The Framers granted the President no role in elections. Trump has decided otherwise. Early in his second term, he issued an executive order to restrict voter registration, impose new standards for voting machines, step up prosecution of “election crimes,” and forbid state authorities to count ballots that are mailed on time but arrive after Election Day. In March, he issued another executive order with fresh instructions for election oversight. Meanwhile, the Justice Department set to work on a separate path. In a string of nearly identical lawsuits, filed beginning in September, 2025, it accused chief election officers in 30 states and the District of Columbia of violating Title III of the Civil Rights Act by failing to hand over electronic copies of their unredacted voter-registration lists. All but one state fought the lawsuits, including seven that had Republican chief election officers. The Administration’s efforts to cull the electorate before the midterms have, by and large, failed. Courts stripped the President’s executive orders of meaningful impact. “If one thing has been decisive in safeguarding the nation’s electoral machinery, it is the tenacity of state officials who willingly accepted the political, financial, and personal risks of defying the President,” Barton Gellman writes. “They did so in a strong majority of states, including some under Republican control.” Read about the state officials defending the midterms from the President: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/sU…