‘THIS IS THE BIGGEST THREAT’: ELECTION EXPERTS SOUND THE ALARM ON TRUMP’S NEW PLOY TO ‘DISRUPT’ ELECTION RESULTS
The biggest battle of the 2026 midterm elections may not end when Americans leave the polls.
It could begin after they leave.
With Election Day approaching, election experts are increasingly focused on what happens during the hours and days after November 3 — when millions of ballots may still be waiting to be counted and some of the most consequential races could remain unresolved.
That period is becoming known as the election’s “counting window.”
And according to experts cited by The Guardian, it could provide an opening for false claims, political pressure and disputes over the legitimacy of results.
Larry Norden, vice president of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice, put the concern bluntly.
“To me, this is the biggest threat right now,” he said.
The warning does not mean that election results will be disrupted.
It means experts are increasingly concerned about what could happen if close races remain undecided while the remaining ballots are being processed.
WHY THE HOURS AFTER ELECTION DAY MATTER
Americans are accustomed to hearing election results on election night.
But that does not mean every vote has been counted by midnight.
States have different rules and different timelines for processing ballots. Some races can take days to resolve, particularly when margins are narrow and large numbers of mail or provisional ballots remain.
California, for example, can take weeks to complete its count.
That creates a period in which the public knows that a race is extremely close but does not yet know the final result.
According to Caitlin Durkovich, a former deputy homeland security adviser for resilience and response at the National Security Council, that waiting period can become particularly vulnerable to misinformation.
“That period, that waiting time, is where doubt begins to surface,” Durkovich said at a Brennan Center briefing.
She warned that doubts could then be amplified by foreign or domestic actors, potentially creating distrust in the electoral process.
And that is where the new concern surrounding the Trump administration comes into focus.
THE “FOREIGN INTERFERENCE” QUESTION
Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly emphasized the possibility of foreign interference in U.S. elections.
Election-security experts, however, distinguish between foreign influence — such as propaganda or attempts to shape public opinion — and actual foreign interference in the technical process of counting votes.
Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of national intelligence, told the Guardian that there have been no examples of a foreign country directly manipulating vote counts in the U.S. election process.
That distinction could become important after Election Day.
Because if an allegation of foreign interference is raised while ballots are still being counted, experts fear it could be used to justify extraordinary demands for access to ballots or voting equipment.
Durkovich said she was concerned that officials could invoke alleged foreign interference as a reason to attempt to seize equipment or ballots, regardless of whether such action was legally justified.
That remains a warning about a possible scenario — not evidence that such a seizure will occur.
TRUMP’S MAIL-BALLOT PUSH ALREADY HIT A COURT BARRIER
The concern comes after several major efforts by the Trump administration to change election procedures have run into legal challenges.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court left in place a lower-court injunction blocking the administration from using the U.S. Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security to vet mail-ballot deliveries.
That ruling limited one avenue through which the administration had sought to influence the handling of mail ballots.
But experts quoted by the Guardian say that losing battles in court could make the period surrounding the election itself more important.
The fear is not necessarily that a new rule will successfully change how Americans vote.
It is that disputes could move from the rule-making stage into the counting and certification stage.
That distinction is critical.
THE ADMINISTRATION IS STILL BUILDING ITS ELECTION NARRATIVE
At the same time, federal officials have continued pursuing voter-roll information from states.
The Guardian reported that the Department of Homeland Security has sought voter-roll lists from states that did not voluntarily provide them, while the federal government has also asked states to preserve documentation from the 2024 election for possible future inquiries.
DHS is separately pursuing what it describes as an effort to identify noncitizens on voter rolls.
Critics of the administration argue that these efforts, combined with repeated claims about election fraud, could contribute to a narrative that American elections are inherently unreliable.
Former Election Assistance Commission chair Ben Hovland warned that claims about foreign interference and alleged illegal registrations could reinforce such a narrative.
But again, the distinction between an administration pursuing election-security measures and those measures actually changing election results remains important.
The latter has not been established by the reporting.
WHAT HAPPENS IF A RACE IS TOO CLOSE TO CALL?
Imagine Election Day ends with a Senate or House race separated by a few thousand votes.
Television networks have not called it.
Thousands of ballots remain to be processed.
Officials are still conducting the normal counting and verification procedures.
That is precisely when the information environment could become chaotic.
One side might declare victory.
The other could allege irregularities.
Social-media accounts could circulate unverified claims.
Foreign actors could attempt to exploit the confusion.
And political figures could demand immediate investigations.
None of those events would, by themselves, determine the winner.
Election officials still have to complete the count, conduct required audits and follow state certification procedures.
But the longer the result remains unresolved, the more time there is for competing narratives to take hold.
That is why Norden believes public education about the counting process is so important.
He argued that voters should understand that seeing ballots counted after Election Day does not mean something has gone wrong.
THE ELECTION IS ALREADY UNDERWAY IN SOME PLACES
Another important point is that voting does not actually begin and end on a single day.
By late September, ballots are already being distributed in states across the country.
Ben Hovland told the Guardian that “every state in the country now has live ballots out.”
That means legal challenges and disputes occurring now can potentially affect an election process that has already begun.
Election officials are therefore attempting to explain the normal counting process before the controversy arrives.
The objective is straightforward: if the public already understands why some races take longer to call, delayed results may be less likely to be interpreted as evidence of wrongdoing.
THERE IS ALSO A SYSTEM OF CHECKS
Despite the warnings, experts do not say that disruption is inevitable.
The U.S. election system remains highly decentralized.
States and local jurisdictions administer elections under their own laws, while courts can intervene when election procedures are challenged.
Election officials also conduct audits and other verification procedures after voting.
Geoff Hales, a former cybersecurity official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the Guardian that election officials across the country have taken cybersecurity seriously and that every state audits its results.
At the same time, Hales expressed concern about reductions in federal election-security support and information-sharing.
That creates a complicated picture.
The election infrastructure remains decentralized and subject to multiple safeguards.
But some experts believe the federal government is providing less support to state officials than in previous years.
THE REAL BATTLE MAY BE OVER TRUST
That may ultimately be the most important part of this story.
A delayed election result is not automatically a stolen election.
A disputed ballot is not automatically evidence of fraud.
And an allegation of foreign interference is not proof that foreign actors changed votes.
But experts warn that repeated allegations can still have an effect if enough voters begin to doubt the legitimacy of the process.
That is why the “counting window” has become such a focus.
The ballots may still be moving through the system.
The legal challenges may still be unfolding.
And the final numbers may not yet be known.
Yet the public conversation about who won could already be raging.
For the Trump administration and its critics, that creates very different interpretations of the same period.
Administration officials describe their efforts in terms of election security and protecting the integrity of the vote.
Election experts quoted by the Guardian worry that the same efforts, combined with unsubstantiated claims of fraud or interference, could undermine confidence in results.
What happens next will depend on how officials, courts, campaigns and voters respond when the numbers are close.
May you like
And this year, the most consequential moment may not be when Americans cast their ballots.
It may be the days afterward — when everyone is waiting to find out what those ballots actually say.
