American elections are hard to break. They run in more than 10,000 separate jurisdictions, nearly every vote is cast on paper, and every state audits its results. This page tracks the real pressures on the 2026 midterms, from Election Day on Nov. 3 through counting, certification and the seating of Congress on Jan. 3, 2027. It separates documented actions from online chatter. We won't play risks down, and we won't play them up.
This rating reflects pressure on the system, not a forecast that the election will fail. Federal officials have taken concrete steps aimed at how Americans vote and count, and courts have blocked most of them. No vote in a U.S. election has been shown to have been altered. About 99% of voters will cast a paper ballot or get a paper record, and every state audits its results. The points to watch are federal agents near polling places, counties refusing to certify, and the seating of the House on Jan. 3.
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The risks below are real, but they come up against a system built with redundancy. To change an outcome, someone would have to defeat several of these safeguards at once, in many places, without being noticed.
Each risk people raise, rated by how far the evidence goes. A rating describes what's documented, not how worried to be.
Hard physical force: troops, armed agents, seizures, violenceSoft lawsuits, executive orders, pressure on officials, and shaping what people believe
1 material impact · 2 blocked · 4 action taken · 9 credible concern · 2 chatter
The FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force was disbanded in 2025. CISA has lost about a third of its staff, and federal funding for the election information-sharing center (EI-ISAC) ended (Nextgov). The Election Assistance Commission has had no commissioners since July 9, and for the first time since 2002 the State Department did not invite international OSCE observers. DHS released a 2026 election security plan on Sept. 24, and the Pentagon has directed the NSA and military cyber forces to guard election systems against foreign interference through the midterms (AP). Fewer public warnings mean that when officials say nothing, it tells us less than it used to.
Would move down: restored threat briefings and public attribution of foreign operations.
In an Aug. 24 letter, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote that the three largest vendors use some China-made parts. He cited their own 2020 testimony to Congress. The letter does not bar any machine. Its one concrete step was to tie full federal security grants to post-election hand counts of paper ballots, and a federal judge vacated that condition on Sept. 28. Claims that the machines are “disqualified” go beyond what the letter says. Election-security experts told PolitiFact there is no evidence that voting-machine vulnerabilities have ever been used to attack a real U.S. election (PBS/PolitiFact). In Georgia, the State Election Board voted 3–2 to urge a software update and seek federal technical help. Its executive director then asked DOJ and DHS to force machine changes, and the board's chair says the board never approved those letters. Allies are also pressing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to use a 2019 national-emergency order on foreign technology to ban machines or mandate hand counts. CNN reports that Commerce career staff reviewed the idea last year and took no action.
Would move up: an order barring specific machines for Nov. 3, a federal hand-count mandate that delays certification, or federal seizure of equipment.
Two executive orders tried to add proof-of-citizenship rules and restrict which mail ballots the Postal Service carries. Courts have blocked both, and on Sept. 14 the Supreme Court declined to let the mail rule take effect before November. In June the Court upheld state grace periods for ballots postmarked by Election Day. From Oct. 4 the Postal Service is extending branch hours, adding ballot-only postmark lines and expediting returned ballots (Reuters).
Would move up: an appeals ruling that puts either order into effect before Nov. 3.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states and D.C. for full voter files. Courts have dismissed 26 of those suits, and 16 states handed over their files (Brennan Center tracker). The Supreme Court let DHS's overhauled citizenship-check database (SAVE) back into use. Federal prosecutors have also used grand jury subpoenas to obtain voter records from county offices, including at least five each in San Diego and Los Angeles counties. San Diego says it has not been told what is being investigated (inewsource). Internal records released in October show Homeland Security Investigations, part of ICE, ingested roughly 99 million voter-related records and weighed using undercover agents against voter-registration groups; several of its reviews found no wrongdoing (CNN). Federal law bars systematic purges in the 90 days before an election.
Would move up: mass removals or challenges of eligible voters close to Election Day.
The New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence assessed the Kremlin authorized a new influence campaign for the midterms, and that Iran and China are running AI-driven campaigns. These are operations to shape opinion. None has been shown to change a vote. Independent researchers find that much of this content gets little real reach.
Would move up: a verified intrusion into voter registration or results systems.
