Trump moves to tighten federal control of elections ahead of midterms

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is working to gain unprecedented control of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections this fall through a series of new assertions of presidential power, including firing key leaders of the federal Election Assistance Commission on July 9.

Despite polls showing voters favoring Democratic candidates by several points, Trump has said without evidence that the only way Democrats can win the November midterms and retake one or both chambers of Congress is if they cheat and that his efforts are necessary to prevent it.

Critics, especially Democratic lawmakers and some judges, say Trump is weaponizing the levers of the federal government, Congress and the courts to favor his fellow Republicans.

The actions also include putting election denialists in sensitive oversight positions within the government − including at the White House − and issuing an executive order tightening rules ‌for mail-in voting that was blocked by a judge. On March 31 Trump issued another executive order seeking to create a federal list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state. And he has also instructed the U.S. Postal Service to move toward sending mail ballots only to verified voters, which is already meeting significant legal challenges.

In February, just days after the FBI raided an elections office in Georgia to seize voting records from the 2020 election, Trump urged Republicans to "nationalize" elections and repeated his false claims of 2020 election fraud.

"The Republicans should say: 'We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places.' The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting," Trump said during an appearance on the podcast of Dan Bongino, his former deputy FBI director.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's "firing every remaining member of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission months before the midterms is a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast."

The firings, Schumer said in a July 10 post on X, were part of a broader effort by Trump to seize control of the election by "gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections."

"Today, he took another step toward doing exactly that," Schumer said. "Senate Democrats will fight this power grab at every turn. The American people − not Donald Trump − will decide the 2026 election."

A broad campaign by Trump focusing on elections

The center of Trump's campaign continues to be his SAVE America Act, a major election bill that he promised Republicans in March would "guarantee the midterms" if they passed it.

The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of citizenship when registering for federal elections, require photo identification when voting and sharply restrict mail voting nationwide – and other provisions that Democrats say could disenfranchise potentially millions of their supporters.

With such a narrow majority, Republicans have been unable to pass the SAVE America Act without scrapping the filibuster provision needed to break the Senate's 60-vote rule given staunch Democratic opposition.

On July 10, Trump said he would not sign a key piece of legislation – this time a housing affordability bill – because it did not include those provisions.

With the SAVE America bill stalled, Trump and his supporters are trying to take control of elements of the election apparatus through other means, critics say.

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump and his appointees have also unsuccessfully pressed states to surrender voter registration databases to federal authorities, attempted to limit mail voting through other means, and launched federal investigations into Democratic election offices and local election officials for alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election.

They have also sought – and seized – ballots and voting records through the Justice Department and FBI, and used executive authority to pressure states to adopt election procedures favored by his administration.

The administration has also increasingly relied on the Justice Department, Homeland Security and other federal agencies to investigate how elections are administered.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, confirmed July 9 that she is sending DOJ monitors to 15 jurisdictions in Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia for the upcoming primaries to ensure compliance with federal voting-rights laws.

Dhillon and other Trump supporters say these are long-overdue reforms intended to strengthen election integrity.

Conservative election law expert Hans von Spakovsky told USA TODAY on July 10 that Trump's efforts, including sending DOJ observers to monitor the midterms, are routine and have been used by Democrats for decades.

"If you check the history of federal election observers, you will find that the Justice Department has sent out observers to selected jurisdictions around the country in every single federal election since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, no matter which party controls the White House," von Spakovsky said. "There is nothing unusual about this at all."

In another video posted to X, Dhillon confirmed that the DOJ sent a memo and cover letter to election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia warning that it is "a crime to knowingly allow non-citizens to vote in those states' elections … or conspires to make it happen."

Dhillon said she was putting election officials "on notice" because the DOJ has already done several federal prosecutions in Trump's second term involving non-citizens voting − and she vowed that "more prosecutions" are on the way.

Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment through a DOJ spokesperson.

"Election officials need to stop hiding the ball," Dhillon told Newsmax on July 9. "Two-thirds of them are hiding their voter rolls from us because we want to help them clean up the voter rolls."

Some state elections officials, including Republicans, say Dhillon's claims of widespread voter fraud – especially with complicit elections officials − are without evidence.

In Georgia's June runoff elections, every contest on every ballot was reviewed and compared to the election outcomes, and only 23 "discrepancies" were found out of 1.11 million ballots cast, Gabriel Sterling, a former senior Republican elections official in the Peach State, said in a July 10 X post.

Going after state voter rolls, getting judicial pushback

Trump has also issued an elections executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security and, until earlier this month, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to obtain state voter files and other election-official records, according to reports by the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal research organization, at New York University.

