NBC News

Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that while the Justice Department does not intend to improperly interfere with elections, he could not entirely rule out a "doomsday" scenario in which federal intervention might occur regarding vote certification or ballot handling ahead of the midterms. Blanche's remarks follow recent DOJ litigation targeting states over potential noncitizen voting lists, such as a suit compelling California to review registered voters. Voting experts emphasize that no federal statute authorizes the department to challenge ballots or delay state certification processes. Read Article

National: Watching the watchers: Meet the volunteers observing Trump’s poll monitors on election day | Fabiola Cineas/The Guardian

Amid heightened friction over the upcoming 2026 midterms, tens of thousands of volunteers have signed up with grassroots and civil rights organizations—such as the ACLU, Common Cause and local immigrant rights groups to act as poll observers and protect voters. While the Department of Justice plans to deploy about 1,000 federal monitors and the administration has floated the potential presence of immigration and law enforcement officials, voting rights experts and local organizers emphasize that federal monitors lack special overriding authority and that deploying armed federal agents to polling sites is restricted by Civil War-era laws. Community groups are actively mapping enforcement activity and deploying volunteer watchers to ensure vulnerable voters feel safe and confident exercising their rights. Read Article

National: America Is About to See What Happens When Voters Turn to AI | Will Oremus/The Atlantic

As tens of millions of voters increasingly turn to generative AI chatbots and search summaries for election information during the midterms, research reveals significant vulnerabilities, including frequent factual inaccuracies, reliance on unreliable or foreign state-run sources, and susceptibility to "sloptimization" tactics by political campaigns. Security researchers have uncovered coordinated networks of suspicious local news-style websites specifically designed to feed biased or fabricated data into AI models, while watchdog reports highlight instances of chatbots amplifying foreign deepfakes and disinformation. Read Article

National: Trump’s Attacks on Voting Raise Fears He Will Try to Challenge Midterm Results | Zolan Kanno-Youngs/The New York Times

State and local election officials express growing concern that ongoing executive attacks on election integrity are laying the groundwork to contest adverse midterm results. While judicial decisions have repeatedly blocked attempts to directly assert federal authority over state-administered voting, federal departments have intensified efforts to investigate voter rolls, deploy nationwide polling place monitors, and circulate unsubstantiated claims of voting machine vulnerabilities and noncitizen registration. In response, state administrators across party lines are developing contingency plans to defend local election procedures against potential federal overreach or unannounced law enforcement interventions at polling locations. Read Article

National: Election activists press Trump to ban voting machines or even declare martial law if November results are in question | Dion Nissenbaum/Votebeat

A coalition of conservative activists and high-profile Trump allies is pressing the administration to utilize federal emergency powers to restrict or ban electronic voting machines ahead of the midterm elections. Figures including Tina Peters, Cleta Mitchell, and Mike Lindell have petitioned the White House and federal agencies to mandate hand-counted paper ballots, invoke national security declarations over alleged foreign hardware vulnerabilities, or deploy federal agents to polling places. Legal scholars, election officials, and civil rights advocates emphasize that the president lacks the constitutional authority to unilaterally alter state-administered voting methods, noting that courts have repeatedly struck down executive actions attempting to assert federal control over election procedures. Read Article

National: Nine ways the Trump administration could interfere with the midterms | Mike Spector, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Ned Parker/Reuters

A comprehensive survey of more than 50 election administrators, legal scholars, and voting rights experts identified key potential flashpoints where federal authority could test state election autonomy ahead of and following the midterm elections. Key scenarios highlighted include federal seizures of voting equipment or ballots, aggressive deployment of federal election monitors, law enforcement or immigration actions near polling sites, national emergency declarations, and direct pressure to delay certification or refuse to seat state-certified winners in Congress. While the White House maintains its actions aim to bolster election integrity, legal experts emphasize that constitutional division of powers, statutory chain-of-custody safeguards, and robust judicial precedent continue to serve as primary guardrails for state-administered elections. Read Article

National: Experts say the midterms could face challenges, but are less concerned than in the spring | Nathaniel Rakich/Votebeat

President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about voter fraud, attempts to reshape U.S. election law, and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election have left plenty of people worried that his administration will try to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections. But what threats are worth taking seriously, and what is just doomerism? Pam Smith, the president and CEO of Verified Voting and one of the experts who changed her answer, offered a number of reasons for her reevaluation. She noted that, since the spring, several primaries took place without any armed federal intervention, and several states (such as California) have passed laws to strengthen existing prohibitions on voter intimidation. She added that, paradoxically, the Trump administration’s rhetoric hinting about federal agents at polling places “also has given rise to robust pushback, including several lawsuits seeking to prevent this kind of scenario in advance.” Read Article

National: Many GOP states have imposed new voting rules this year, some mirroring Trump’s midterm proposals | Gary Fields and Julie Carr Smyth/Associated Press