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The concern among election officials and experts was build for months before Donald Trump gave his recent executive order aiming to ensure the integrity of the election at the end of last month. When the actual text emerged, the reaction wasn’t exactly relief—but a distinct sense that things could have been worse.
Americans have every reason to be concerned about whether the midterm elections will be free and fair. As I put in cover story last seasonthe president’s plan to sabotage the 2026 election has many elements and has already been shaken. But last month’s order and the dismissive response received from experts—including this weekend the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbánwhich shows how competitor-authority the playbook that Trump has modeled on can be beaten—also point out the reasons for opposing annihilation.
“These are minor things, at least compared to the draft EO that has been floating around from anti-election conspiracy theorists who would have Trump declare a national emergency and take away all aspects of the election,” Richard L. Hasena leading election law expert, wrote when Trump signed the order.
About what the reduced order does includes, many observers predicted that it is very likely to be found unconstitutional, as some of Trump’s previous election actions have been. The order first mandates that the Department of Homeland Security work with the Social Security Administration to create a nationwide database of voting-age citizens, then share that with each state government. That alone would not force states to use the database, so the order requires 60 days before an election, states to submit to the US Postal Service a list of voters who intend to send a mail-in or absentee ballot. The USPS will be barred from issuing ballots to anyone who is not on the DHS government list.
You may have noticed that this is a Byzantine way to achieve an obvious goal. That’s because Trump doesn’t have the authority he claims here. Generally, the Constitution delegates control of elections to the states. Congress has the power to make election laws, but has not done so in this case. (Political scientist Seth Masket notes that while the federal government has intervened in the past, it has almost always defend and expand the franchisenot to restrict it.) In fact, Republican lawmakers have not implemented Trump’s wishes pass the SAVE America Actwhich would require voters to present proof of citizenship at the time of registration.
Trump is trying to work out a solution using DHS and the USPS, but he still doesn’t have the power to interfere with federal laws and executive orders. He also has no direct control over the USPS, his intended order. The 60-day deadline for submission of names is also unenforceable. Like North Carolina political expert Chris Cooper states, such a law would disenfranchise many of the Trump voters most affected by Hurricane Helene, just 39 days before the 2024 election.
Experts’ skepticism about the order reminded me of a conversation I had last time with Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former Justice Department official, which made me wonder if I had been too pessimistic. Levitt has criticized many of Trump’s election moves (including the latest order) but he also insists that although Trump has abused his power in many areas, he does not have the ability to abuse the opportunity of the election.
“There is a lot of power that Congress has given the president where he has a change. Then the question is, did he use it properly or not?” Levitt told me. “But in the election, he doesn’t have a switch first.”
As I wrote last season, Trump’s greatest influence on the election may be the ability to create chaos. Many of the measures he has taken to interfere in the election, including last month’s executive order as well as earlier attempts to mandate state deadlines for accepting mail-in ballots and prevent states from using existing devices, do not appear to be aimed at enforcing compliance. Instead, they seek to confuse voters about election laws or scare them into indifference, disengagement, or despair.
“The weakest link is us. We’ve always been us. If he can scare us enough, fear enough, to keep us from voting, that’s the only way he can make a meaningful difference in 2026,” Levitt said. “If we choose not to listen, then we are simply choosing not to listen.”
It may not be that simple. Even if voters tone down the noise and maintain faith in the system, Trump may be trying to build grounds on which he can claim after the fact that the election that Republicans did badly was rigged. He has been making such claims since before the 2016 election, never without convincing evidence. The executive branch can try to steal votes, try to overturn elections, or assume who knows what other corruption. Experts are also concerned about Trump deploying the military or DHS personnel to interfere with the voting itself. And a dive from ProPublica this week looks at some of the ways the administration has removed the defenses that prevented Trump from stealing the 2020 election. These threats are good reasons for complacency, but the opposite of complacency is attention, not fear.
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Today’s news
- American warships issued warnings that resulted nine instruments to go back in the first 48 hours of the blockade of Iranian ports, without the boarding of aircraft by US personnel or shots fired, according to the US Central Command. Iran threatened to halt trade on major shipping routes to respond to US naval blockades of its ports.
- President Trump said in a Fox Business interview broadcast today that war in Iran “could end soon” despite the stalled talks, after US-Iranian talks in Pakistan over the weekend ended without an agreement. He reiterated that the condition for ending the conflict is that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
- In the same interview, Trump He said he would fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell if he does not step down immediately after his term expires next month. He also said he would not stop the Justice Department’s investigation into Powell and the renovation of Fed headquarters, despite a federal judge ruling last month that the government had not produced any criminal evidence to support the investigation.
Dispatches
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Evening Read
Critics Love It. But Who Wrote It?
By Daniel Engber
On a recent morning at Rockefeller Center, NBC employees walked through the crowd with copies of The Up SideThe latest book club edition from Today show co-host Jenna Bush Hager. “It’s heartfelt and touching,” Hager said, after holding the first novel from 28-year-old Woody Brown, “and the reason it’s so real is that the author understands autism firsthand.”
That understanding is really deep. Brown’s autism is that he cannot speak easily, and communicates mostly by marking letters, one by one, on a chalkboard. This is also his novel, which is already a New York Times A best seller, he became. In a taped interview that followed Hager’s identification, Brown’s mother, Mary, sat beside him, holding a letter board and reading his touching messages…
But if you are looking at the picture up close, and at quarter speed, he doesn’t seem to be writing anything at all. Brown’s finger can be seen, in several places, in close-up, from the camera behind his shoulder—and what he touches on the board seems disconnected from the emotions that Mary speaks aloud.
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Cultural Breakdown
Investigate. The guitar sounds like new again—all thanks to a decades-old deviceNancy Walecki writes.
Read on. A new book examines how medical testing has become so advanced that doctors are now missing important diagnostic featuresMeghan O’Rourke writes.
Rafaela Jinich contributed to this magazine.
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