“I think this is an environment where, if you’re not paranoid, you’re kind of crazy.”
David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential runs, offered this assessment during a Sept. 29 sit-down at the Economic Club of Chicago. Speaking beside his Republican counterpart, Karl Rove, Axelrod said he worries that Donald Trump will use the U.S. Department of Justice to try to steal this November’s elections. He speculated that Trump could declare a national emergency and send the military to patrol the polls and seize voting machines.
Rove called his colleague’s concerns ridiculous, but Axelrod isn’t the only one worried. Recent pieces in The New York Times, NPR, Reuters, and Votebeat detail how election officials across the country are preparing for trouble this November.
Votebeat reported that Nevada election officials have put together a “Mad Libs of legal filings” in case they need to file any lawsuits against the administration’s actions come November. Reuters reported that California officials have developed their own response if Trump sends federal agents to polling locations. The Times reported that Utah officials have planned for federal interference. Other reports cited similar responses from Michigan and South Carolina officials.
Former Justice Department attorney Gary Restaino described a “nightmare scenario” to NPR. “What if there was a search warrant executed a few days after the elections in which the seizure of materials and machines prevented the tabulation and counting and certification process from occurring?” Restaino asked.
Trump is well-known for normalizing such ideas. The Times recently reported that the country’s top executive has cast doubt on its elections on 445 of the 632 days of his second term, as of Oct. 14. In January, he told Times reporters that he regretted not sending National Guard troops to seize voting machines in Georgia after the 2020 election. (About three weeks later, the FBI confiscated boxes of ballots from the state.) In February, he told a radio host that Republicans “oughta nationalize the voting” in at least 15 Democratic areas. In August, he approved another radio host’s suggestion that he declare a national emergency and take over the election, saying “stranger things have happened.” In September, he led the crowd at the Republican National Convention in Dallas in a pledge to “cheat like hell” in November. Three weeks ago, he refused to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act in the upcoming election.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza told the Chronicle that his office is working to make certain the upcoming elections go smoothly. “We have thought through potential scenarios and are prepared,” the D.A. said. A representative for the sheriff’s office added that Sheriff Sally Hernandez recently hosted a workshop for local law enforcement which focused on all areas of election integrity and was conducted by the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. “We don’t anticipate issues of any kind, but we prepare for every possibility,” Hernandez said.
County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado has already thwarted two challenges to this year’s election process. In August, Limon-Mercado’s office joined a lawsuit challenging a Trump executive order which directed U.S. postal service employees to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in states that didn’t provide lists of eligible voters, among other things. The office joined another lawsuit shortly thereafter which stopped a Trump administration threat to withhold around $667,000 in counterterrorism funding from the county unless it agreed to use paper ballots and check voters’ citizenship in the upcoming election.
And on Oct. 9, Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Celia Israel announced that her office had successfully processed 32,000 voter registration applications that the Texas Department of Public Safety suddenly dumped on the county in September, part of over 500,000 such applications the agency delayed across the state, something Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, running to replace Attorney General Ken Paxton, called “possibly intentional corruption-in-fact.”
Speaking of Paxton, the Senate race between him and James Talarico has tightened as ads paid for by Elon Musk have flooded screens over the last several weeks. The Times reported on Oct. 12 that Austin’s least favorite resident has spent at least $366 million on this year’s election, making him “by far the biggest known midterm donor.” In a separate report, the Times said that Musk sent the Senate Republicans’ top political action committee two separate donations of $75 million and $83 million in September. “Each time, the very next day, the super PAC cut a check of the same amount to Texas PAC, a group that the Senate Leadership Fund had set up to support Mr. Paxton,” the report stated.
Many of the ads against Talarico contain the bald-faced lie that he supports taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for children, despite the fact that he is on record as opposing such procedures. The issue is a personal one for Musk, who deadnamed his daughter, Vivian Wilson, after she came out as transgender in 2020. Other ads, like Paxton’s “King James” ad, have used AI to attack Talarico on religious grounds.
Musk has spread lies about Talarico on X and is also fomenting a dirty tricks campaign across the country through his political action committee, America PAC. In September, Judd Legum of the Popular Information Substack reported that America PAC was running social media ads urging voters to check their voter registration status at an unofficial website called votesafe.org, which required them to divulge their full name, birthday, home address, email address, and cellphone number. Watchdogs warned that America PAC would be free to sell the information to social media companies and voter mobilization groups to help Republicans identify advertising targets and, possibly, try to suppress the vote.
On Oct. 10, CNN reported that Colorado election officials were providing guidance to confused voters who had received messages from America PAC stating that their requests for mail-in ballots had been received – though the voters had made no such requests. The messages directed them to “confirm” with America PAC where and when to return their ballots. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold called the messages “misleading.” Washington state Secretary of State Steve Hobbs urged voters who had received similar messages to avoid votesafe.org and get their election information directly from local officials.
Garza also encourages Travis County residents to get their election information from local officials. But he emphasized that he believes the election will go well. “We fully expect early voting and election day to be smooth and free of interference,” Garza said. “And everyone should participate. We need everyone to get out and vote, regardless of what their preference is.”
This article appears in October 23 • 2026.
