Trump's Trials - Local voting officials prepare for possible federal interference in the midterms

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Will this year's midterm elections be fair? It seems like a simple question, but many state and local voting officials from both parties are worried about the possibility of federal interference.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here

and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sasha Fiver. Will this year's midterm elections be fair? It's a simple question, but for many state and local voting officials, it has an increasingly complicated answer. That's because of the possibility of interference by the federal government and President Trump. NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks is tracking this issue. And he joins me now. Hi, Miles. Hey, Sasha. Miles, your reporting shows that voting officials are already preparing for the possibility of federal interference. Tell us about that prep process. Yeah. So, I mean, early last year, it became clear to local officials, and I should say from both parties, that the federal government helmed by President Trump wanted a bigger role in local processes. Just two months into his second term. He signed an executive order aimed at adding new voting restrictions, for instance. Most of that has been blocked by the courts at this point. But he also, his administration, laid off much of the election security staff, the Department of Homeland Security. And I was talking about all of that with the Secretary of State of Minnesota, Steve Simon, who's a Democrat. And he said the idea of federal. interference is on election officials' minds as they game plan out every scenario. We in the election space have to just use our imaginations, as we would, to be clear, for any

threat, whether it's from a foreign actor, whether it's a natural disaster that we can't quite predict. This falls into that category, too. Miles, it's noteworthy that you have a state voting official there referring to federal government action as a threat, in his words. Did the Minnesota, Secretary of State, say what specifically he's worried about. Well, something Simon talked about, and this is also something I've heard from a number of other Democrats that they're concerned about as well is the possibility of federal troops being deployed to polling places this year. I asked the White House about this. A spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, refer to these sort of scenarios as baseless conspiracy theories in a statement to NPR, but she

didn't categorically rule it out. And the National Guard deployments last year obviously crystallized this as a thing that local officials feel like they need. need to prepare for, even if this sort of scenario would clearly break federal voting laws. The other possibility that voting officials are talking about is immigration enforcement. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, but people in Trump's orbit have toyed with the idea of having ICE agents at polling places or involved in the election in some other capacity to guard against non-citizen voting. And any of these scenarios obviously could potentially have a suppressive effect if they make

anyone's scared to vote. President Trump has talked a lot about wanting to ban mail in ballots, voting by mail. What power, if any, does he have over the rules of how people will vote this year? Essentially none. The Constitution is very clear on this. States set the rules for how their voters vote, and Trump's allies have acknowledged this. But in the fall, Clita Mitchell, who's a notable far-right election attorney, indicated that Trump could consider a sort of workaround by declaring a national emergency based on election integrity. Here's Mitchell talking on the podcast, Washington Watch, with Tony Perkins. The president's authority is limited, except that where there is a threat to the national

sovereignty of the United States, then I think maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward. Legal experts I've talked to say there's no way this could actually work in practice, but I have heard from voting officials, including local republicans, who say they're shoring up their relationships with their local and state attorney's offices in preparation for the potential of legal fights. They're preparing for the possibility of attempts to access their election equipment. And I'll also note that more than a dozen states are already engaged in lawsuits with the Justice Department over a request that Trump administration has made for their voter data. Miles, a bigger picture question.

Trump is not on the ballot, of course. Layout why he's so interested in how local officials conduct elections. I mean, at the most basic level, if Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives in midterms, it just becomes very, very difficult for the Trump administration to get anything done legislatively. But this week, Trump also made it clear that his investment in the midterms is personally said he thinks that if Democrats win, he will be impeached for a third time. And he's also made it clear that he is willing to mess with the democratic process to advantage himself, right? I mean, we just had the anniversary, the five-year anniversary of January 6th and his attempts to overturn the 2020. election. And even this cycle, we saw Trump spur on this unprecedented mid-decade redistricting. And so for many local election officials, this is not abstract or hypothetical, this idea that Trump would

mess with a system to advantage himself. That is NPR's Miles Parks. Thanks for covering this and we'll keep talking throughout the year. Thanks, Sasha. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast where you can hear NPR's political reporters, break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.