Democrats Run Election Day Drills and File Suit as White House Defends Voter Citizenship Checks

Ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, Democrats are rehearsing for an Election Day crisis that no one has shown is coming.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, told MS NOW they are preparing for President Trump to try to halt voting, scare people away from polling places, or seize machines and ballots. Both said they do not know of any specific plan by Trump. They argued they have to prepare for worst-case scenarios anyway.

"I remain gravely concerned that the president or his allies may try to interfere in the election," Warner said. He pointed to Republican talk of "federalizing the elections" and to Trump's unwillingness to commit that he won't send ICE or troops to the polls.

What Democrats are rehearsing

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has held closed-door sessions with Democratic senators, legal experts and former officials, according to CNN. The scenarios are highly specific: DHS agents and the National Guard at polling places, federal seizure of ballots after the administration announces a foreign adversary compromised voting systems, and AI-generated fraud videos that trigger a purge of eligible voters.

Rep. Joe Morelle, who oversees House Democrats' election preparation, has outlined more than 150 possible threats for Election Day and beyond. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said lawyers are drafting briefs in advance. "There is no time to write briefs," she told CNN. "We just have to be ready to go to court immediately."

The effort extends to the states. The Guardian reports that 24 Democratic attorneys general have coordinated with about a dozen Democratic secretaries of state and civic groups through weekly Zoom calls and in-person tabletop exercises since early this year. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, who leads the calls, called the Justice Department and the Trump administration "the biggest adversary to a smooth election."

The federal moves behind the worry

Some of the fear rests on actions already taken, not hypotheticals.

The Justice Department announced plans this summer to deploy 1,000 poll monitors. CBS News put the 2022 figure at 289. The NAACP sued on Oct. 4 for details on how the monitors would be deployed.

The department has also sued 30 states for unredacted voter lists containing sensitive personal data. The Guardian reports DOJ has lost 26 of the lawsuits that courts have ruled on. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the department's civil rights division, wrote to state election officials this summer threatening prosecutions if they did not cooperate adequately in hunting for voter fraud.

The voter-roll lawsuit

Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have now sued Trump, the Justice Department and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. They allege violations of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act over the administration's effort to remove noncitizens from registration lists.

The complaint cites Nevada. DHS said it had identified nearly 16,000 noncitizens registered to vote there, then cut the number to 185. The lawsuit states DHS failed to substantiate even that narrower assertion after Nevada officials indicated every one of those voters appeared to be a citizen. In California, the plaintiffs say, the administration tried to force the state not to issue ballots to more than 20,000 registered voters over citizenship concerns, yet more than 25 percent of those people were born in the United States.

"The Executive Branch enjoys no authority to superintend state voter list maintenance," the complaint says. The plaintiffs ask the court to bar officials from continuing to demand removals and threaten states with legal action. These are allegations in a complaint, not findings.

The White House position

The White House rejects the framing. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Trump "has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections." She asked why "the radical Left continues to fight against commonsense election integrity measures, like Voter ID and citizenship verification to make sure only Americans decide our elections."

Bis told The Epoch Times the administration is "taking decisive lawful action to protect our elections," and pointed to the administration charging illegal immigrants and other noncitizens with voting or registering to vote in federal elections. A Justice Department spokesperson said every action the department has taken to protect the integrity of this year's elections is grounded in the law and being litigated in open court. Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America."

Voter ID and citizenship checks are mainstream positions, and verifying that only citizens vote is a legitimate goal. The dispute in court is narrower: who holds the authority to maintain voter rolls, and whether the lists DHS produced were accurate. The Constitution mandates that state and local governments and Congress administer elections, not the president.

Trump's own words

Trump told reporters earlier this month he would accept the midterm results, then added: "Of course I will, but we don't want cheating."

Days later at a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, he claimed Kari Lake "won" her 2022 governor's race and that machines in Republican areas "were broken purposely." When Lake tried to prove in court that she had won, judges dismissed her claims and ruled she had lost.

Himes predicts a replay of 2020 tactics if Republicans lose the House: lawsuits, pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson, and a refusal to swear in the new Congress on Jan. 3. No one in the administration has said that will happen.

What comes next

The voter-roll suit has just been filed. The NAACP's suit over how DOJ will deploy its 1,000 monitors is also in court. The first real test of the Democratic playbook arrives Tuesday, Nov. 3.