Why are election officials in the US preparing for chaos before midterms?

Trump lashes out at justices who rejected his federal mail-in ballot plan, raising questions on his next electoral moves.

Supporters of mail-in voting rally outside the US Capitol the day after the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to make mail-in voting more restrictive in Washington, DJ [File: Jim Lo Scalzo]

US President Donald Trump has lashed out at the Supreme Court for rejecting his push to curb mail-in voting , raising fears that the US president might use federal powers to meddle in November’s midterm elections.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” the president lashed out after the court verdict on Monday. The justices “are merely a shell of their original selves, a court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings”.

list 1 of 3 Selling the war: Purges, polygraphs and propaganda

list 2 of 3 Trump tells Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian diesel supplies

list 3 of 3 Tehran and Muscat delay talks, citing regional consensus need

The ruling means states can continue administering mail-in voting under their existing procedures. Mail-in and absentee ballots have been used in the United States for decades and now account for roughly a third of votes cast nationwide.

Despite the ruling, political analysts and some officials fear that Trump may not let the electoral process proceed as planned, and might pull some other strings to tilt the election in his favour.

So what voting rules exactly has Trump tried to change – and what other powers could his administration seek to use in the run-up to the midterms?

Can Trump use federal powers to tilt the elections in his favour?

Election officials across the country are concerned about the prospects of interference, from the potential for ballot seizures to voter-fraud investigations.

A Reuters investigation based on interviews with dozens of state and local election officials showed that they are adopting new strategies to prepare for political interference, misinformation, cyberattacks and intimidation tactics.

According to the report, more than a dozen local and state election officials said they are hiring outside lawyers or seeking legal training for themselves and their staff to prepare for potential demands by the administration for access to sensitive voting records or election equipment.

Nearly twice that many said they are expanding public outreach and social media campaigns to counter misinformation, including the false claims made by Trump and Republican allies that voting machines are unreliable and mail-in voting is inherently corrupt.

What have the opposition and campaigners said on Trump’s electoral agenda?

Campaigners have fiercely resisted Trump’s executive actions attempting to dictate federal voting procedures. Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice have sued the administration, arguing that the Constitution gives authority over federal elections primarily to states and Congress, rather than the president.

The pushback has also come from Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of 261 current and former members of Congress filed a brief with the Supreme Court challenging Trump’s executive order and the subsequent Postal Service rule. They argued that the measures violated the separation of powers by taking authority over federal elections that the Constitution grants to states and Congress.

“The Constitution is clear that the states and Congress make the rules for federal elections, not the President,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, one of the lawmakers leading the effort, said.

As per the US Constitution, elections are conducted by local authorities working under the states.

Raskin described Trump’s attempt to use the US Postal Service to regulate mailed ballots as “a naked power grab”, accusing the president of seeking “to inject confusion and chaos into our elections in a last-ditch effort to keep his party in power”.

Senator Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, similarly argued that neither the president nor the Postal Service had the authority to determine how states administer elections. He said restricting voting by mail could particularly affect military personnel, people living in rural areas, and Americans living abroad.

The White House rejected accusations that it is seeking to interfere in the midterms, saying its measures are aimed at preventing illegal voting and ensuring confidence in the electoral system.

Why does Trump oppose mail-in voting?

This is not the first time Trump has cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting, citing debunked claims of widespread election fraud associated with it. Trump falsely blamed his presidential election loss on mail-in voting fraud in 2020. Back then, he called the voting system “the greatest scam in the history of politics”. He and his supporters opposed changes made during the COVID pandemic to expand mail-in voting.

Trump and his supporters also claim that the mail-ballot plan enables a large number of non-citizens to register and vote illegally, corrupting elections. For this, he has pushed for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) that would require citizens to provide “documentary proof” that they are American citizens when they register to vote. The legislation is stalled in the Senate over concerns that millions of voters will be disenfranchised.

Studies show that voter fraud is extremely rare. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative-leaning think tank behind Project 2025 – which inspired many Trump administration policies – documented 100 cases of noncitizens voting from 1982 to 2025. That is about 0.000008 percent of more than 1.3 billion votes cast in presidential elections during that time.

What has he done to change election rules?

Trump has been explicit about his desire to assert more federal control over the election, saying in early February that “Republicans ought to nationalise the voting”. The White House has dismissed concerns that federal actions could disrupt the midterms, arguing that the administration is enforcing election laws and safeguarding confidence in voting.

In March 2026, Trump signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to take control of mail-in voting by designing new envelopes with special barcodes that would allow the federal government to ensure ballots are only from eligible voters.

For the midterms, that move would force all states to adopt a uniform envelope style in a short time.

The order also required states to provide the Postal Service with a list of eligible voters before elections. Several government departments, including Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, would also have the voters’ lists.

The postal agency was additionally empowered to deny mailed ballots if they did not comply with new standards or were not associated with registered voters on the states’ lists.

The attorney general has demanded that 47 states and Washington, DC, a federal district, hand over their complete voter registration lists, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group. Eleven states have complied or agreed to comply. The Trump administration has launched lawsuits against the 20 others that refused.

