It’s happening: From Alaska to California, the Trump administration is working to subvert the midterms

With voting underway, the Trump administration is trying to stop ballots from being counted, sending federal agents to voters’ homes, and threatening election officials with prosecution. 

Perhaps most ominously of all, it has filed lawsuits in California and Alaska — the second of which President Donald Trump said he personally ordered — that, despite the flimsiness of their claims, may be aimed at laying a foundation to challenge results or contest certification after Election Day, throwing the post-election period into chaos.

And administration officials say there could be more to come.

“There’s a number of states that we’re looking at,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Thursday when asked whether the DOJ could bring additional lawsuits like the one it filed against California. He would not say whether those actions could come before Election Day.

Since the first mail ballot went to voters seven weeks ago, the Trump administration has asked a federal court to stop California from counting thousands of votes, threatened to prosecute election officials in all of the state’s 58 counties if they don’t segregate ballots, sued to prevent Alaska from certifying the results of a U.S. Senate election if the Democrat wins, and inserted the Department of Justice (DOJ) into an ongoing fight over how Michigan administers its election.

The administration could have brought the California and Alaska challenges before voting began. Instead, it waited until the election was underway — a move that appears aimed at stoking chaos and confusion and, potentially, creating pretexts for post-election challenges.

Meanwhile, federal immigration agents have gone door to door questioning people about whether they registered or voted. The DOJ is preparing to dispatch roughly 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states. Federal prosecutors have threatened voters and election officials with criminal prosecution, with one warning on Texas’ first day of early voting, “I will hunt you down.”. And federal agents searched the home of a sitting Democratic member of Congress just three weeks before she faces reelection.

The actions mark a significant shift from the months leading up to the election, when Trump and senior administration officials repeatedly floated extraordinary federal interventions in voting and refused to rule out others. 

Now, with Americans actually casting ballots, the administration is taking concrete steps that target the counting and certification of votes, the systems states use to administer elections and, in some cases, voters themselves.

AskedThursday whether the DOJ could seek to block states from certifying election results, Blanche would not rule that out either.

“It is not DOJ’s intention to — and it’s never our intention to — improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process,” Blanche said. “But, you know, to say that there’s no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course I’m not going to say that.”

The DOJ and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have defended their actions as legitimate efforts to enforce federal election laws, investigate noncitizen voting and protect eligible voters. 

But state election officials, voting rights groups and, increasingly, federal judges have pushed back against the aggressive campaign, warning that federal authorities are overstepping their legal powers and intimidating eligible voters and the officials who administer elections.

California: Trying to stop ballot counting

The administration’s most direct intervention in the ongoing election is currently unfolding in California.

Earlier this month, federal officials gave state and Los Angeles County election officials a list of more than 20,000 people they said were likely noncitizens registered to vote and demanded that officials verify their citizenship or prevent their mail ballots from being counted.

Two days later, the DOJ sued.

On Friday, the Trump administration sent letters with similar demands to all 58 of California’s counties. 

The government has also escalated its pressure outside the courtroom. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter warned California and Los Angeles County election officials that knowingly facilitating illegal noncitizen voting could expose them to criminal liability. 

Trump amplified the threat, saying in a social media post that officials who counted unlawful ballots would “all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”

Days later, federal authorities arrested 11 lawful permanent residents in California and announced charges against 28 people from the list of 20,000 voters over allegations involving unlawful registration, voting or false statements connected to naturalization.

California and Los Angeles County have disputed the reliability of the larger list and argue that the DOJ has no authority to use a federal criminal statute prohibiting noncitizens from voting to force states to change how they process ballots.

The procedural fight has become extraordinary in its own right.

After U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not rule by a noon deadline the DOJ had requested on Oct. 23, the department took the extremely unusual step of appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — even while acknowledging that Carter had not yet ruled on its request.

Alaska: Trying to stop certification

More than 2,000 miles north, the DOJ is attempting something very different by preemptively preventing a state from certifying its election results if the Republican loses. 

On Thursday, the DOJ sued Alaska over the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, Democrat Mary Peltola and a separate candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan.

The second Sullivan tried earlier this year to appear on the ballot as “Dan Sullivan” and as a Republican. Alaska election officials initially determined his candidacy was designed to confuse voters, but state courts ruled in June that he could remain on the ballot. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed that result months before voting began.

The DOJ waited until October — after early voting in the state had begun — to bring its own federal lawsuit.

