Election officials across the country are preparing for a threat they say they’ve never had to plan for before: their own federal government.
With one week until the Nov. 3 midterms, state and local officials are training poll workers on what to do if immigration agents show up, the New York Times reported. They are also drilling workers on the federal law that bars armed federal agents from polling places and on the limits of what Justice Department monitors can do.
“This is the first time ever that we have had to engage in scenario planning to safeguard against potential federal interference in elections,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, adding that the federal government now seems “adversarial to the states.”
This year, Bellows’ office added a slide to its law enforcement training that quotes the statute barring armed federal agents from polling places.
The hard part, officials said, is guessing what’s coming. Scenarios range from federal agents seizing ballots, as FBI agents did with 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year, to Trump sending ICE to polling sites or invoking the Insurrection Act. Trump has refused to rule out the latter, the Times noted.
“We really are shadowboxing here, because we don’t know when or if the blow is going to land,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.
Former Pentagon officials have also quietly warned states that the president could try to meddle, and the Justice Department has asked a federal court to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) narrowly loses.
Tina Barton of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections said her group has run about 140 training sessions for officials and law enforcement this year, more than double the 67 it ran in 2024. Another group gives election officials sample federal subpoenas and search warrants, with instructions that begin: “Step 1: Stay calm.”
In Michigan, the Justice Department has notified seven municipalities that federal monitors will come to their polling places on Election Day. Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said monitors who came to her county during the August primary made claims about long lines and procedural failures that were “simply not true.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose state Trump warned Monday would face federal scrutiny, rated his level of concern a seven out of 10, saying it is “as high as it’s ever been.”
Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, has also said her state is also planning for possible interference.
Courts have blocked most of Trump’s efforts to insert the federal government into election administration, and some experts say the most chilling scenarios are unlikely, the Times noted.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis dismissed the concerns and blamed “radical Democrats who refuse to enact basic election security measures.”