The good news is that the courts closed off most of the routes by which the Trump administration could have impeded, intimidated or purged voters before Election Day. On September 14, the Supreme Court blocked the Postal Service’s restrictions on mail ballots, and in June it upheld grace periods for ballots postmarked by Election Day. The Justice Department has reportedly lost nearly all of its 30 lawsuits seeking states’ voter files. And federal law already bars armed federal agents from polling places, a protection seven states reinforced this year by advancing bans of their own.
Pressure doesn’t disappear when one door closes. It moves to the next one. With the front end of the election largely protected, the softer targets are now the count, certification and the seating of the new House.
The most likely danger is also the most familiar: a fraud story built on slow counts. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia count ballots that arrive after Election Day, so in many places the results will take days. That delay is normal, and it’s a sign the system is working. But it’s also an opening for anyone who wants to claim that votes counted later are suspect, and the ground is already prepared. One survey found that fewer than half of voters expect a fair election.
The second danger may already be under way. The “sanctuary surge” the administration announced in late September is bringing immigration enforcement into 11 states in the days before the vote. The Homeland Security secretary says agents will appear at polling places only in response to “a threat” or with a warrant. Whatever happens at the polls, the surge’s real effect may be to frighten eligible voters in immigrant and mixed-status families into staying home.
After the votes are cast, the fight shifts to close races. Democrats need a net gain of about six seats to win the House, so a handful of tight contests could decide who controls it. Expect recounts and lawsuits in every one of them. Expect, too, that some county boards will refuse to certify results. Courts have forced certification every time a board has tried this since 2020, but each refusal buys time and headlines for the story that something went wrong.
Two darker scenarios are less likely but would do far more damage. The first is the seizure of ballots or voting machines by federal authorities. That would break the chain of custody that makes results trustworthy, and it isn’t hypothetical: The FBI has already raided election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, and Maricopa County, Arizona. The second would be a fight over seating the new House on January 3, in which a newly installed House clerk could leave contested Democrats off the roll. Scholars call that far-fetched, and it could only work if control of the House rests on a handful of seats. But the fact that it’s being discussed at all tells us how much of our democracy now depends on officials choosing to follow the rules.
What can grassroots groups and local officials do once the polls close? The honest answer is that the most useful work will be slow and procedural. It isn’t glamorous. It comes down to three things: making sure every valid ballot is counted, making sure certification happens on time, and keeping the public calm while both are under way.
The first 72 hours matter most. The deadlines to fix rejected ballots, known as cure deadlines, run only a few days, so coalitions should be helping voters amend ballot mistakes right away, while trained observers watch the count. Their public message should be simple and repeated until it sinks in: Slow counts are normal. Local election officials have a parallel job. They can give daily public updates on the count, open counting rooms to observers from all sides, secure ballots and machines, and refuse to release any of them without a court order.
Over the following two weeks, the action moves to county canvass and certification meetings. Coalitions should attend every one, document problems and report them to election protection lawyers, and thank election workers in public, because many of them have been threatened for doing their jobs. Officials, for their part, should certify on time and say in advance that they will, with county and city attorneys ready to go to court the same day any board refuses.
From then through January 3, the work is endurance. Coalitions need to stay organized through recounts and lawsuits, keep local reporters supplied with accurate numbers, and hold mass mobilization in reserve for a real trigger rather than spending it early. Local officials can issue joint statements across party lines affirming the results, and coordinate with their state attorney general on any federal demand for ballots or equipment.
A few principles hold through the whole period. The first is that losers conceding matters as much as winners winning. A local candidate who loses and says so plainly does more for public trust than any press release, so ask them to do it. The second is to witness, not obstruct. If federal agents try to take ballots or equipment, the grassroots job is to film, call lawyers and alert officials. Physically blocking agents would hand over the pretext for a much wider crackdown. The third is that sheriffs and police chiefs have a particular role to play. They can say publicly that they will protect counting sites and lawful assembly, and that they answer to state law on election materials. The fourth is to use unusual messengers: Republicans, veterans, clergy and business owners vouching for the local count will reach people that advocacy groups never will. And the last is to hold on to the volunteers. Whoever shows up in November should be invited into a standing structure before December, whatever the result.
That last point matters more than any other, because it’s where the breakthrough trap begins. The breakthrough trap is the pattern in which a movement wins a breakthrough, an election or a transition, and then goes home, while the forces it defeated regroup, wait and come back. It has happened around the world. It happened here. In 2020 we won, exhaled and demobilized. Four years later, the movement we had beaten returned with a plan, a party and a governing agenda we never matched.
A House majority won in November will not spell safety. It will be an opening, and openings close. The people who show up this fall to watch the count and defend the result are the beginning of something we’ve never had enough of: a permanent grassroots demand system that can hold new leaders to account and defend what we win.
Winning is the breakthrough. Holding it is the job.
This story was adapted from The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, which has a post-election checklist here.
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