Kathrine Frich
Top officials have sent mixed signals.
Casting a ballot is supposed to be the quietest, most routine part of life in a democracy.
You walk into a neighborhood school or community hall, mark your paper, and head home with a sticker on your coat.
This autumn, though, that simple routine feels noticeably heavier across the United States.
Lawsuits and roadblocks
As reported by HuffPost, President Donald Trump has questioned the integrity of American voting at least 440 times during his second term. Now, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the Justice Department has filed a wave of lawsuits to take control over how individual states run their ballots.
Most of those legal bids have fallen flat. In California, two courts blocked a push to pull 20,000 ballots, while NBC reported that Washington state officials pushed back on a federal request to set aside 400 ballots from alleged noncitizens.
Meanwhile, in Alaska, the Justice Department sued to stop vote certification if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses, pointing to an independent challenger with the exact same name on the ballot, before Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy announced a probe on October 29 following a New York Times report.
Still, voting rights advocates say losing in court does not stop the wider strategy. “Unfortunately it does seem like the administration is throwing spaghetti at the wall just to see what might stick,” Sophia Lin Lakin, who directs the ACLU Voting Rights Project, told HuffPost.
Fear at the polls
Beyond the courtroom battles, physical tension has spilled into voting locations.
According to HuffPost, armed immigration agents showed up at or near polling sites during primaries and early voting in Texas, California, New York, and Florida, while local election officials in Florida also told ABC about private security at voting sites.
To make matters worse, top officials have sent mixed signals about November. While Homeland Security promised immigration officers would stay away, Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed in September that agents could legally enter polling stations, and Justice Department leader Harmeet Dhillon announced plans to send at least 1,000 federal monitors across all 50 states.
In Wyoming, Republican Governor Mark Gordon told The New York Times and KUSA that federal monitors acted “aggressive” and “irregular” during the state’s primary.
A September study by the University of California San Diego found that fewer than half of voters expect a “free and fair” race, even though an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll showed most Americans still trust their local election workers.
For Lakin, creating that uneasy feeling is the entire goal. “The reality is, unfortunately, President Trump doesn’t even need to send a single person out there at this point to have this effect of uncertainty,” she told HuffPost.
