Federal Courts Are the Bulwark Blocking Trump’s Lawless Election Interference

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution gives exclusive authority to oversee and administer our congressional elections to the states and Congress. The Constitution provides no authority over these elections to Article II’s Executive Branch.

Nevertheless, President Trump has taken numerous steps to inject himself and his administration into micromanaging and interfering with the 2026 congressional elections – with Cleta Mitchell spearheading many of these efforts.

The reasons are obvious.

Trump wants to rig the elections to favor congressional Republicans, and if Republican candidates lose, he wants to discredit the results. Trump has been falsely claiming elections are rigged against him and his party since he falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

To date, the federal courts have been the powerful bulwark blocking Trump’s lawless efforts to manipulate and interfere in the 2026 congressional elections.

Just yesterday, Judge David Carter, a federal district judge in California, refused a federal government request to order California to set aside and not count ballots from more than 20,000 voters that it claimed were likely noncitizens. The government failed to provide credible evidence to support its claim.

Judge Carter warned that the administration’s request could disenfranchise eligible voters and create chaos in an election already underway.

The government has appealed but has already lost once in the same case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In his opinion, Judge Carter slammed the Trump administration, calling the federal government’s request for a temporary restraining order evidence of “a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference.”

Judge Carter captured Trump’s efforts to blatantly ignore the Constitution when he wrote:

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch. In bringing this lawsuit, the executive would have this court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

The federal courts have been able to play their role of protecting the integrity of our elections because a legion of courageous, skillful and effective lawyers in nonprofit groups, law firms, and state and local government offices have successfully challenged Trump’s efforts to interfere with the 2026 elections at every turn.

Lower federal court judges have repeatedly blocked Trump’s lawless activities in his second term, while the Republican-controlled Congress has been spineless.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, has been more than kind to Trump ruling in his favor in some 80 percent of the many shadow docket appeals filed by the Trump administration.

But even the Supreme Court has done its part to stop Trump from interfering in the 2026 congressional elections.

The Supreme Court ruled, in Trump’s effort to inject the Post Office into micromanaging state and local mail ballots, that it would leave in place a preliminary injunction that prevented the Postal Service from establishing mandatory national standards for mailed ballots for the 2026 congressional elections.

(The Supreme Court, however, also “overturned another court order that would have temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.”)

Meanwhile, the lower federal courts in election cases have done the job envisioned by the Constitution.

According to the Brennan Center, “At least 34 federal district court decisions have either temporarily halted or permanently blocked efforts by the administration to interfere in elections, including 22 judges appointed by Democratic presidents and 12 judges appointed by Republican presidents (including 8 appointed by President Trump himself).”

The Justice Department, for example, filed lawsuits in 30 states and Washington, D.C., demanding that the states send them their voter lists. The DOJ has lost 27 of these lawsuits and won zero of them.

Trump’s illegal attempts to interfere with the 2026 congressional elections are just one more example of his lawlessness and his utter contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.

Trump will continue his lawless attack on the integrity and fairness of our coming elections and their aftermath. And we will continue to rely on courageous lawyers and federal judges to protect the integrity and fairness of the 2026 congressional elections.

Before it is over, the Supreme Court will no doubt also come into play in the need to protect the Constitution and the 2026 congressional elections. The Court better not fail the American people.

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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.