特朗普猛烈抨击驳回其联邦邮寄投票计划的法官，引发人们对他下一步选举策略的疑问。

在最高法院裁定特朗普政府试图在华盛顿州进一步限制邮寄投票的企图失败后的第二天，邮寄投票的支持者在美国国会大厦外举行集会。[图片：Jim Lo Scalzo]

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普猛烈抨击最高法院驳回了他限制邮寄投票的努力，引发了人们对美国总统可能利用联邦权力干预11月中期选举的担忧。

“这些人根本不是我当初面试的最高法院大法官人选，”总统在周一最高法院判决后猛烈抨击道。他表示，这些大法官“只是徒有其表，他们做出的种种糟糕判决让美国损失了数万亿美元”。

列表 1/3 兜售战争：清洗、测谎和宣传

特朗普要求泽连斯基停止打击俄罗斯柴油供应（共3条，第2条）

德黑兰和马斯喀特推迟会谈（共3项），理由是需要达成地区共识。

这项裁决意味着各州可以继续按照现有程序进行邮寄投票。邮寄投票和缺席投票在美国已经使用了几十年，目前约占全国投票总数的三分之一。

尽管有裁决，但政治分析人士和一些官员担心，特朗普可能不会让选举进程按计划进行，并可能动用其他手段使选举结果对他有利。

那么，特朗普究竟试图改变哪些投票规则？在中期选举前夕，他的政府还会寻求动用哪些其他权力？

特朗普能否利用联邦权力来操纵选举，使之对自己有利？

全国各地的选举官员都对可能出现的干预情况感到担忧，从可能扣押选票到调查选民欺诈行为。

路透社根据对数十名州和地方选举官员的采访进行的一项调查显示，他们正在采取新的策略来应对政治干预、虚假信息、网络攻击和恐吓手段。

据报道，十几名地方和州选举官员表示，他们正在聘请外部律师或为自己和工作人员寻求法律培训，以应对政府可能要求获取敏感投票记录或选举设备的要求。

近两倍于此的人数表示，他们正在扩大公共宣传和社交媒体活动，以反驳虚假信息，包括特朗普及其共和党盟友提出的投票机不可靠和邮寄投票本身就存在腐败的虚假说法。

反对派和竞选人员对特朗普的竞选纲领有何看法？

活动人士强烈抵制特朗普试图干预联邦选举程序的行政命令。包括美国公民自由联盟（ACLU）和布伦南司法中心在内的多个团体已对特朗普政府提起诉讼，认为宪法赋予联邦选举的权力主要属于各州和国会，而非总统。

来自国会山的反对声浪也随之而来。由261名现任和前任国会议员组成的跨党派团体向最高法院提交了一份简报，对特朗普的行政命令及其后颁布的邮政服务规则提出质疑。他们认为，这些措施侵犯了权力分立原则，因为它们侵占了宪法赋予各州和国会的联邦选举权力。

“宪法明确规定，联邦选举规则由各州和国会制定，而不是由总统制定，”领导这项工作的民主党众议员杰米·拉斯金说。

根据美国宪法，选举由各州管辖下的地方当局进行。

拉斯金将特朗普试图利用美国邮政服务来监管邮寄选票的行为描述为“赤裸裸的权力攫取”，并指责总统试图“在我们的选举中制造混乱和骚动，以做最后的努力来保住他所在政党的权力”。

参议院规则委员会首席民主党议员亚历克斯·帕迪利亚参议员也持类似观点，他认为总统和邮政局都无权决定各州如何管理选举。他表示，限制邮寄投票可能会对军人、农村居民和海外美国公民造成特别影响。

白宫否认了有关其试图干预中期选举的指控，称其措施旨在防止非法投票，并确保民众对选举制度的信心。

特朗普为什么反对邮寄投票？

这并非特朗普首次质疑邮寄投票的安全性，他曾援引已被揭穿的所谓邮寄投票存在大规模选举舞弊的说法。2020年，特朗普错误地将自己总统大选的失败归咎于邮寄投票舞弊。当时，他称该投票系统是“政治史上最大的骗局”。他和他的支持者反对在新冠疫情期间为扩大邮寄投票范围而进行的改革。

特朗普及其支持者还声称，邮寄投票计划使得大量非公民能够非法登记和投票，从而破坏选举。为此，他力推《保障美国选民资格法案》（SAVE法案），该法案要求公民在登记投票时提供“证明文件”以证明其美国公民身份。由于担心数百万选民将被剥夺投票权，该法案在参议院陷入僵局。

研究表明，选民舞弊极其罕见。保守派智库传统基金会（其“2025计划”启发了特朗普政府的多项政策）记录了1982年至2025年间仅有100起非公民投票的案例。这仅占同期总统选举13亿多张选票的0.000008%左右。

他做了什么来改变选举规则？

特朗普曾明确表示希望加强联邦政府对选举的控制，他在2月初曾说“共和党人应该将投票权全国化”。白宫驳斥了联邦政府的行动可能扰乱中期选举的担忧，辩称政府正在执行选举法，维护公众对投票的信心。

2026 年 3 月，特朗普签署了一项行政命令，指示美国邮政局通过设计带有特殊条形码的新信封来控制邮寄投票，以便联邦政府能够确保选票只来自合格的选民。

对于中期选举而言，此举将迫使所有州在短时间内采用统一的信封样式。

该命令还要求各州在选举前向邮政局提供合格选民名单。包括国土安全部和美国公民及移民服务局在内的几个政府部门也将持有这些选民名单。

邮政部门还被授权拒绝邮寄选票，如果这些选票不符合新标准，或者与各州名单上的注册选民没有关联。

据无党派政策研究机构布伦南司法中心统计，司法部长已要求47个州和华盛顿特区（联邦特区）交出完整的选民登记名单。其中11个州已遵照执行或同意执行。特朗普政府已对其余20个拒绝配合的州提起诉讼。