The next election is always the most important for politicians on the ballot, which in this year’s midterms will be every member of the US House and about a third of the Senate.
But in the case of these particular midterms, leaders on both sides are suggesting the future of the republic is at stake.
“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, but right now they are under threat,” former President Barack Obama told Virginians in a March ad promoting the state’s redistricting proposal. The move would add Virginia to a partisan race to redraw maps with the goal of putting all but one of the state’s current five GOP members of Congress out of a job.
President Donald Trump, MAGA master of the bumper-sticker catchphrase, rebranded his party’s voter ID bill, which would effectively end mail-in voting and require in-person proof of citizenship to register to vote, among many other things.
It used to be called the SAVE Act – a “stupid name,” he told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade in a recent interview – before it changed to the “SAVE America Act.” Like “Make America Great Again,” the suggestion is descriptive and, according to Trump, impossible to oppose.
He told House Republicans early this month that passing the bill was essential and would “guarantee” election victory.
“It will guarantee the midterms. If you don’t get it, big trouble,” he said.
Some Democrats see a master plan by Trump to guarantee power for Republicans despite his own flagging approval ratings.
Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore tied the voter ID bill, the redistricting fight Trump kicked off last year, and the idea – unconfirmed so far – that the administration could deploy ICE agents to polling places to guard against repeatedly disproven claims of widespread voter fraud.
“I think these are all tools of how the president is trying to think about a much larger plan, which is if you cannot hold on to power through democratic elections, then adjust democratic elections,” Moore, a Democrat, told CNN’s Dana Bash this week.
Trump ally Steve Bannon suggested recently that the sight of ICE agents helping out at airports is a test run for deploying them at the polls in November.
But new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin promised at his confirmation hearing that uniformed officers would not be used for intimidation at polling places.
He did not, under questioning from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, promise there would be no federal agents at polling places.
“The only reason why my officers would be there if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” Mullin said.
Any attempt to dispatch immigration officials to polling places would be met with resistance.
“It’s perfectly well acknowledged that ICE is not permitted in our polling places,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, told CNN’s Gabe Cohen. “If there is overreach, we’re going to meet it with every lever of power that we have.”
Cohen also noted that “federal law bars deploying federal ‘troops or armed men’ to polling places, except to repel ‘armed enemies of the United States.’ Elections are run by states, despite Trump’s calls to ‘nationalize’ voting in certain places.”
There is also the strange appearance of Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the FBI’s seizure of old 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, in January. She has been much more vocal in rehashing the 2020 election and playing to Trump’s belief, not based on fact, that he was the victim of fraud, than she has been on telling Americans about whatever intelligence may have justified Trump’s war on Iran.
The Washington Post reported in February on a draft executive order written by Trump allies. It envisions Trump seizing on the idea that China interfered in the 2020 election to exert unprecedented emergency control over the coming election.
While the potential for ICE agents at polling places or the use of emergency powers by Trump are only possibilities at the moment, the proposals in Trump’s Save America Act – meant to save the country from a horde of illegal voters Trump believes vote despite so much evidence to the contrary – are more tangible.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the voter ID bill was part of Trump’s plan to guarantee the election for Republicans.
“This is not about stopping widespread voter fraud, which is a myth pushed by Republicans in the first place,” Schumer wrote. “Rather, it’s about giving the Department of Homeland Security power to choose who can vote.”
Senate Republicans, for the record, do not currently have the votes to pass the bill. But advocates for the legislation are promising a drawn-out effort modeled on the civil rights era legislation, to convince Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose it.
Voter roll audits in Georgia, Louisiana and Utah have found only token examples of questionable voter registrations. Louisiana made use of a new database put together by the Trump administration and identified only 79 potential illegal votes out of millions cast in the state since the 1980s. At the same time, more onerous voter ID requirements are popular with solid majority support in recent polling.
No wonder Trump has tried to pivot the DHS funding debate from Democrats’ demand for restrictions on ICE agents to his demand to include the voter ID bill, which could make it more difficult for Americans of all stripes to register to vote by requiring proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, to be presented in person. It would add barriers to getting people on voter rolls that don’t currently exist. It could also end up purging people from rolls.
The voter ID bill would also effectively ban mail-in voting without an excuse, something Trump says is “corrupt.” Trump has routinely voted by mail, including in a Florida state House election where his endorsed candidate lost to a Democrat this week, but he has an excuse: working a day job in Washington, DC.