Its requested remedy is remarkable.

If the incumbent Sen. Sullivan loses, and assigning all votes cast in Alaska’s ranked choice voting system for Daniel J. Sullivan to the incumbent would change the outcome, the DOJ wants a federal court to stop Alaska from certifying the election.

Certification would remain blocked while officials investigate whether people who voted for Daniel J. Sullivan actually intended to vote for the incumbent and somehow determines what the election result would have been without the second Sullivan on the ballot.

Trump later told journalists he personally directed the DOJ to bring the case.

“I’m the one that said ‘do it,’” he said.

Michigan: Stepping into another live election fight

The administration’s intervention in the battleground state of Michigan has gone under the radar, but it’s potentially significant, too.

The DOJ this month inserted itself into a state lawsuit challenging Michigan rules governing electronic pollbooks — the electronic voter lists used by election workers to check voters in at polling places.

The underlying lawsuit concerns Michigan’s requirement that local clerks delete electronic pollbook records after an election.

But the DOJ filed a statement of interest to raise a separate issue: whether Michigan’s broader Election Day system complies with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

The DOJ claims that at “the time most critical to election administration — Election Day,” Michigan’s chief election official has “unleashed disjointed and disconnected” voter lists across the state that fail to meet HAVA’s requirements.

The statement is not yet equivalent to the California or Alaska lawsuits — and, critically, the DOJ has not asked a court to stop Michigan from counting ballots or certifying its election.

But the risk is that the Trump administration could use the case as a way to challenge Michigan’s election results if they aren’t to Trump’s liking — much like it’s trying to do in Alaska.

Armed federal agents knocking on voters’ doors

The administration’s attack on the election has not been confined to the courtroom.

Armed Homeland Security Investigations agents have been knocking on doors in multiple states and questioning people about their immigration status, whether they registered to vote and whether they have cast ballots in previous elections.

Hundreds of agents were reassigned to the effort, according to internal records reviewed by CBS News, with “field reviews” planned in at least California, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

The operation relies on federal and state voter information matched against immigration and citizenship records — the same broader data infrastructure the administration has spent much of the past year expanding.

On Oct. 21, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin restricted DHS from conducting election-related field operations in nine states when officials know, suspect or reasonably should suspect that the targets are U.S. citizens.

An unprecedented federal monitoring operation

The DOJ is also preparing a dramatic expansion of its presence at polling places.

The department plans to deploy roughly 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states for the Nov. 3 election — about three times the number during the last midterm cycle.

For decades, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has sent attorneys and other personnel to polling places to observe compliance with federal voting rights laws, including protections against racial discrimination.

But the Trump administration has shifted substantial Civil Rights Division resources toward finding supposed voter fraud, and the division has already deployed criminal prosecutors as monitors. States have begun preparing their own personnel to watch the federal monitors, while some have issued guidance emphasizing the limits of federal officials’ authority inside polling places.

During Wyoming’s primary, federal personnel sought access to voting equipment, drawing a rebuke from Republican Gov. Mark Gordon. 

Prosecutors threatening voters and election officials, and probing candidates

Some federal prosecutors are adopting an unusually confrontational posture of their own.

On the first day of early voting in Texas, U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz posted a video directly addressing voters and election administrators.

“If you violate federal election law, I will hunt you down and prosecute you,” Reitz said. “Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. We’ll see you out at the polls.”

Reitz also warned there would be no “crooked local election administrators,” saying officials had a duty to stop illegal voting and that he was there “to make sure they do their job.”

He said his office would assist federal election monitors at “key” polling places and coordinate with the FBI, DHS, Texas officials and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to “surge legal resources where we need them most.”

And on Oct. 12, HSI agents searched the Washington-area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who is running for reelection, pursuant to a warrant obtained by the DOJ.

The DOJ has said the action was part of an ongoing criminal investigation but has not publicly disclosed the underlying evidence or explained why agents executed the warrant 22 days before the election.

That timing raises a separate issue because of the department’s own safeguards for election-season investigations. The Justice Department has traditionally avoided taking enforcement actions in the runup to elections to avoid improperly influencing voters.

Trump and other senior administration officials had publicly attacked Omar and discussed investigating her for months before the search.

The administration insists it is trying to protect elections, not interfere with them.

But whatever happens on and after Election Day, one thing is already clear: The federal government is no longer merely contemplating an expanded role in the 2026 midterms. It is already trying to shape how votes are cast, counted and certified.