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"Trump, California and the multi-front war over the next election"
I am glad to see that state election officials are planning as to how to respond to any attempts by trump or the DOJ to interfere in the upcoming mid term elections
“Trump, California and the multi-front war over the next election†electionlawblog.org?p=154200
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen.bsky.social) 2026-02-08T16:30:23.064Z
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=154200
In recent weeks, Marin County Registrar Natalie Adona has been largely focused on the many mundane tasks of local elections administrators in the months before a midterm: finalizing voting locations, ordering supplies, facilitating candidate filings.
But in the wake of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections, Adona said she has also been preparing her staff for far less ordinary scenarios — such as federal officials showing up and demanding ballots, as they recently did in Georgia, or immigration agents staging around polling stations on election day, as some in President Trump’s orbit have suggested.
“Part of my job is making sure that the plans are developed and then tested and then socialized with the staff so if those situations were to ever come up, we would not be figuring it out right then and there. We would know what to do,” Adona said. “Doing those sort of exercises and that level of planning in a way is kind of grounding, and makes things feel less chaotic.”…
Across California, local elections administrators say they have been running similar exercises to prepare for once unthinkable threats — not from local rabble-rousers, remote cyberattackers or foreign adversaries, but their own federal government.
State officials, too, are writing new contingency plans for unprecedented intrusions by Trump and other administration officials, who in recent days have repeated baseless 2020 election conspiracies, raided and taken ballots from a local election center in Fulton County, Ga., pushed both litigation and legislation that would radically alter local voting rules, and called for Republicans to seize control of elections nationwide….
Trump has said he will accept Republican losses only if the elections are “honest.” A White House spokesperson said Trump is pushing for stricter rules for voting and voter registration because he “cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections.”
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said some of what Trump says about elections “is nonsensical and some is bluster,” but recent actions — especially the election center raid in Georgia — have brought home the reality of his threats.
“Some worry that this is a test run for trying to seize ballot boxes in 2026 and prevent a fair count of the votes, and given Trump’s track record, I don’t think that is something we can dismiss out of hand,” Hasen said. “States need to be making contingency plans to make sure that those kinds of things don’t happen.”
The White House dismissed such concerns, pointing to isolated incidents of noncitizens being charged with illegally voting, and to examples of duplicate registrations, voters remaining on rolls after death and people stealing ballots to vote multiple times.
“These so-called experts are ignoring the plentiful examples of noncitizens charged with voter fraud and of ineligible voters on voter rolls,” said Abigail Jackson, the White House spokesperson.
Experts said fraudulent votes are rare, most registration and roll issues do not translate into fraudulent votes being cast, and there is no evidence such issues swing elections….
But in the wake of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections, Adona said she has also been preparing her staff for far less ordinary scenarios — such as federal officials showing up and demanding ballots, as they recently did in Georgia, or immigration agents staging around polling stations on election day, as some in President Trump’s orbit have suggested.
“Part of my job is making sure that the plans are developed and then tested and then socialized with the staff so if those situations were to ever come up, we would not be figuring it out right then and there. We would know what to do,” Adona said. “Doing those sort of exercises and that level of planning in a way is kind of grounding, and makes things feel less chaotic.”…
Across California, local elections administrators say they have been running similar exercises to prepare for once unthinkable threats — not from local rabble-rousers, remote cyberattackers or foreign adversaries, but their own federal government.
State officials, too, are writing new contingency plans for unprecedented intrusions by Trump and other administration officials, who in recent days have repeated baseless 2020 election conspiracies, raided and taken ballots from a local election center in Fulton County, Ga., pushed both litigation and legislation that would radically alter local voting rules, and called for Republicans to seize control of elections nationwide….
Trump has said he will accept Republican losses only if the elections are “honest.” A White House spokesperson said Trump is pushing for stricter rules for voting and voter registration because he “cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections.”
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said some of what Trump says about elections “is nonsensical and some is bluster,” but recent actions — especially the election center raid in Georgia — have brought home the reality of his threats.
“Some worry that this is a test run for trying to seize ballot boxes in 2026 and prevent a fair count of the votes, and given Trump’s track record, I don’t think that is something we can dismiss out of hand,” Hasen said. “States need to be making contingency plans to make sure that those kinds of things don’t happen.”
The White House dismissed such concerns, pointing to isolated incidents of noncitizens being charged with illegally voting, and to examples of duplicate registrations, voters remaining on rolls after death and people stealing ballots to vote multiple times.
“These so-called experts are ignoring the plentiful examples of noncitizens charged with voter fraud and of ineligible voters on voter rolls,” said Abigail Jackson, the White House spokesperson.
Experts said fraudulent votes are rare, most registration and roll issues do not translate into fraudulent votes being cast, and there is no evidence such issues swing elections….