The Justice Department is suing to force states, especially ones under Democratic control, to hand over their voter rolls and documentation of citizenship, saying it's needed to ensure that only legitimate voters will be allowed to register and vote in November, the Brennan Center said.

Courts have pushed back, blocking key parts including provisions that would severely restrict Americans' ability to vote by mail, which Trump has long alleged − without evidence − is used by Democrats to commit fraud. One federal judge ruled that Trump lacks the legal authority to compile such a national citizen or voter list to be controlled by the federal government.

In another case, voting rights groups sued the Justice Department to block the Trump administration from what they said was an effort to illegally stockpile "millions of Americans' confidential voter data" and create a national voter database "to surveil and purge voters."

That complaint argues that the DOJ's actions "are unconstitutional, illegal, and a key component of the Trump Administration's attempts to take over elections from states and subvert the 2026 midterms."

Of particular concern, voting rights advocates say, is that the DOJ wants states' full unredacted voter rolls, including partial Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, in order to cross-reference them with Homeland Security's SAVE system, which has repeatedly misflagged eligible citizens as ineligible.

So far, at least 16 states have voluntarily complied while others took the DOJ to court, the Brennan Center said.

The Justice Department has sued at least 29 states and the District of Columbia over their refusal to hand over the data, losing most cases, according to the Brennan Center's Tracker of Justice Department Requests for Voter Information.

'Really small numbers' of actual cases of voter fraud

Jessica Huseman from the Votebeat election information organization says the DOJ letter to state election officials gave them five days to detail how they intend to comply with federal laws regarding illegal voting.

Huseman said such instances of illegal voting are extremely rare. Nevertheless, she told PBS on July 8, states have redoubled efforts to audit their election procedures and voter rolls in response to longstanding Trump claims about fraud.

Georgia, which Trump has long accused of engaging in voter fraud that cost him the election in the state in 2020, completed such a review in recent months, Huseman said, and found just "a few" instances of ineligible people voting.

"It's really, really small numbers," Huseman said, "and I think the suggestion that election administrators are knowingly allowing people who are not qualified to vote to cast a ballot stretches the imagination."

Critics warn that as Trump's poll numbers stay at or near historically low numbers, he'll only intensify his efforts to consolidate federal influence or control over institutions that were established to make sure U.S. elections remain independent of politics.

These critics, including Democratic lawmakers and many voting rights experts, say they are concerned that Trump will ramp up efforts to alter and control voting equipment and to obtain, centrally analyze and control voter data from states, which under the Constitution are responsible for overseeing elections.

"Every American − regardless of political party − should be horrified at yet another blatant effort by President Trump to eradicate every safeguard of free and fair elections," Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor and lead counsel for the House's first impeachment of Trump, said in a statement posted to social media.

David Axelrod, founder of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, said in a July 10 X post that "all the signals are flashing red," after Trump's firing of the two remaining Democratic members of the federal Election Assistance Commission.

Axelrod, a senior White House advisor to former President Barack Obama, criticized what he said were Trump's "persistent, unfounded claims of election fraud, which he uses to justify extraordinary federal interventions," and said that Trump is engaging in such interventions because he fears polls showing him deeply unpopular with the electorate.

The commission, whose members are selected by congressional Republicans and Democrats, is the only federal agency devoted solely to election administration and was working to help local election officials prepare for the 2026 midterms.

Trump fired the commission's two Democratic members, Chairman Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. That prompted the remaining third member, Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick, to resign. A fourth position on the commission became vacant earlier this year when Republican Donald Palmer voluntarily left the agency.

A key agency's demolition

The commission was created by Congress after the disputed George W. Bush vs. Al Gore 2000 presidential election to help states improve election administration without federalizing elections.

It distributes federal election funds, maintains the national mail voter registration form, tests and certifies voting systems, and offers guidance to state and local election officials.

It has also approved extra security funding for election officials, including earlier this year. During the coronavirus pandemic, the commission worked with states to ensure mail balloting would be broadly accessible by the 2020 presidential election.

The White House issued a statement saying the president "reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America's elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted."

More broadly, it said in a statement to USA TODAY, "The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections."

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, was one of many lawmakers who on Thursday demanded an explanation for Trump's dismantling of the commission leadership. Its staff of approximately 55 employees remains intact.

Warner noted that the EAC was established by Congress as an independent, bipartisan body to help states administer secure and credible elections. If Trump did indeed fire the commissioners, it "should concern every American, regardless of party," Warner said in a social media post.

"Removing every remaining commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections is an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration," Warner said, adding that the move "raises profound concerns about political interference in the institutions that support our elections."

Contributing: Sarah Wire

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump moves to tighten federal control of elections ahead of midterms

Reporting by Josh Meyer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 3:01 AM.