President Trump has dropped unsubtle hints about his desire to cancel the November elections. “We have to even run against these people,” he said in a speech last month. “I won’t say cancel the election; they should cancel the election.” Mr. Trump didn’t stop there. “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election,” he mused a week later.
These remarks have caused understandable concern, but they are empty threats. Mr. Trump’s power depends on the appearance of winning elections, and he knows it. He’s obsessed with convincing the world he won in 2020. And control over elections is dispersed among thousands of officials across the country, making cancellation impossible.
But more to the point, it’s election subversion, not cancellation, that is the real authoritarian move. The goal is to keep elections going but without unseating those in power.
Look around the world. Vladimir Putin hasn’t canceled an election. Iran has regular elections. In the 21st century, the name of the game is “competitive authoritarianism,” in which democratic institutions and elections persist, but are hollowed out by authoritarian incumbents. Elections — even if they’re rigged — give rulers legitimacy.
Mr. Trump’s call last week to “nationalize” elections — arguing that Republicans should “take over” voting — more closely reflects how he could subvert the electoral system. The president has no lawful authority for such a takeover: Under our Constitution, states and Congress set the rules that govern elections. Under our laws, state and local officials run our elections. Still, his administration has taken dozens of actions to undermine elections that, together, show that an attempted election “takeover” may be underway.
There’s Mr. Trump’s executive order from last March attempting to institute a “show your papers” rule requiring Americans to produce a passport or a similar document when they register to vote. This policy would block the votes of millions of citizens who lack ready access to those documents. A version of this rule is at the core of the SAVE Act, legislation that Mr. Trump is pushing his colleagues in Congress to pass.
There are the Justice Department’s efforts to vacuum up personal information on voters and force purges. The federal government lacks the know-how, the tools and the legal authority to conduct such purges, creating the real risk that eligible voters will be knocked off the rolls.
Then, there are the attacks on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Last year, the administration fired or sidelined its election security personnel and defunded its election security operations, which state officials relied on for critical intelligence and support. This eliminates a crucial line of defense against cyberthreats, which are constantly evolving.
And, of course, Mr. Trump teed up the interference campaign on Day 1 of this administration when he pardoned the people responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — sending a clear message to would-be election subverters that he will have their back.
We have every reason to expect more actions like these in the coming months. A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump reiterated his threats to prosecute election officials who ran the 2020 election. Just days later, F.B.I. agents seized ballots and election records from 2020 in Fulton County, Ga. As federal officials collect personal voter data from the 11 states that have agreed to share their voter registration lists, we are likely to hear officials claim, falsely, that there are multitudes of noncitizens on the rolls. And there is a growing fear that Mr. Trump may try to illegally deploy federal forces to interfere at the polls in November.
But there’s also plenty of evidence from the last year that we have the power to fight back — if we don’t get sidetracked by Mr. Trump’s threats to cancel elections. So far, three different courts have blocked the “show your papers” requirement in Mr. Trump’s executive order, along with other provisions that would suppress voting or threaten election integrity. While some states have acquiesced to the Justice Department’s requests for voter information, election officials of both parties from 27 states and the District of Columbia have refused — and, so far, courts have approved those refusals.
On the state and local level, officials are already banding together to fill the void left by the dismantling of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency. Mr. Trump’s attempts at retributive prosecutions have largely fallen flat. And not only are there clear laws barring ICE agents from the polls and prohibiting interference by federal agents in elections, but the recent events in Minneapolis serve as a reminder that peaceful protest and public mobilization can force the administration to change course.
And the SAVE Act — which attempts to carry out Mr. Trump’s “show your papers” rule via legislation — can still be stopped. The first version of the bill died in the Senate last year after it generated widespread public resistance. It should face the same fate this year. Congress, unlike Mr. Trump, does have the authority to regulate our elections. But the bill’s failure is a perfect illustration of why our nation’s founders put that power in the hands of a bipartisan legislative body and not in the hands of a single partisan actor.
We are still nine months out from Election Day, but it seems that every day we get a new elections-related headline from this administration. That’s not an accident. The campaign to rig our elections is well underway. We are already seeing how effective people can be in pushing back, whether on the streets of Minneapolis or at town halls hosted by their representatives in Congress. It will be incumbent on all of us — election officials, advocates, state law enforcement and voters — to see the administration’s efforts for what they are and to fight back.
Sean Morales-Doyle directs the Brennan Center’s voting rights and elections program. He worked in private practice litigating labor and civil rights matters.
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