USA/Midterm Elections 2026—
By Eric Galatas, producer, Colorado News Connection, a bureau of Public News Service.
Since January, President Donald Trump has used federal law enforcement to raid election facilities to seize ballots and voting machines, all while continuing to cast doubt on the integrity of elections across the nation.
Democracy watchdog groups are warning that the administration is setting the stage to invoke emergency powers. Trump and his allies want to make sure Republicans do not lose control of either the House or the Senate in November’s upcoming midterm elections.
Robert Weiner, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in Washington, DC, said the public needs to get involved.
“You can be a poll watcher. .. be an observer. You can voice your view that no one will be allowed to intimidate people so that they don’t vote,” Weiner outlined.
Worst Case Scenario
Former Colorado Sen. Timothy Wirth wrote in a Denver Post editorial if the administration declares a national crisis, Trump could use presidential emergency powers to take over the nation’s voting machines.
The Trump administration says it is working to ensure Americans have full confidence in our election system. That includes accurate, up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and of unlawfully registered noncitizen voters.
The president has called for Republicans to nationalize the November vote, but Weiner pointed out the U.S. Constitution gives states the sole authority to run elections. Weiner added the nation’s founders understood the potential dangers if a single authority had the power to decide election outcomes.
“The fact that we have all these different governmental entities running the elections makes it harder for anybody to influence them improperly,” Weiner argued.
Election Data
There is no evidence noncitizen voting has ever affected an election’s outcome, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center report. Weiner stressed it is important to keep in mind the president only claims fraud in elections he lost, in 2020, and when Republicans suffered losses in the 2018 midterms.
“The bottom line is that our electoral system is safe, it has integrity, and people can rely on their vote being accurately counted, and any claims to the contrary are untrue,” Weiner asserted.
