American democracy faces one of its biggest stress tests of the modern era, as President Donald Trump’s sprawling campaign for power over elections encounters a firewall of judges, state election workers and voting rights leaders heading into Election Day.

A cascade of courtroom losses over the weekend dealt a major blow to the Trump administration’s last-minute efforts ahead of Tuesday to assert authority over voting and hold the prospect of prosecutions over the heads of state election officials. 

But another round of last-minute court hearings was set for Monday — and the U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to require California to set aside the ballots of 20,000 suspected noncitizens.

Democrats, voting rights groups and even some former Trump administration officials have said they are braced for a range of possible disruptions and interference, especially as the president stares down the prospect of a blue wave that could wash away Republican control of Congress. Elections forecasters have said Democrats are on track to win control of the U.S. House and possibly the Senate, amid voter unhappiness with rising consumer costs.

“I fully expect my former boss, Donald Trump, to try to steal this election,” Miles Taylor, a deputy Department of Homeland Security chief of staff during the first Trump administration who became an outspoken Trump critic, told reporters last week.

Trump and his supporters have said the federal government’s actions are necessary to protect against noncitizen voting, which they warn cancels out the votes of Americans. 

While researchers have consistently found that noncitizen voting is rare and doesn’t impact the outcome of elections, Homeland Security has arrested dozens of noncitizens on allegations of election crimes in recent weeks, part of a concerted effort by the Trump administration to ramp up enforcement ahead of the election.

The last-minute push, Trump allies note, comes after the Senate didn’t advance Trump’s signature election legislation, the SAVE America Act, which would have imposed stringent requirements on voters to show proof of citizenship. The legislation passed the House but faced bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

“They voted against proof of citizenship so they can cheat,” Trump said during a rally in Salina, Kansas, on Sunday.

In the past four days, a federal judge ordered the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens in California shared with an immigrant rights group, which said Saturday it found major problems with its veracity.

Another judge blocked the Justice Department from threatening election workers with prosecution. In Alaska, a judge dismissed a lawsuit that preemptively sought to question the certification of the results of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race. An appeals court also upheld limits on preelection field operations by Homeland Security.

On Monday, judges were expected to weigh requests to restrict federal law enforcement agents from serving as election monitors and additional limits on armed federal personnel at polling locations. Federal law broadly prohibits armed federal troops or agents at election sites.

Planning for ‘every single scenario’

As the court losses pile up, Democrats, civic leaders and election experts have watched with a wary eye toward how Trump will respond.

Election preparations by critics of the Trump administration have been underway for months. Congressional Democrats have mapped out dozens of scenarios, including the possibility that Trump will falsely point to a foreign threat against U.S. elections as an excuse to disrupt voting or seize voting machines.

They have also assembled a field army of volunteers to assist voters and monitor polling locations for signs of federal interference. Teams of lawyers have drafted a range of possible lawsuits that can be quickly filed if problems arise.

Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, said her organization is deploying more than 21,000 election protection volunteers sporting bright yellow shirts. Common Cause has also trained 3,000 volunteers to work a voter hotline.

“Common Cause is prepared for every single scenario and we are refusing to let fear win,” Kase Solomón said during a recent press briefing.

Noncitizen voters

The Trump administration’s actions follow a refusal by dozens of states, including California, to share their full voter roll that includes sensitive personal data — information the Trump administration says would allow it to identify noncitizen voters.

“California could, but refuses to, provide the unredacted list, which would resolve this entire dispute in a matter of hours,” Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, wrote on social media over the weekend.

But Trump has spent years promoting falsehoods about stolen elections, long before the more recent focus on noncitizen voting. After he lost the 2020 election, the president and his allies waged an extensive pressure campaign in a bid to overturn his losses in key battleground states. 

Some supporters advanced baseless conspiracy theories about voting machines. As the midterm elections approach, Trump has again begun casting a cloud of suspicion over voting machines. 

He spoke about alleged vulnerabilities in the machines during a primetime speech in July, though in every state except Louisiana, machines produce paper records that can later be checked. In the final hours of the election, the president is returning to the theme.

“You know the paper ballots cost 9% of what these crooked machines cost,” Trump said at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday.

Trump’s intensifying rhetoric has been matched by the Justice Department’s rapid-fire legal challenges over the past several days seeking to influence elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are run by the states.

With polls set to open in a matter of hours, federal judges have blocked the Trump administration at every turn.

Threats to election workers

Late Friday, Judge Trina Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from threatening election workers nationwide with prosecution. 

