WASHINGTON- President Trump has spent months waging an unusually aggressive campaign to reshape the way states conduct elections, leveraging federal agencies in ways no previous president had attempted.
He has pushed the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of citizens in each state to help determine voter eligibility. It seeks to give the Postal Service a role in deciding who can receive mail-in ballots. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from states unless they phase out electronic voting machines. And he is pressuring Republican lawmakers to review election laws, claiming without evidence that the election is being rigged.
The efforts have met resistance in the courts and within his own party. They have also left postal workers and local election officials preparing for an election cycle marked by deepening doubts about the integrity of the election and uncertainty about how the federal government can challenge post-election results.
“It's an unprecedented power grab to reshape the way our elections work so he and his allies can maintain and expand power,” said Eric Kashdan, federal advocacy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government ethics organization.
The White House defends the effort as fulfilling a campaign promise and maintains that the administration is “legally enacting the agenda for which President Trump was elected.”
One of Trump's defining efforts to assert some federal control over state elections has been his insistence on passing the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering, require Americans to show identification when casting their ballot, and require states to submit voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.
His relentless push for the measure has led him to derail a bipartisan housing bill and threaten to forego signing any legislation unless the ballot measure passes. He says he considers the matter a “national emergency.” Despite the pressure campaign, Senate Republican leaders maintain there is not enough support to pass the measure.
The political stakes ahead of the midterm elections have been laid out most directly by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), whose chamber passed the SAVE America Act. Last month, Johnson warned conservatives gathered in the Faith and Freedom Coalition that if Democrats regain control of the House, they “will go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, friends” and supporters.
“I run the protection program,” Johnson said. “I'll take care of you.”
Setbacks in court
The administration's ambitions have run into numerous obstacles in the courts over the past month, with justices reaffirming in many cases that the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, primary authority over elections.
In one case, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, appointed by President Biden, went further.
He said a federal immigration database the Department of Homeland Security was compiling to determine voter eligibility violated privacy laws. He added that the database has led to states actively removing American citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information.
“Ultimately, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a way that threatens the sacred right to vote,” Sooknanan. wrote. “This Court cannot stand by while that happens.”
James Percival, general counsel for National Security, said the ruling was the latest example of “how hard the left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist don't exist.”
The Supreme Court's conservative majority this week also dealt a blow to the Republican Party and upheld state laws that allow mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive late to be counted.
The decision left Trump furious. He said it was “a little surprising” to see the court's decision, claiming without evidence that the result will inevitably give “people more time to vote illegally.”
Democrats, in turn, saw the ruling as a necessary check on the Trump administration's efforts.
“While we continue to see unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to interfere with the election, it is a relief to see the federal courts make clear that these attacks on mail-in and absentee voting are clearly illegal and unconstitutional,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement after the ruling.
Trump is still considering changes to mail-in voting. In March, he issued an executive order seeking to limit who can receive mail-in ballots. Under the proposed rule, the Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots to states that do not hand over sensitive voter data to the federal government, Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate panel last month.
The admission drew immediate condemnation from Democratic lawmakers. They argued that the regulation is an illegal attempt to force states to hand over their voter lists.
“Please stop being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told Steiner. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Do not contaminate it with this man's obsession.”
A day after that back-and-forth, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, nominated by President Obama, blocked those plans, at least for now.
“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific power over elections,” the judge wrotealthough he added that the Postal Service does not have the legal authority to determine who can vote by mail and how.
The White House said Wednesday that the administration remains confident the executive order will be in place for the November election.
Taken together, the administration's efforts are unprecedented, said UCLA law professor Rick Hasen. That's because the Constitution puts control of elections in the hands of the states and gives Congress the ability to pass laws, he said.
“In reality, the president only has authority through federal statutes that have already been passed,” Hasen said. “It's not surprising that a lot of courts have overturned it or stopped it from doing things to try to interfere with the way elections are run.”
Postal workers waiting for clarity
The legal setback for the Postal Service's proposed rule was good news for the union that represents postal workers.
“We believe that what we are being asked to do violates the oath we took,” said Jonathan Smith, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers.
Following the ruling, the union called on the agency to abandon the rule, arguing that it “will crush letter carriers' trust in the Postal Service” and undermine “one of the most important roles the Postal Service and postal workers play in service of the United States and its extraordinary democracy.”
In several states, the union has run ads promoting voting by mail as a safe and necessary option for Americans. The ads were planned before Trump signed his executive order in March seeking to limit who can receive mail-in ballots, Smith said.
Now, ads are taking on a different meaning. Smith argued that “sometimes God works in mysterious ways.”
“The ad was then and is intended to educate America about how great mail-in voting is and how much it has worked,” Smith said. “It's an educational piece, not a response to the White House.”
Ahead of the election, Smith said postal workers are waiting for clarity on how their duties can change. But now, he says, there isn't much.
Orange County Recorder Bob Page said his office is monitoring any changes to existing federal and state election laws to ensure changes, if necessary, are implemented without disruption. But he acknowledged that the time crunch could create some obstacles as the election approaches.
“In many ways, any change in the way California voters cast their ballots between now and Election Day would create a challenge and could even be disruptive,” Page said.
He said many counties have ordered ballot drop-off and return envelopes for the election to ensure envelopes for more than 23 million California voters are ready to use before the Oct. 5 mail-in deadline. Any change in the way ballots should be prepared or submitted could present a problem.
“Our office has received calls from voters asking about possible changes to mail-in voting procedures, usually tied to media coverage of the proposed changes,” he said. “We inform these voters that our procedures have not changed because the law has not changed and that we will mail their 2026 general election ballots by October 5.”
Los Angeles County prepares for possible voting changes
In Los Angeles County, election officials are also in a battle to bring clarity to the process as the administration ushers in a series of proposed changes to elections.
Dean Logan, head of the Los Angeles County recorder/county clerk's office, said his office is struggling to contain a wave of misinformation about the election, including some amplified by the White House.
“It's not something we've seen before, and certainly not to the level we've seen,” Logan said.
Instead of responding to every claim, Logan says his office picks its battles, intervening only when a falsehood seems likely to reach a wide audience. Even then, the office tries to avoid interacting with whoever is spreading it.
If the administration imposes a new rule closer to the election, Logan said his office is ready to follow the law.
“It's really about finding the balance between staying alert and prepared for the possibility [of change] but also not get caught up in political distraction,” he said.
Last month, Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats had cheated to win the California primary and boasted that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles were investigating the matter.
Trump has also continued to claim that Democrats are trying to rig or cheat in the upcoming election, comments that have faced rebukes from members of his own party.
“I think it's ironic that we control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the White House and we're screaming voter fraud. I mean, we won every damn election,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told reporters last month.
Nationally, Senate Democrats have said they plan to send poll watchers to polling places on behalf of Congress in reaction to Trump's efforts.
“We are not waiting for chaos to come,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month. “We are preparing now.”
