As President Donald Trump tries to assert power over U.S. elections, he has raged on social media, cajoled Republican lawmakers and unleashed the Department of Justice on his political enemies.

What has he accomplished with all that effort? Not a lot.

Six months before the November midterm elections, the Trump administration’s quest to exercise authority over the contests and impose sweeping restrictions on voters has proved largely unsuccessful. The aggressive campaign — separate from Trump’s more effective foray into redistricting fights — has been stymied by the courts, rebuffed by many state election officials and opposed by key Republican senators.

“I think there’s many out there who are worried about the constant drumbeat of what the administration is trying to do and what they might do in the future. I hear this from voters, I hear this from election officials,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

“And what I see is that there is a vast chasm between wanting to do something and trying to do something and actually successfully doing it.”

Months yet to go

Much could change between now and November, of course. 

Facing likely Republican losses in the midterms, election experts warn that Trump could lash out with increasingly brazen attempts to control elections. Or that the Justice Department will conduct more raids targeting election officials, like the FBI seizure of ballots from the 2020 presidential election from Fulton County, Georgia.

Democrats remain braced for federal election interference, especially the prospect of Trump deploying immigration enforcement agents or the military at polling locations — an action prohibited under federal law that some administration aides have nevertheless refused to flatly rule out.

But Trump’s record of achievement up to this point is poor.

The SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship, is stalled in the U.S. Senate despite Trump’s repeated demands for its passage. Federal courts blocked an executive order Trump signed last year that sought to impose a proof-of-citizenship rule unilaterally.

The Justice Department hasn’t secured a single court victory in the 30 lawsuits it’s filed to force states and the District of Columbia to turn over sensitive personal data on voters. A bipartisan group of state secretaries of state is fighting the Trump administration in court — only 13 Republican states have provided the information.

And an executive order signed in March that would limit voting by mail faces five federal lawsuits, with an initial courtroom showdown set for Thursday in Washington, D.C. Federal agencies have yet to finalize plans to implement the directive, which election law experts call illegal and unconstitutional.

“America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer,” Trump posted on Truth Social in late April.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told States Newsroom that Trump is committed “to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters.” 

Jackson named several federal laws that she said provide the Justice Department oversight over states’ election administration. She also noted Trump’s support for the SAVE America Act.

“Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable,” Jackson said in an email.

System under strain

Trump has placed the nation’s electoral system under immense stress before. 

After the 2020 election, the president and his allies worked to overturn the results, with Trump leaning on then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes. The effort failed but it led to a mob storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and disrupting Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Today, the system is holding but under strain. An analysis released Thursday by Issue One, a pro-democracy group, likened American elections to a resilient patient with a strong immune system. Yet the Trump administration, rather than boosting the body’s immunity, acts like a virus, it said.

“America’s election system’s immune system is not breaking, but it is actively fighting against the virus of democratic backsliding,” the analysis reads.

The group identified three safeguards it says are in critical condition: Congress, internal checks within the executive branch and the information ecosystem. 

Election officials have watched with particular concern as the Justice Department probes the 2020 election. Trump has long falsely asserted that the election was stolen and in January 2021 pressured the Georgia secretary of state to find him enough votes to overturn his loss in that state.

After the FBI obtained a warrant to seize 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, which encompasses Atlanta, in January 2026, the DOJ last month sent a subpoena for information on the county’s election workers. The subpoena demands the names, positions, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of election workers and poll volunteers who worked the 2020 general election.

Fulton County is fighting the subpoena in court. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the FBI doesn’t have to give the ballots back to the county, though he noted the seizure “was certainly not perfect.”

The Justice Department has also obtained a grand jury subpoena for election records in Arizona and demanded 2024 ballots from Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit. And the FBI recently interviewed a Wisconsin election official about the 2020 election, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Local leaders have promised that they won’t bend to pressure from the Trump administration.

“This whole thing is designed to harass, intimidate and chill participation in our election process,” Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts, a Democrat, said in a video statement. “It’s not going to work, it’s not going to happen.”

Blue state action

Some states are pursuing additional safeguards against federal election interference. 

For example, New Mexico lawmakers passed a bill that makes intentionally obstructing polling places a felony and prohibits the military or any armed federal personnel from polling locations.

The legislative push, concentrated in Democratic states, comes as Trump administration officials have sidestepped direct questions about whether troops or federal agents could be deployed to the polls.

“It’s yet another gotcha hypothetical,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a recent U.S. Senate hearing.

The Connecticut General Assembly passed legislation May 6 that imposes a 250-foot buffer zone around election sites where warrantless arrests and searches, use of force and ID checks by state or federal officers, including immigration agents, are banned. The measure also bans masked or concealed identities near polling places, among other provisions.

Connecticut state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a Democrat who chairs the state House Government Administration & Elections Committee, said that if nothing happens during this fall’s elections, “I’ll say, ‘Good, it worked.’” 

The goal of the bill isn’t to create confrontations between Connecticut law enforcement and federal forces, but to deter intimidation in the first place, he said.