The order came after Essayli, during a court hearing last week, raised the possibility that California election officials could face “criminal liability” if they count the ballots of noncitizens. 

The Justice Department on Thursday also sent a letter to election officials nationwide that reiterated requirements under federal law to preserve election-related records and listed the criminal consequences of noncompliance.

When election officials perform the work in the manner required by state and federal law, “they do not violate federal criminal law even if a particular ballot belongs” to an ineligible voter, Thompson wrote.

The Justice Department has appealed the order to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Reminding election officials to follow federal law is a civic service, not a ‘threat,’” Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said on X.

Supreme Court weighs ballots case

Weeks after the Justice Department sued California in an effort to force election officials to set aside and not count the ballots of 20,000 voters it said were suspected noncitizens, the case reached the Supreme Court on Monday.

“If it turns out that those individuals cast ballots but are not, in fact, U.S. citizens, then California’s counting of their votes will violate (federal law) and will debase or dilute valid votes cast by U.S. citizens,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in an emergency application to the high court.

The Justice Department has so far failed in its effort to require California to set aside ballots from individuals on the list, which was compiled by Homeland Security based on checks of government records and use of the research service LexisNexis. A district court judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have both ruled against the Trump administration.

An immigrant rights group raised serious concerns about the list over the weekend after a judge forced the Trump administration to share a copy with the organization.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, said in a court filing Saturday that an analysis by data experts found that 42% of the names weren’t found on California’s current voter file. At least 22 names on the list are on a list of U.S. citizens compiled by the organization, the analysis found.

Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of President Barack Obama in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on Monday prohibited the Justice Department from demanding that California set aside ballots — echoing previous rulings in the case now before the Supreme Court.

In Washington state, the Justice Department has demanded election officials set aside about 400 ballots from voters it alleges are noncitizens. On Sunday, several civil rights groups sued to block any segregation of ballots.

“We are days away from Election Day and these threats, again, are an attempt to sow fear and throw out eligible votes with no transparency,” Lilliane Ballesteros, executive director of the Latino Community Fund of Washington state, said in a statement.

Federal monitors at the polls

On Sunday, the NAACP asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent a wide swath of federal law enforcement agents from serving as election monitors.

The Justice Department has deployed election monitors for decades to watch polling places for compliance with federal voting rights laws. But the Trump administration has expanded the program, and plans to have roughly 1,000 monitors stationed across all 50 states on Election Day.

Justice Department lawyers typically serve as monitors, but the Trump administration this year also plans to tap federal law enforcement agents. In a court filing, the NAACP alleged the deployments are illegal and will have a chilling effect that intimidates voters.

“The law is clear — law enforcement agents can have an intimidating effect on voters, especially Black voters, and they have no role and no right to be inside our polling places,” Kristen Clarke, NAACP general counsel, said in a statement.

The Justice Department said in a court document that monitors aren’t allowed to have firearms and have been instructed not to interfere with voting and must dress in business casual clothing.

Senior Judge Reggie Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, held a hearing on Monday. The public docket indicated Walton would issue an order.

Alaska challenge tossed

Judge Sharon Gleason, an appointee of President Barack Obama in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit that preemptively sought to pause certification of the Senate race.

The DOJ wanted a certification pause if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan lost to Democrat Mary Peltola — and if Sullivan lost by less than the number of votes received by another candidate of the same name, Dan J. Sullivan.

The New York Times reported last week that Democrats worked to recruit Dan J. Sullivan, leading Trump to call for him and Peltola to be kicked out of the election. While Alaska election officials had initially tried to prevent Dan J. Sullivan from appearing on the ballot, the Alaska Supreme Court cleared his candidacy earlier this year.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit had also asked for an order requiring all ballots for Dan J. Sullivan be set aside for further investigation. Gleason gave little credence to the request and wrote that the Trump administration had offered no explanation for how it would work.

“The absence of any explanation from the United States as to how its requested relief could redress its alleged injury while simultaneously maintaining the secrecy of the ballot is telling,” Gleason wrote.

The Justice Department immediately appealed the decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

WASHINGTON — A coalition of civil rights groups and union organizations Friday sued the Trump administration to prevent the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling locations during November’s midterm elections.

The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the second this month, following comments from top Trump officials citing a federal policy to allow ICE officers to enter polling locations in certain circumstances to conduct immigration enforcement.

The groups argue the policy violates the federal law that prohibits “armed men” at election sites, and also causes voter intimidation, which is barred under the Voting Rights Act.

Under federal law, “troops” or “armed men” are allowed at polling locations only if “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” And the section of the Voting Rights Act the groups cite prohibits “intimidation,” “threats,” or “coercion” against a person for voting or attempting to vote.

