They tried to overturn the 2020 US election. Now, they hold power in Trump’s Washington | US elections 2020

Those trying to overturn the 2020 election have more power than ever before, and they plan to use it.

Supported by the president, these individuals hold important roles in key parts of the federal government. Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon helped progress Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen now leads the justice department’s civil rights division. Election denier Heather Honey, now serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. Kurt Olsen, a lawyer involved in the “stop the steal” movement, is now a special government employee We are investigating the 2020 elections.

A movement that once pressured elected officials to bend to its whims is now part of the government.

“The call is literally coming from inside the house,” said Joanna Lydgate, co-founder and chief executive officer of the United States Center for Democracy. “They now have tentacles in the White House, in Congress, in federal agencies, with outside groups really fueling that infrastructure.”

The Trump administration is going after states that make questionable requests for voter data that could entrap qualified voters and provide the basis for future claims of fraud. They seek to impose rules that limit voter access or sow distrust about who can vote and how. Trump deployed federal agents in cities across the country. increase fears that civil servants may be heard for election purposes.

“All of this, while focused on past elections, is a misdirection about what the real intent is, which is to interfere with the 2026 elections and try to delegitimize those elections if the president’s party is not successful,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. He said the results of the 2025 off-year elections, in which Democrats won large victories, would likely “strengthen the administration’s determination to intervene in state elections and further spread doubt about the results.”

Some state and local election officials say they no longer have a working relationship with the federal government and do not trust the expertise they once had on election security.

“The federal government is no longer a reliable partner of democracy,” Jena Griswold, the Democratic secretary of state in Colorado, told the Guardian.

Adrian Fontes, the Arizona secretary of state, said: “There would have to be a significant change in the rhetoric and attitude of senior leaders in the administration for me to open my door and say, ‘Yes, guys, come in.’ I would be foolish to let the fox in the henhouse.”

Asked for comment, the White House did not answer questions about what authority Trump believes he has over the election or whether he will use emergency powers to seize control of the election, as election experts fear.

What did they do with their power?

Trump’s victory in 2024 has fueled the promotion of election denialism, both within the ranks of the president known to reward loyalty and in outside groups that have long lobbied for new laws and policies that match his false claims of widespread election fraud.

On the first day of his term, Trump issued an amnesty to all those who attacked the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. By November, he issued dozens of preemptive pardons for those involved in the fraudulent voter scheme and other attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Ed Martin, who stopped the burglary activist, helped grant pardons.

Lydgate of the United States said the administration’s strategy for the election was “death by 1,000 cuts to ensure that this group of election deniers can get the results they want.”

The three pillars of the strategy, he said, are stripping power from nonpartisan election officials, overwhelming election administrators with frivolous work and threats, and trying to shape voters in their favor by removing voters from the rolls.

“There have always been political leaders who complain about election results, but not in the way where you’re trying to discredit the entire system and channel the resources of the federal government to advance this measure,” said Derek Tisler, counsel and director of the Brennan Center’s election and government program.

election activists helped draft a bill This would require people to prove their citizenship in order to vote. When the U.S. House passed the American Voter Eligibility Protection (Registration) Act, Cleta Mitchell, leader of an influential “election integrity” group, presented with vote counting card.

When Trump issued an executive order in March to “safeguard and protect the integrity of American elections,” it looked something like this:US Citizens’ Elections Bill of RightsThe proposal, promoted by Mitchell, had both called for documented proof of citizenship to register to vote. Most administrative decisions were stopped by the courts.

The widespread pursuit of citizenship verification among election activists who believe that large numbers of non-citizens are voting has led to the expanded and controversial use of a system intended to screen for citizenship not for the sake of voting but for the public good. Trump administration said this expanded service allowing more database searches and allowing election officials to search people in large groups rather than individually. Authorities reportedly He briefed Mitchell’s group to explain the new uses. Suffrage groups filed a lawsuit on this expansion.

Mitchell declined to comment.

Another obsession of election deniers—“purge” lists, which they claim hold large numbers of invalid voters despite regular and careful maintenance by election officials—has the power of the federal government behind it. The Justice Department searched dozens of states’ voter rolls. effort to collect a national voter register, the purpose of which is unclear.