Five weeks before the election, the White House began airing TV ads featuring the president and labelled “Paid for by the US Government.” One, shown during NFL broadcasts on Sept. 27, plays his “this is the final battle” speech and reuses footage from a 2024 campaign video (CNN). The White House calls them public service announcements. More than $10 million in public money had been spent by Oct. 6. After criticism from both parties, the president said his super PAC would pay for future ads, but the White House said it won't repay what was already spent, and a new government-funded ad began airing that day (New York Times). Critics say the ads may break the federal ban on spending public money on “publicity or propaganda.” Like other advertising, these ads aim at persuasion, not at how ballots are cast or counted.
Would move up: a federal watchdog (GAO or the Office of Special Counsel) finds the ads unlawful and they keep running, or the ads start urging a vote for or against candidates.
The documented claim about Elon Musk is money. As of Oct. 6 his America PAC had spent $26.7 million on 2026 races, $21 million of it in seven close Senate contests, mostly on ads, mail and texts attacking Democrats (WIRED, which tracks the PAC's federal filings daily). That spending is legal and public, and it aims at persuasion, not the count. It is also a small share of a cycle the ad tracker AdImpact expects to set a record of $11.6 billion in ad spending (AdImpact). Ads rarely change minds in general elections: a review of 49 field experiments put the average persuasive effect of campaign contact and advertising at about zero (American Political Science Review). In April 2025, Musk and groups he funds spent more than $20 million on Wisconsin's Supreme Court race, and his candidate lost by 10 points (PBS Wisconsin). Money can still matter at the margins of very close races, through turnout work and by setting the message. One gap: the Federal Election Commission has lacked a quorum since May 2025 and cannot open investigations or issue fines (CBS News).
Would move up: cash or prizes offered to voters or petition signers, as Musk's PAC did in 2024 and in Wisconsin in 2025.
Asked about the Insurrection Act and a national emergency, President Trump said “I don't rule anything out or in.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs has said there are no plans to put troops at polling places, and DHS says ICE is not planning operations aimed at them. The Justice Department is sending election monitors. A top official has said as many as 1,000 (Washington Post), the acting attorney general says they will go to every state, and the department says they will not be armed. Federal law (18 U.S.C. §592) makes it a crime to station troops or armed men at polling places. Voting-rights groups are suing DHS over its policy on armed immigration officers. In Miami, police arrested a man accused of dressing as an ICE agent to scare voters at a polling site for Brazil's presidential election. That case did not involve a U.S. election, but it shows impersonation is a risk in its own right.
Would move up: any deployment order, or armed federal agents documented at polling places.
On Oct. 4 the president wrote that Detroit, Philadelphia and California “take weeks to Rig.” Counting does take time. Mail ballots are checked and tallied after polls close, and in many states they can't be processed early, so results move for days. That is how the system works, not evidence of fraud (WLRN fact check).
Would move up: official action to stop counts or to treat late-counted ballots as invalid.
At the Republican midterm convention on Sept. 9, the president promised a $5,000 “dividend” to every adult citizen “if the Republicans win the House… and the Senate” (transcript). He has since repeated that it depends on the result (Truth Social, Oct. 2). No bill, order or Treasury step exists. Paying it would take an act of Congress, and estimates put the cost above $1 trillion (USA Today). Legal experts disagree on whether tying it to the vote crosses into vote-buying; many say a public campaign promise is protected speech. Separately, federal $500 health-insurance refunds and $90 Medicare rebates are going out in the weeks before the election.
Would move up: a federal agency paying, or committing to pay, money that depends on which party wins.
The U.S. is at war with Iran. A joint federal advisory (AA26-097A) warns of Iranian attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure. We have found no confirmed Iranian intrusion into election systems.
Would move up: an official advisory naming election infrastructure as a target or victim.
The war has pushed gasoline to about $4.37 a gallon, up from $3.13 a year ago, and consumer confidence is at its lowest since 2014. On Sept. 26 the Coast Guard returned fire after shots from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Who fired has not been confirmed, and about 500 troops were sent to the area. We have found no evidence that either is being tied to the election. Both matter as possible triggers: economic anger can feed large protests, and a border or terror incident can feed emergency framing.
Would move up: an emergency declaration or domestic deployment justified by a border, cartel or war incident near the election.