“The result is predictable: voters across the country—particularly Black, Latino, and Asian voters, naturalized citizens, and members of mixed-status families—are afraid to vote, help others vote, and participate in civic life,” according to the suit. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin earlier this month noted that agents could conduct immigration enforcement at polling places. And before U.S. senators this week, FBI Director Kash Patel did not rule out sending FBI agents to polling locations, but said officers would “follow the law.”

The Department of Justice dismissed the idea that officers would be sent to polling locations. 

“The DOJ has never said it would send federal law enforcement to polling locations,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Any suggestion otherwise is fearmongering.”

In a statement to States Newsroom, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said those “who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.”

“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE,” the spokesperson said. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”

The DHS spokesperson added that ICE was not planning any operations that targeted polling locations. 

NAACP among groups suing

“We reject this administration’s attempt to desecrate our polling sites by converting them into militarized zones through the unlawful deployment of ICE or any other federal agent,” Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said in a statement. 

NAACP is one of nine groups that filed suit. The rest are Mi Familia en Accion, Asian Pacific American Advocates, the National Urban League, Minnesota 8, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Union of Painters and the United Food and Commercial Workers International.

“Turning the fundamental right of exercising our vote into a high-stakes encounter with the militarized strong arm of the current administration isn’t protection and it isn’t oversight; it’s disenfranchisement, period,” Clarke said. “The NAACP calls on the court to reject this blatant attempt by federal officials to obstruct our elections through tactics pulled straight from the Jim Crow playbook.” 

The nine groups are represented by the Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy and the Democracy Defenders Fund. 

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Senate set to hold a procedural vote in the coming days on a sweeping bill to overhaul college sports, dueling press conferences Monday underscored the fierce debate over how to tackle the biggest issues plaguing that landscape. 

Supporters of a bipartisan measure to set national standards for college athletes’ compensation, including the bill’s lead sponsor, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, argued it would “protect,” “save” and “preserve” college sports. 

However, opponents of the bill, including Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, blasted the measure over concerns that it “essentially ensconces a system of exploitation,” and would provide “an unprecedented antitrust exemption to an industry that is violating the law every single day.” 

Name, image and likeness battle

The college sports world continues to grapple with the fallout from the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines that allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL, as well as a patchwork of state NIL laws and gender inequity in NIL deals, among other major issues. 

Earlier this year, Cruz and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state — the top members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee — introduced the bill, with Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware as original cosponsors. 

Cruz likened the college sports landscape to the “Wild West,” saying the bill is designed to “bring order to the chaos” and “put simple common sense rules in place so that college sports remain strong and vibrant for decades to come,” during a press conference he hosted outside the U.S. Capitol alongside Cantwell, Senate colleagues, student athletes and coaches. 

Cruz called for “a big bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate, and with that momentum to go to the House and have it go to the president’s desk.” 

President Donald Trump has thrown strong support behind what he dubs a “great” bill. 

Patchwork of state laws

The Senate could take a procedural vote on the bipartisan measure as early as this week, where it would need at least 60 senators to advance.

The latest version of the bill would create a national NIL standard that preempts the patchwork of state laws, provide certain antitrust protections to the NCAA, establish a five-year eligibility timeline for athletes and bar professional athletes from competing in college athletics. 

The measure is notably neutral on the classification of athletes as employees.

Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Murphy blasted the measure, saying: “What this bill does at its core is to protect a system of exploitation,” during a virtual press conference earlier Monday with college athletes, professional athlete unions and advocates. The event was hosted by the AFL-CIO. 

“This bill protects the billions of dollars that coaches and sports industry executives are making over the suppression of compensation for some of the most highly valued athletes in the world,” Murphy added. 

NAACP critical of bill

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, also blasted the Senate bill Monday, saying “what makes this bill so inadequate, and in many ways offensive, is the overture as if it’s going to do something special for historically Black colleges and universities,” during the AFL-CIO’s press conference.

“HBCUs, they deserve direct federal investment, not a political trade-off,” Johnson said.

The NAACP in May urged pushback against GOP-led redistricting efforts in Southern states via college sports, including a boycott of public universities by athletes and supporters.

The Congressional Black Caucus, which rallied behind that call in May, has also opposed the legislation, saying in August the bill “falls short of providing Black athletes with the rights, representation, economic opportunities, and meaningful safeguards they deserve, while also failing to adequately recognize the interests of Black coaches, Black agents, HBCUs, and other professionals whose futures will be shaped by this legislation.”