“We have a responsibility to protect all of our residents, but especially our voters, related to our elections — to prevent these sorts of tools of threat and intimidation and terror from being used to shape our political life,” Blumenthal said in an interview.

Connecticut state Sen. Rob Sampson, a Republican, said that he wouldn’t support abuse from the federal government. But Democrats, he said, were spinning a false narrative of voter intimidation for political purposes and attempting to distract from weaknesses in election security.

“In the last few years, I don’t always trust the results,” Sampson said on the Senate floor. “Now, some people will go out there and say, ‘Oh, you’re an election denier.’ I’m not saying that there’s tens of thousands of faulty or erroneous or fraudulent votes. I’m just saying that there’s definitely some.”

GOP elections bill stalled

Trump and Republicans in Congress say major action is needed to boost election confidence. 

At Trump’s urging, the U.S. House passed the SAVE America Act in February. In addition to requiring voters to show documents such as a passport or birth certificate that prove citizenship, the legislation also imposes ID requirements at the polls and would require states to bolster efforts to clean voter registration lists.

Polling suggests Americans support at least some of the bill’s provisions. A Politico poll conducted in April found 52% of Americans support requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, while 18% oppose. 

Democrats, election administration experts and some Republicans say the proposal would lead to chaos. Its provisions would take effect immediately, upending voting requirements potentially months or weeks before elections. Married women and others who have last names that don’t match their birth certificates could face additional obstacles registering to vote.

The SAVE America Act hasn’t advanced in the U.S. Senate. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican and major proponent of the bill, attempted to add the measure onto a budget bill in April, but the Senate rejected it, 48-50.

“This doesn’t mean Trump and his allies in Congress will stop,” Héctor Sánchez Barba, president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, a Latino voting rights group, said in a statement.

The Senate has since moved off the SAVE America Act and would need to hold a procedural vote to return to it. Whether that happens is in doubt, but Kennedy indicated to Punchbowl News that he intends to force another amendment vote later this month. His office didn’t respond to an email from States Newsroom seeking confirmation.

Postal Service 

Without the SAVE America Act, Trump’s options to legally restrict voting are limited. 

Trump signed an executive order in March attempting to limit the U.S. Postal Service’s delivery of ballots through the mail. The order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to create “state citizenship lists” that include the names of voting-age citizens in each state — effectively creating a national voter list.

But the order has come under legal attack from Democratic groups, a coalition of Democratic states and multiple voting rights organizations. Its opponents are hopeful that federal judges will soon block the directive like they did a March 2025 order that included a proof-of-citizenship requirement.

“I don’t have confidence that the Trump administration or Donald Trump will refrain from trying to interfere with our elections,” Blumenthal said. “But I have great confidence that the American people will stand up against it.”

A dozen Republican state attorneys general are moving to defend President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail ballots from legal challenges mounted by Democrats.

The GOP officials, led by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, argued in multiple court filings Monday and Tuesday in response to Democratic lawsuits that the March 31 order provides states with “optional resources” to help secure their elections and doesn’t endanger voting rights.

The states “would like to access this resource so they may verify the accuracy of their own voter-registration lists. This flow of information between federal and state agencies is a common and critical feature of our federal system,” the Republican officials wrote in a court document.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas joined Hanaway in the effort.

The order directs the postmaster general to put forward rules that would block the U.S. Postal Service from delivering ballots to or from voters not on lists of approved mail voters provided by states. Democrats and postal law experts have said the Postal Service has no authority over elections.

“The Constitution and multiple court rulings put it in stark terms: the President does not have the authority to issue an executive order that attempts to undermine the ability of states to run their own elections,” more than 100 U.S. House Democrats wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday.

Trump’s order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state. Democrats allege the Trump administration is building an unauthorized national voter list, despite the U.S. Constitution giving states the responsibility of running federal elections.

The Democratic National Committee, top Democratic lawmakers and Democratic state attorneys general and secretaries of state have all sued to block the order, as have voting rights groups. The Republican state attorneys general are seeking to intervene in those lawsuits.

The GOP officials argue the Democrats lack standing to challenge the Postal Service provisions of the order and that their objections are premature because the Postal Service hasn’t finalized any new rules on mail ballots.

The order “simply directs” the Postal Service “to initiate rulemaking—it does not regulate the States directly and it does not directly inhibit anyone’s voting rights,” a court filing by the state attorneys general says.

The executive order marked Trump’s latest attempt to assert power over federal elections. A previous order that sought to require voters to prove their citizenship was blocked in court. Legislation to impose such a requirement is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

The Department of Justice has also sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for access to unredacted state voter lists containing sensitive personal information, including driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. While federal courts have so far rebuffed those lawsuits, at least a dozen states have voluntarily turned over the data. 

DOJ plans to share the information with Homeland Security, which will use a computer program to look for possible noncitizen voters.

The Department of Justice’s stated reason for obtaining sensitive personal data on millions of voters masks the Trump administration’s true intention for obtaining state voter lists, Michigan’s top election official asserted in federal appeals court Monday.