Not every risk is an attack. In Texas, a vendor software error at the state's driver's-license agency left hundreds of thousands of voter registrations unsent to counties until September, and records show state agencies were warned of portal problems in March (Votebeat). Voters who are not on the rolls can cast provisional ballots, which count once eligibility is confirmed. Breakdowns like this can cost people their vote, and they can be recast as evidence of fraud.
Would move up: large numbers of provisional or mail ballots rejected because of an administrative failure, or a failure used as grounds to delay certification.
Hoax bomb threats hit polling places in 2024 and 2025. Disruption was minimal, but more are expected. A third of local election officials report threats or harassment. CSIS finds election-related attacks are rare, with candidates and officials the most likely targets.
Would move up: credible threats closing polling places, or an attack on election workers.
A September 2025 presidential memorandum, NSPM-7, directs federal agencies to investigate networks and funders behind “organized political violence.” This machinery is already in use. A Justice Department task force created under it, Joint Task Force Vanguard, indicted 15 members of a Minneapolis activist group in June. Eight people convicted over a July 2025 shooting at a Texas ICE detention center were sentenced to a combined 450 years, partly on terrorism charges. The State Department designated four European antifa groups as terrorists. None of these cases involves an election. Analyst Jonathan Winer argues this machinery could be turned on protests and organizers after a disputed election. We have not seen it used in an election context so far.
Would move up: terrorism investigations or charges tied to election protests or voting-rights groups.
Some county officials who refused to certify in past cycles are still in office. An Otero County, N.M., commissioner who voted no in 2022 told the Washington Post, “I would do it again if I felt strongly about it,” and a Washoe County, Nev., commissioner has voted against certifying every election since 2020 (Washington Post). On July 7 the Justice Department wrote to every state that any election officer who “knowingly retains noncitizens” on the rolls “could be subject to criminal liability” (Minnesota's copy). In January the FBI seized about 700 boxes of Fulton County, Ga.'s 2020 ballots and records under a search warrant (ABC News), and a federal judge let the government keep them. Tulsi Gabbard, then director of national intelligence, attended the Fulton search, and her office separately examined voting machines in Puerto Rico. Neither has produced public findings or charges; the Puerto Rico review found fixable flaws but no evidence of hacking or altered votes (Reuters). FBI Director Kash Patel promised arrests “coming soon” in the spring; none have come (The Atlantic). In Shasta County, Calif., the election chief padlocked ballots and called the FBI after losing his race. When officials overstep, courts have reined them in. California's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Riverside County sheriff's seizure of about 650,000 ballots was unlawful. In 2022, courts ordered Cochise County, Ariz., and Otero County, N.M., to certify. In most states certification is a mandatory duty (deadlines).
Would move up: a refusal or seizure that courts don't cure before a state deadline.
Congress sets Election Day by statute (2 U.S.C. §7). No emergency power lets a president move or cancel it (CRS). We found no credible source linking the reported plague case in Irkutsk, Russia to U.S. voting; WHO rates the risk as low. Our Irkutsk tracker follows that story.
In a July 16 address, the president released declassified intelligence documents he said showed China had acquired 220 million U.S. voter files (Reuters). Experts told PBS that such voter data is commonly obtained and that holding it does not mean election systems were breached (fact check). Steve Bannon said “the predicate is being laid” and predicted a national emergency declaration on elections in the last week of August (Media Matters). None came. Asked on Sept. 28, the president said “I don't rule anything out or in” (USA Today). Presidents also keep pre-drafted emergency orders, called PEADs. They are classified and none has ever been made public (Brennan Center), so no one outside government can say what they contain. Even analyst Jonathan Winer, among the most concerned, writes that the administration “cannot lawfully cancel the midterms” (Washington Spectator).
Would move up: an emergency declaration that names election administration.
Analysts Mark Medish and Joel McCleary warn that when the Clerk calls the roll on Jan. 3, seats whose certification is delayed or caught up in a federal “foreign interference review” could be left off, and in a close House that could decide the majority. We have found no named member of Congress describing such a plan. The House judges its members' elections (Art. I, §5), but the Clerk's role in the opening roll call is set by law, and courts have ruled that the House can't exclude a qualified member-elect. Legal scholars are split on how real the danger is (Lawfare; Protect Democracy).
