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By the time you read this column, the 2026 midterms will be history—or not.
The predictions were that the Republicans would lose badly, with Democrats winning back control of the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. What matters though, are the DOJ’s desperate moves to cast doubt on who won and who lost and whether there was widespread voter fraud requiring the federal government to change election results.
Let’s look at what the DOJ has tried to do to rig the election in favor of Republicans in the two weeks leading up to the election.
1) The DOJ threatened California and Washington state elections by alleging that noncitizens have voted in those states.
In California, DOJ alleges that 20,000 probable illegals voted. In Washington state, the number is 400. No evidence was offered as to the sources for these numbers.
For California, the federal judge who heard the case had not acted as quickly as the DOJ attorneys had requested. So, the DOJ lawyers bypassed that judge and went directly to the appeals court which promptly threw out the case. Washington’s case has not come before a judge. Pro-democracy lawyers filed a lawsuit to find if any other states had been similarly targeted in red states.
These actions by the DOJ violate both state and federal law. The states and Congress control elections, not the executive branch, according to the Constitution.
There is also a federal law that requires that there be a “quiet period” 90-days before the election where no interference is permitted in voting procedures. This law has been repeatedly violated. A judge denied DOJ requests to segregate California ballots, saying it would “wreak havoc on voting”, since 3.7 million people have already voted in the state” (at the time of the judge’s decision). More than a million votes had already been cast in Washington state.
2) Alaskan Democratic senatorial candidate Mary Peltola is running against Republican incumbent Daniel Sullivan. It states clearly on the ballot that Sullivan is the incumbent.
There is also another candidate on the ballot by the name of Daniel Sullivan. This issue was taken before the Alaska state Supreme Court months earlier, and the second Daniel Sullivan’s name was allowed to stay. President Trump has demanded that the election go to the incumbent Republican candidate due to having two Daniel Sullivans on the ballot.
“Trump said he had ordered the justice department to file a lawsuit to block the certification of the Senate election if Sullivan does not win. That suit is pending” (The Guardian). By the time you read this, you will know the outcome—or not. (Boldface print is mine.)
3) In Maine, President Trump waived tariffs for products coming in from Canada to benefit Senator Susan Collins in her reelection bid while putting more tariffs on Canadian imports.
Drawing conclusions from the previous two weeks of the DOJ interfering in the November midterms:
– It’s clear that President Trump is going way beyond his constitutional power in each of these examples. The states and Congress are the only two government organizations that have any constitutional control over voting. It also violates state and federal law to interfere in elections during the 90-day “quiet period” before elections
– Charges of illegal immigrants voting are presented without evidence.
– The federal government stepping into voting in these states from a very unpopular president are likely to hurt the Republican candidates rather than help them. Americans do not react well to being bullied by autocratic presidents.
– It’s clear that the president’s goals are to create confusion and doubt in the minds of voters about democracy and voting.
– Even though the election is over, the time of the President’s attack on democracy is just beginning a new phase. The hope for American democracy is that so many voters will turn out that the decisions cannot be disputed as having been rigged.
– Be prepared for more disputes and refusals to admit defeat for months. The stage after the election is only phase two of the attack on democracy.
Richard Elfers is a columnist, a former Enumclaw City Council member and a Green River College professor.
