Donald Trump is waging a brazen effort to interfere with voting in this year’s midterm elections, escalating concerns that the federal government will try to slow down certification of election results – a strategy that could create chaos when the new Congress is seated next year.
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Congress → wag → chaos
Experts are certain the administration’s efforts to subvert America’s elections will not work.
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efforts → subvert → elections
And some have bemoaned “fearmongering” about far-fetched scenarios that are unlikely to go anywhere in court.
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that → bemoan → court
But after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, voting lawyers and other democracy groups aren’t dismissing the possibility of anything.
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lawyers → dismiss → anything
The potential for interference is related to how close the contest winds up being, said Ned Foley, a professor at the Ohio State University and an expert on disputed elections.
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Foley → relate → elections
“The more it looks like a blowout or a ‘blue tsunami’, the harder it’s going to be for any attempt to make mischief to get any traction,” he said.
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he → look → traction
“I put the probability of these impactful nightmare scenarios materializing at under 50%, so I’m not expecting them to make a difference,” he added.
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he → put → difference
But, he said there are “risks of weird things happening, and you need to pay attention to them even if the risk is rather low”.
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risk → say → them
The Trump administration’s efforts to interfere began last year with an effort to collect detailed voter roll information from nearly every state.
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efforts → interfere → state
And it has continued into the final days of the election, in which the government has sought to sequester ballots in California and filed a legally thin lawsuit to try to stop the certification of election results in Alaska, where there is a hotly contested US Senate race.
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government → continue → Alaska
The US constitution gives the states, not the federal government, authority to run elections.
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constitution → give → elections
And it gives the president no power when it comes to voting.
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it → give → 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, a watchdog group.
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Lang → see → Center
“It’s amounting to relatively little because the federal government is just not in charge of the levers of election administration and it can’t force itself to be involved in those levers of election administration.
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it → amount → administration
Here are some of the main ways Trump and his allies have sought to interfere with the election process – or could.
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Trump → seek → process
Using emergency power
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Using → use → power
Some of Trump’s allies on the right have encouraged him to invoke emergency powers to exert influence over elections, including potentially seizing voting equipment and sending troops to the polls.
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Some → encourage → polls
Trump has refused to rule out such ideas.
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Trump → refuse → ideas
The move would be illegal – the president has no power, emergency or otherwise, over elections.
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president → have → elections
Courts would likely quickly step in and stop such efforts.
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Courts → step → efforts
But even if courts do step in to prevent things like ballot seizures, it could still cause chaos, confusion, and delay in a post-election period where there is uncertainty about the election results.
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it → step → results
The Trump administration’s most aggressive judicial effort to interfere in the election so far has come in Alaska, where it has taken the extraordinary step of asking a federal court to step in before election day and block certification if the Republican candidate loses.
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candidate → interfere → certification
Alaska has an extremely competitive US senate race this year between Republican Dan S Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola, and the outcome could determine which party controls the chamber.
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party → have → chamber
The Alaska supreme court allowed Dan J Sullivan to stay on the ballot earlier this year in response to a ruling from the Alaska division of elections disqualifying him.
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Sullivan → allow → him
On 23 October, the justice department sued Alaska and asked a judge to block certification “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan”.
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votes → sue → Sullivan
It’s unclear how such an investigation would take place after an election, since U.S. voters cast their ballots secretly.
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voters → ’ → ballots
Trump said he ordered the justice department to file the lawsuit.
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he → say → lawsuit
The saga got more complicated days later when the New York Times reported that operatives aligned with Peltola were behind the effort to get Dan J Sullivan on the ballot as part of an effort to siphon votes away from the Republican candidate.
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Sullivan → get → candidate
Democrats had denied being behind the effort.
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Democrats → deny → effort
Trump reacted angrily to the report.
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Trump → react → report
“Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, and Dan Sullivan should be allowed to run without either Mary Peltola or FAKE Dan Sullivan on the Ballot,” he wrote on Truth Social.
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he → suffer → Social
The justice department’s legal argument for stopping certification is also extremely thin.
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argument → stop → certification
In its lawsuit, the justice department pointed to broad language in the preamble to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that says one of the purposes of the law is to “protect the integrity of the electoral process”.
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one → point → process
Election experts have said it is not possible to hang a legal case on such vague language.
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it → say → language
The justice department knows it is going to lose the Alaska lawsuit, but may have another goal in mind, Richard Pildes, an election law scholar at New York University, wrote in a blog post.
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Pildes → know → post
“Even if DOJ loses in the federal courts, as it will, the litigation will give ammunition to anyone in the certification process, particularly the Lt. Gov., who might seek to delay or deny certification to the Democrat, Mary Peltola, if she wins, based on the claim that voters who voted for Daniel J. Sullivan (and perhaps ranked no other candidate) meant to vote for in the incumbent Republican Senator, Daniel S. Sullivan,” he wrote.
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he → lose → Senator
In Alaska, the governor and Lt. Gov sign the certificate for the winning candidate that is sent to the US Senate.
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that → sign → Senate
A key element of the Trump administration’s efforts to interfere in the election is a push to create the false impression that there are large numbers of noncitizens on the rolls who are voting – and perhaps to use that argument to mount post-election legal challenges.
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who → interfere → challenges
Studies have shown that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare and that when it does occur, it is because of confusion.
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it → show → confusion
The administration’s push to find noncitizen voters began last year, when the justice department filed lawsuits across the country seeking to have states turn over their voter rolls – each state is in charge of its own list of registered voters and there is no single federal voter database in the United States.
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state → find → States
…and 82 more, not listed.
The Aporia
