Why are election officials in the US preparing for chaos before midterms?

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkSupporters of mail-in voting rally outside the US Capitol the day after the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to make mail-in voting more restrictive in Washington, DJ [File: Jim Lo Scalzo]By Al Jazeera StaffPublished On 16 Sep 202616 Sep 2026US President Donald Trump has lashed out at the Supreme Court for rejecting his push to curb mail-in voting, raising fears that the US president might use federal powers to meddle in November’s midterm elections.“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” the president lashed out after the court verdict on Monday. The justices “are merely a shell of their original selves, a court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings”.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Selling the war: Purges, polygraphs and propagandalist 2 of 3Trump tells Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian diesel supplieslist 3 of 3Tehran and Muscat delay talks, citing regional consensus needend of listThe ruling means states can continue administering mail-in voting under their existing procedures. Mail-in and absentee ballots have been used in the United States for decades and now account for roughly a third of votes cast nationwide.Despite the ruling, political analysts and some officials fear that Trump may not let the electoral process proceed as planned, and might pull some other strings to tilt the election in his favour.So what voting rules exactly has Trump tried to change – and what other powers could his administration seek to use in the run-up to the midterms?Can Trump use federal powers to tilt the elections in his favour?Election officials across the country are concerned about the prospects of interference, from the potential for ballot seizures to voter-fraud investigations.A Reuters investigation based on interviews with dozens of state and local election officials showed that they are adopting new strategies to prepare for political interference, misinformation, cyberattacks and intimidation tactics.According to the report, more than a dozen local and state election officials said they are hiring outside lawyers or seeking legal training for themselves and their staff to prepare for potential demands by the administration for access to sensitive voting records or election equipment.Nearly twice that many said they are expanding public outreach and social media campaigns to counter misinformation, including the false claims made by Trump and Republican allies that voting machines are unreliable and mail-in voting is inherently corrupt.What have the opposition and campaigners said on Trump’s electoral agenda?Campaigners have fiercely resisted Trump’s executive actions attempting to dictate federal voting procedures. Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice have sued the administration, arguing that the Constitution gives authority over federal elections primarily to states and Congress, rather than the president.The pushback has also come from Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of 261 current and former members of Congress filed a brief with the Supreme Court challenging Trump’s executive order and the subsequent Postal Service rule. They argued that the measures violated the separation of powers by taking authority over federal elections that the Constitution grants to states and Congress. “The Constitution is clear that the states and Congress make the rules for federal elections, not the President,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, one of the lawmakers leading the effort, said.As per the US Constitution, elections are conducted by local authorities working under the states.Raskin described Trump’s attempt to use the US Postal Service to regulate mailed ballots as “a naked power grab”, accusing the president of seeking “to inject confusion and chaos into our elections in a last-ditch effort to keep his party in power”.Senator Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, similarly argued that neither the president nor the Postal Service had the authority to determine how states administer elections. He said restricting voting by mail could particularly affect military personnel, people living in rural areas, and Americans living abroad.The White House rejected accusations that it is seeking to interfere in the midterms, saying its measures are aimed at preventing illegal voting and ensuring confidence in the electoral system.Why does Trump oppose mail-in voting?This is not the first time Trump has cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting, citing debunked claims of widespread election fraud associated with it. Trump falsely blamed his presidential election loss on mail-in voting fraud in 2020. Back then, he called the voting system “the greatest scam in the history of politics”. He and his supporters opposed changes made during the COVID pandemic to expand mail-in voting.Trump and his supporters also claim that the mail-ballot plan enables a large number of non-citizens to register and vote illegally, corrupting elections. For this, he has pushed for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) that would require citizens to provide “documentary proof” that they are American citizens when they register to vote. The legislation is stalled in the Senate over concerns that millions of voters will be disenfranchised.Studies show that voter fraud is extremely rare. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative-leaning think tank behind Project 2025 – which inspired many Trump administration policies – documented 100 cases of noncitizens voting from 1982 to 2025. That is about 0.000008 percent of more than 1.3 billion votes cast in presidential elections during that time. What has he done to change election rules?Trump has been explicit about his desire to assert more federal control over the election, saying in early February that “Republicans ought to nationalise the voting”. The White House has dismissed concerns that federal actions could disrupt the midterms, arguing that the administration is enforcing election laws and safeguarding confidence in voting.In March 2026, Trump signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to take control of mail-in voting by designing new envelopes with special barcodes that would allow the federal government to ensure ballots are only from eligible voters.For the midterms, that move would force all states to adopt a uniform envelope style in a short time.The order also required states to provide the Postal Service with a list of eligible voters before elections. Several government departments, including Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, would also have the voters’ lists.The postal agency was additionally empowered to deny mailed ballots if they did not comply with new standards or were not associated with registered voters on the states’ lists.The attorney general has demanded that 47 states and Washington, DC, a federal district, hand over their complete voter registration lists, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group. Eleven states have complied or agreed to comply. The Trump administration has launched lawsuits against the 20 others that refused.