Attorneys for Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson made the allegation in a brief in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The argument reflects a concern broadly held among Democratic state election officials that the Trump administration wants to compile voter data in an effort to influence the upcoming midterm elections. 

The Justice Department, under President Donald Trump, is suing 29 states for refusing to provide voter information. It says it needs the data to evaluate efforts to clean and maintain voter rolls, including whether noncitizens are registered to vote.

But Benson’s brief says that “appears to be a pretext for improper purposes.”

Michigan and other states argue the Trump administration is instead effectively building a nationwide voter registration list — a move not authorized under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, a federal law to combat voting discrimination that the Justice Department has cited in demanding states turn over voter data.

“Collecting Michigan’s voter data to conduct its own list maintenance and to use Michigan’s list as part of creating a national voter file is not encompassed within the purpose stated in DOJ’s demand, which is simply ‘to ascertain Michigan’s compliance with the list maintenance requirements’” of federal election laws, Benson’s brief says.

“Moreover, creating a national voter file of U.S. Citizens is beyond any purpose contemplated by the (Civil Rights Act).”

After U.S. District Court Judge Hala Jarbou ruled in February that the Justice Department isn’t entitled to Michigan’s unredacted voter list containing driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers, the department appealed to the 6th Circuit.

Trump priority

Over the past year, Trump has attempted to exercise greater power over federal elections, which, under the U.S. Constitution, are run by the states.

“Trump does not have the authority to create a Trump voter list,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat whom the Justice Department is suing for not providing voter data, said in an interview earlier this month.

Studies have shown noncitizen voting is extremely rare, though Trump has long fixated on the prospect of noncitizen voting and other forms of election fraud. Last year, Trump signed an executive order that would have unilaterally required voters to provide documents proving their citizenship. The order was struck down in court, but Trump is pressuring the U.S. Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, which would implement similar proof of citizenship rules.

Michigan state officials and other critics of the Justice Department’s voter data effort point to actions by Trump and remarks by a DOJ attorney as evidence that the Trump administration is already compiling a national voter list.

Trump’s recent executive order to restrict mail-in ballots directs the Department of Homeland Security to build lists of voting-age citizens in each state and then share those lists with state officials. Homeland Security operates a powerful computer system, called SAVE, that can verify citizenship by checking names against information in federal databases.

And at a federal court hearing in Rhode Island in late March, Justice Department Voting Section Acting Chief Eric Neff said his department intends to share voter lists with Homeland Security, according to a transcript. He said DOJ and DHS have already entered into a use agreement to govern the sharing of data, though he didn’t detail its requirements.

Mail ballot order an ‘iceberg’ to DOJ case

A DOJ attorney, James Tucker, has denied any effort to create a national voter file. 

“There is not going to be a national voter registration database,” Tucker said at a hearing in Maine on March 26 — less than a week before Trump signed the executive order.

But David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, likened the Justice Department’s litigation strategy to a legal Titanic and the executive order to an iceberg: The order effectively creating a nationwide voter list could sink a strategy that denies such a goal exists.

“The DOJ … has been trying to assure the courts that this data is not going to be used to create a national voter list,” Becker said during a press briefing this month.

The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Civil Rights Act argued

The Justice Department has so far failed to persuade any federal judges that it’s entitled to state voter data. Judges have dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuits against California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon. 

At least a dozen states, all Republican led, have voluntarily provided their voter lists. The Justice Department has also reached a settlement agreement with one state, Oklahoma, to obtain its data. 

When Jarbou, a Trump appointee, dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit for Michigan’s voter roll, she ruled that the Civil Rights Act doesn’t require the disclosure of the information. The law, signed by President Dwight Eisenhower, empowered federal officials to investigate state and local discrimination against Black voters.

The law requires states to preserve election records for at least 22 months after a federal election, including any documents that come into the possession of an election official. Jarbou wrote in her decision that the state’s voter registration list is created by election officials but isn’t a document, such as a voter registration application, that comes into their possession.

When the Justice Department filed its brief in March, it argued that Jarbou misinterpreted the Civil Rights Act. “The CRA’s text … does not exclude self-generated documents,” the department’s brief says.

The Justice Department’s appeal of the Michigan loss has advanced the furthest, with state officials filing their brief on Monday. The DOJ has pushed for quick timelines in the appeals, arguing that court rulings are needed ahead of the midterms to ensure the fairness of elections.

Local officials back states

Regardless, 18 local election officials from across the country, including seven in Michigan, on Monday filed a brief in the case arguing that the Justice Department hasn’t provided a legitimate basis to obtain election records under the Civil Rights Act.

As election misinformation has proliferated in recent years, local election officials face increasing requests for information, the group wrote. They are accustomed to providing public voter registration information, with steps in place to exclude sensitive, nonpublic data.

Courts act as a “backstop” to enforce bans on disclosing sensitive information in response to records requests from the public, the local election officials argue.

“Courts should perform that same function for requests for records under the CRA,” the group said.