Senior Senate Democrats, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, have taken part in two election-disruption exercises this year as they prepare for possible threats before the November US midterms.
The scenarios presented by legal and voting-rights experts included AI-generated deepfakes alleging election fraud, threats against election workers, armed men at polling sites and possible federal pressure on states and news organisations.
What the exercises examined
The exercises took place in a Washington DC conference room and included senators Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, Elissa Slotkin and Raphael Warnock. Participants also included Protect Democracy, Democracy Forward, election attorney Marc Elias, former attorney general Eric Holder and election law expert Norman Eisen.
One scenario involved realistic deepfake videos spreading on social media several weeks before voting. Although forensic experts identified the material as synthetic, rightwing media and the president amplified the claims, while election workers received death threats and armed men appeared at polling places.
Related coverage: Michigan Democrats Await Result in Tight El-Sayed-Stevens Senate Race.
Why Democrats are planning now
Justin Vail, who leads Protect Democracy’s DC office, said tabletop exercises are intended to create realistic conditions, identify gaps, test assumptions and improve coordination rather than predict exactly what will happen.
The planning has been shaped by Donald Trump’s continuing false claims about the 2020 election and his demand for federal election oversight. Trump has urged Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in ballots nationwide and add identification requirements for voter registration and voting. Republican senators have refused to remove the 60-vote filibuster threshold needed to pass it.
The possible responses under discussion
Senators considered how to respond if the Office of Management and Budget withheld funding from states that did not submit voter rolls for federal oversight, or if the Federal Communications Commission acted against news outlets covering deepfakes.
More context: Fauci refuses to answer questions in Senate hearing, citing Fifth Amendment rights.
More extreme scenarios included armed people at ballot drop boxes, online publication of license plates, a firebombing at an early-voting site and a last-minute unilateral deployment of Department of Homeland Security agents and the National Guard to polling stations. The source notes that armed vigilantes at ballot drop boxes were reported in Arizona during the 2022 midterms.
Democracy Forward chief executive Skye Perryman said the distributed structure of US elections and the legal system provide defenses against political interference. She also said protecting elections would require coordinated action rather than a single solution.
Also read: Trump asks Supreme Court to reinstate mail-in voting restrictions ahead of November elections.
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