Some states have refused to pass on the decision, citing voter privacy concerns and a lack of clarity. Voting rights experts and election officials fear the administration will use the database, which is almost certainly incomplete, to launch fishing expeditions on allegations of past or future fraud.

A Justice Department spokesman said the agency has the authority to ensure states have “appropriate voter registration procedures and programs to maintain clean voter rolls that include only eligible voters in federal elections.” The spokesperson said that the data sent to the ministry within the scope of voter registration requests was “examined for inappropriate voter entries.”

“Clean voter lists and basic electoral guarantees are essential for free, fair and transparent elections,” Dhillon said in a statement. “DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has the statutory authority to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public has confidence in the integrity of our elections is this administration’s top priority.”

Damage to relations with states

It’s not just the active steps the Trump administration is taking to empower election deniers. The administration has also weakened its expertise on cybersecurity and elections compared to the first Trump administration. Election disinformation research And foreign interference study dispersed. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), major cuts.

Becker, of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said he has spoken to election officials in both parties who currently do not trust the federal government as a partner in elections, “in stark contrast” to the first Trump administration.

“In addition to the positive impact of recruiting conspiracy theorists into the federal government, there is also the additional negative action of undoing the positive things the federal government has done in the past,” he said.

In response to concerns about CISA’s diminished role, the Department of Homeland Security said: “Unlike the previous administration, CISA is focused squarely on fulfilling its statutory mission: to serve as the national coordinator to secure and protect the nation’s critical infrastructure and provide timely, actionable cyber threat intelligence, support federal, state, and local partners, and defend against both nation-state and criminal cyber threats.”

States are beginning to take on more roles, with the federal government assisting them. Fontes said the federal government provides intelligence and technical advice and has a direct line to the former head of CISA for any concerns. His office has had “virtually no interaction” with the federal government this year.

“It’s like playing regular football but you only have a team of eight players,” he said. “We don’t have a partner anymore. It feels like we have an enemy, and that’s not a healthy way to govern.”

Since Trump has no authority over election administration, he will rely on allies in their roles in state and local elections to carry out his marching orders, said Samantha Tarazi, co-founder and CEO of Voting Rights Lab.

“Just as you see more high-profile election deniers in positions in the federal government, you also have to keep in mind that the benches are stacked right now at the more grassroots level, for example, at county boards and state boards of elections,” Tarazi said.

In some places, including the Georgia state board of elections and county boards in Arizona, activists already hold positions related to election oversight. And a high-profile election challenge in North Carolina, where a Republican who lost a judicial election sought to disqualify voters, served as a test case for how elections might be challenged in the future.

What does this mean for midterms?

As we approach the midterm elections, these efforts to undermine the election will intensify, and allegations that Democrats or the courts are trying to block the Trump administration from enacting rules to protect the election will escalate; it’s all part of a plan to undermine the results if Republicans lose. Attempts to limit access to voting and remove voters from the rolls will continue to be common in 2026.

There will be pressure campaigns on local officials to force Trump to implement policies that he cannot legally implement himself. If their candidate loses, he and his allies will pressure local officials not to certify the results or file voter objections. In short, 2026 could look a lot like 2020, depending on who wins.

Voter denial activists want Trump to go further: Some have called on him to declare a national emergency to lay claim to the election. Mitchell acknowledged in a podcast earlier this year that the president’s power in elections is limited — “unless there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States.”

US senators have warned of the threat of a national voting emergency, citing Trump’s hiring of election deniers in prominent roles and their potential to influence the administration.

“From day one, Donald Trump has worked to undermine our free and fair elections. He has filled his team with election deniers like Ed Martin, Kurt Olsen, and Heather Honey; their extremist tactics are clear: Push Trump to declare a fake ‘national emergency’ to interfere with state elections because they know Republicans can’t win based on their own record,” California Democratic senator Alex Padilla said in a statement.

Becker said the courts served as a “major limiting factor” in Trump’s ability to steal the election, just as they did in 2020. The decentralized nature of elections in the United States also makes it difficult to overturn results. But the chaos already sown is much more extreme than last time.

“There is no doubt in my mind that there is the potential for political pressure to be applied against election administrators,” Fontes said. “And my call to election administrators, not just in Arizona but across the country, is to stay strong. Just do your job.”