Donald Trump is a man obsessed with voter suppression and election conspiracies. He makes no secret of his willingness to misuse the Department of Justice to achieve his political objectives. Every day brings further evidence that the 2026 elections will be the culmination of these two realities.
In fact, the DOJ is already laying the groundwork to interfere in the midterm elections — requesting state voter rolls and asking to investigate election machines. Yet, under the spectacle of the Epstein Files and the horror of migrants being disappeared to foreign gulags, the bureaucratic assault on democracy is all too easy to miss. And even when we do see the attacks, they are often too mundane to capture our undivided attention.
For months, we have watched government lawyers lie and dissemble before federal judges. We watch in horror as senior DOJ officials protect Trump’s personal interests above the law and the Constitution. We ask ourselves — and each other — how much worse it can get.
If you believe that Trump’s goal is power, then it can, and will, get much, much worse.
Trump may not like immigrants, but he fears losing control of Congress even more. He may be willing to hide the truth about the Epstein Files, but he has already proven more committed to lying about elections.
Most importantly, throughout his entire political career, the only instance Trump was prepared to instigate and defend the use of violence was to overturn the result of a free and fair election. He took that step only after exhausting the courts — and only after his acting Attorney General, along with nearly the entire DOJ senior staff, threatened to resign if he tried to use the Department to overturn the election results.
If you believe that Trump’s goal is power, then it can, and will, get much, much worse.
Faced with a similar situation in 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi will not object — in fact, she will gladly facilitate it, while a hollowed-out department lacks the institutional will or tools to resist.
This is not some theoretical risk. This is the reality we are already facing today.
On Jan. 28 — eight days after Trump took the oath of office, and before Bondi was even confirmed — the DOJ dismissed a case it had brought against Virginia’s last-minute voter purge before the 2024 election.
In mid-March, it dropped a similar lawsuit aimed at Alabama’s voter purges. Later that month, it filed a brief in a Kentucky federal court supporting a looser standard for purging voters.
Those cases were just the warm-ups for what was yet to come.
By May, the Department was threatening lawsuits — and filing them — over voter registration record maintenance and citizenship verifications in order to make registering to vote more difficult and removing voters from the rolls easier.
Around the same time, DOJ lawyers, including federal prosecutors, began contacting states to demand access to comprehensive statewide voter data. At least 16 states have received letters or other communications seeking this highly sensitive information. It is impossible to know the full scale of these requests or how many states have complied.
It is also unclear why the Department of Justice — which has no role in administering elections — is so desperately trying to gain access to this information, nor why, in some instances, the requests are coming from prosecutors. Whatever the reason, it’s a troubling sign of what’s to come.
At best, this is the misuse of the Department to further false narratives and conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting. More concerning is the possibility that it’s laying the groundwork for the DOJ to do in 2026 what career staff stopped in 2020: directly interfering in the ballot counting and certification process.
We cannot afford to leave our democracy in the hands of a process that requires this DOJ to act in good faith. We must act now to harden our election systems.
The Constitution gives states exclusive authority to set the time, place and manner of federal elections, subject only to legislation enacted by Congress. States need to examine their election laws now to ensure they are taking full advantage of their constitutional powers and are protecting their citizens’ voting rights.
Absent lawful process — overseen by a federal or state judge — states should resist even minor intrusions into their elections by the executive branch of the federal government. While they must comply with federal laws, states should contest every effort by this administration to encroach on their right to administer elections via executive order, informal request or any generic claim under Article II.
The legacy media must do a better job of calling out the lawlessness of this administration and the real risks it poses to free and fair elections. This cannot wait until the fall of 2026. It must begin today and become a regular staple of news coverage. Trump is counting on the media to chase shinier objects while he quietly grinds away at the right to vote. The media cannot allow that to happen.
The legal establishment must be ready to contest illegal actions by the administration aimed at undermining elections. Much of Big Law is hiding or in retreat. Many civil society groups are already overwhelmed with Trump’s other anti-democratic actions. But they must find the space to fight for electoral democracy in court.
Finally, the public must remain focused on this as a critical voting issue in 2026. Don’t allow Trump to normalize the GOP’s attacks on democracy. Don’t agree to a permission structure in which Republican candidates can support Trump, remain complicit and still portray themselves as moderates or independents.
When you cast your ballot in 2026, know that you are either voting for the survival of our democracy or against it.