'Trump is showing us the playbook': Officials scramble to protect against election interference

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: MS NOW News

Feb. 9, 2026, 5:00 AM EST


In Minnesota, state election officials are gaming out how to respond if armed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up at polling places this November. In the nation’s capital, congressional Democrats are discussing how to respond if a Republican governor sends National Guard troops into a Democratic stronghold on Election Day to lower turnout.

And in multiple private conversations, former national security and law enforcement officials are considering the best legal strategies to defend the midterm elections against interference by Trump administration officials, including FBI agents seizing voting machines on Election Day. President Donald Trump’s call for the GOP to “nationalize” elections is spurring many officials, lawyers and lawmakers across the U.S. to bolster their defenses against election interference.

While many Republicans brush off the president’s threats, election officials are rushing to organize meetings and conference calls to prepare for scenarios in which Trump might use federal agents, troops or MAGA-aligned local officials to interfere in elections. “This now belongs in the same category as a power outage, a bomb threat, a weather incident, because it would be irresponsible now for us not to plan what the response would look like,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon told MS NOW.

The threat of the Trump administration trying to interfere in the midterm elections is being taken seriously, he said, citing Trump’s deployment of federal agents and military personnel to some American cities and recent calls by his allies for such forces to be placed near polling stations. “We’ve now gotten to the point, sadly, in 2026 where the process of federal interference with our elections — either directly or indirectly — is something that we have to game out and plan for,” Simon said.

Read more: https://www.ms.now/news/trump-election-interference-2026-midterms-politics

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Goddamn to hell that evil creature and all his followers! How dare he mess with our elections?

[lastlib]

2. CP, that is the nastiest thing I've ever seen you post here!

And I LOVE you for it!!! You express my sentiments perfectly!

[lastlib]

3. I've been thinking about these scenarios for a long time....

I think we need to organize citizen volunteers to help guard election sites in key districts--districts currently held by repugs that could swing to Dem; polling places in blue districts w/ GOPee governors; or in blue states that The Felon calls "corrupt" or rigged. (This could be a majority of the country.) Glad to hear that it's being planned for, but I think we need citizen support. I'm thinking it will be part of my election day plan.

[2na fisherman]

4. Whistles Vs Guns

If there are citizen volunteers watching the polls, what happens when they get attacked by armed Feds and troops? I think the idea of poll watchers is good but state officials must take proactive steps to mobilize a pool of Democratic state-controlled national guard forces to protect them. So a multi-scenario approach should also include use of force options to repel violent Fed forces in a worse-case scenario. I can imagine Trump will try to declare poll watchers to be "domestic terrorists" and members of an "unlawful assembly." He might even emulate Iran's wholesale murder of protesters by the mass murder of poll watchers here. He has already unleashed fatal bloodshed against US citizens. It would just be a matter of increasing the body count and presenting it as a show of strength. And he is desperate to change the outcome of elections by any means necessary because if the Dems are able to win back the House and Senate, he is very aware that he will be successfully impeached this time.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. "he is very aware that he will be successfully impeached this time."

He has been "successfully impeached" TWICE and wears that as a badge of honor.

Unless you can get 67 Senators to convict and remove, a 3rd impeachment is nothing more than a "historical" rebuke against his lawlessness, which should happen, but will come with no consequences.