State officials brace for federal moves to sway November’s vote

Election workers across the United States are rehearsing for scenarios that once seemed far fetched, from federal agents showing up at polling stations to demands for access to voting machines, as concern builds that the Trump administration could try to influence the outcome of the midterm elections.

With roughly two months left before Americans cast ballots in contests that will determine control of Congress, officials in California have mapped out responses if federal agents appear at polling places to intimidate voters or suppress turnout. In Michigan, state officials have advised local clerks on how to react if federal authorities request access to voting machines. Similar preparations are underway in jurisdictions run by both parties across the country, as officials brace for legal fights over ballot seizures, fraud investigations and other flashpoints.

A wide ranging survey of more than fifty state and local election officials, including a dozen secretaries of state, found that nearly all of them are adopting new strategies to guard against political interference, misinformation, cyber intrusions and threats of violence heading into November. The preparations reflect growing unease that the greatest risk to the vote this cycle may come not from foreign actors or technical breakdowns but from the federal government itself, as President Donald Trump pushes to expand Washington’s role in an area the Constitution leaves largely to states and localities.

The White House has rejected the idea that federal action could disrupt the midterms, framing its efforts as enforcement of election law and a defense of voter confidence. A White House spokesperson placed blame for public distrust in elections on Democrats and defended the administration’s pursuit of voter fraud allegations, even though independent research and a prior investigation have found that fraud involving noncitizens is exceedingly rare. Even so, Trump has openly described several of his election initiatives in terms of Republican electoral advantage, and at a party convention in Dallas last week he urged supporters to vote regardless of registration status.

Trump has pressed Republican officials to bring voting procedures for at least fifteen jurisdictions under greater federal oversight, directed law enforcement to chase unproven fraud claims and sought new limits on mail in balloting, a push the Supreme Court blocked from taking effect before November. His administration has opened inquiries into election offices in Wisconsin, Georgia and other states, sued states that declined to hand over confidential voter data such as birthdates and partial Social Security numbers, and pursued a redistricting campaign expected to hand Republicans an advantage in House races.

Bill Gates, a Republican lawyer who now trains election officials nationwide, said officials are apprehensive about the federal government’s role this cycle, a shift from the cooperative atmosphere of past elections. More than a dozen officials interviewed said they are retaining outside lawyers or seeking legal training to prepare for potential federal demands for voting records or equipment, while roughly twice that number said they are ramping up public communication efforts to counter misinformation about voting machines and mail ballots. Most also said they are working to fill gaps left by federal budget cuts to programs that once helped protect election systems from cyberattacks and physical threats, including efforts to install security cameras and reinforced glass at election offices, a trend that accelerated after Trump disputed his 2020 defeat.

David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights lawyer who now runs an election confidence group, said the administration’s rhetoric could ultimately prove empty, noting that courts have already turned back attempts to alter mail ballot rules and obtain confidential voter data. He added that sending armed agents to polling sites would likely violate the law and carry political risk. Still, with control of Congress potentially decided by a handful of close races, many officials say they cannot count on those safeguards holding.

The preparations are especially visible in contested jurisdictions. In Wisconsin’s Dane County, attorneys have begun drafting court filings to contest any attempt to seize voting equipment or records, according to the Democratic county clerk, who said a federal raid on election offices in Georgia’s Fulton County earlier this year served as a wake up call. That raid, in which agents seized roughly 650 boxes of 2020 election records as part of a fraud inquiry that courts and audits had already dismissed, pushed Fulton County to hire outside counsel and sue for the records’ return, a fight the county lost in May when a federal judge allowed prosecutors to retain the material. In Michigan, a state central to the battle for the Senate, the secretary of state’s office has lined up outside attorneys to advise local election officials facing possible federal scrutiny.

Years of disputed fraud claims have also pushed many offices to bolster physical security. In Durham County, North Carolina, the elections director said he is obtaining his first firearm and has changed his daily habits out of concern for his safety, while his office has added ballistic doors, panic buttons and armed guards since 2024. In Detroit, the city clerk now has round the clock police protection after receiving death threats tied to earlier fraud claims, and every window at election headquarters has been fitted with bulletproof glass. Officials in Republican leaning areas report similar steps, including one Georgia county distributing panic buttons to poll workers.

Artificial intelligence has added a further complication, officials say, since fabricated videos, synthetic voices and AI generated posts can spread false claims about rigged machines or destroyed ballots faster than officials can respond. In Colorado’s Mesa County, a clerk who inherited a crisis of public trust after her predecessor allowed conspiracy theorists to access voting equipment has since run an aggressive transparency campaign, inviting skeptics to observe elections directly and publishing ballot images online.

Cybersecurity support has also thinned. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, created during Trump’s first term, once tracked foreign influence campaigns and warned officials of emerging threats, but the administration cut nearly a third of its staff and ended funding for a platform that shared real time threat intelligence with states, prompting warnings from officials in both parties about the loss of expertise. Some states have since turned to private cybersecurity firms and cross state partnerships to fill the void, though officials in smaller jurisdictions say they remain exposed to threats beyond their capacity to handle alone.

The scale of these preparations marks a striking departure from past election cycles, when federal and state election authorities generally worked in close coordination rather than treating one another as sources of risk. With control of Congress hanging on a narrow set of contests, the coming weeks are likely to test not only the durability of legal and institutional safeguards but also the willingness of officials from both parties to defend an election system increasingly caught between competing claims of protection and interference.