Would move up: members or leadership publicly committing to block seating.
New reporting from major outlets and official sources, listed as it appears. Our monitoring adds headlines from major outlets automatically. "Checked" means our software fetched the full report and confirmed it supports its headline. "Reviewed" means an editor checked it against its source. "Auto" items have not been checked yet. Tap a label for our note. None of this is an endorsement. Our assessment is the rating above.
“Elevated” is a judgment about pressure on the system. It does not predict that the election will fail. Here is the reasoning, so you can weigh it yourself.
Many people are asking the same question: will this turn violent, or will the damage come through law, paperwork and propaganda? We sort the risks into two kinds. Hard means physical force: troops, armed agents, seizures, violence. Soft means lawsuits, executive orders, pressure on officials, and shaping what people believe about the results.
Our best sense. The main risk to this election is a bending of reality, not bloodshed. Nearly every documented action this year has been soft: lawsuits, orders, data demands and claims of fraud aimed at shaping what Americans believe about the results and laying groundwork to contest them. We expect that to intensify from now through Jan. 3.
Where it could turn hard. The hard risk is real, but it is narrower and comes later. This year's pattern is that physical force has been threatened, and sometimes used, against protests, not at polling places. So the most dangerous window is probably not Election Day. It is the weeks after, if a disputed count brings people into the streets and officials describe the protests as insurrection or terrorism. We also expect scattered incidents: threats, hoaxes, intimidation, and possibly isolated violence by individuals. We see no evidence of a plan for organized, large-scale violence around the vote, and the military's leadership is on record against putting troops at the polls.
What would change our read: an Insurrection Act invocation or deployment order tied to the election, armed federal personnel at polling places, terrorism charges brought against election protesters or organizers, or military leaders reversing their stated position.
America 2.0 doesn't make its own forecast. We do use forecasts as an input to the risk assessment, because the expected margin affects how hard a losing side may contest the result. Figures are attributed and as of the dates shown.
| Source | House (220 R – 215 D now; 218 for control) | Senate (53 R – 47 D now; Democrats need +4) |
|---|---|---|
| Cook | 208 seats at least lean D, 205 at least lean R, 22 toss-ups (Sept. 25) | 7 toss-ups: AK, IA, KS, ME, MI, OH, TX (Oct. 6) |
| Inside Elections | Democrats +7 to +15 seats (Oct. 1) | Democrats +3 to +5 (Oct. 1) |
| Sabato's Crystal Ball | 213 at least leans D, 202 at least leans R, 20 toss-ups (Sept. 29) | See current map |
| The Economist model | Democrats 94% | Democrats 59% |
| Betting markets (Polymarket, Kalshi) | Democrats ~91–93% | Democrats ~65% |
Claims we see shared most, from all sides, and what the record supports.
Not ruled out by the president. Officials say there are no plans, and federal law bars troops or armed men at polling places.
Described by Peter Ticktin, attorney for Tina Peters, on a Sept. 30 podcast: take control of ballots after machines count them and hand-count them before certification. Peters reportedly met Trump in the Oval Office on Oct. 5; the White House would not discuss it (Colorado Newsline). No order exists. The one federal ballot seizure on record was under a court warrant, for 2020 records in Fulton County (ABC News).
The letter says vendors use some China-made components and bars no machine. Its grant condition was vacated in court.
In a July report, CISA said security testers took control of some county networks “within hours or days.” These were tests, not attacks, and the report does not say any votes changed (CISA report, via the White House). Texas now goes further than most states: since Sept. 1, voting systems there may not even be capable of connecting to a network (statute).
Speculation from commentators. No named member has described a plan, and courts have limited the House's power to exclude.
No plague case has been confirmed, and WHO rates the risk low. In 2020, during a real pandemic, turnout was the highest of the century (Census). Turnout fell where officials cut access: Milwaukee went from 182 polling places to five in April 2020 (Brennan Center).
Election Day is set by federal statute. Only Congress can change it.
We found no credible report of a new order as of Oct. 6. The earlier order on mail ballots remains blocked, and the Supreme Court declined to let it take effect before November.
No credible source links the Irkutsk case to U.S. elections, and there is no legal route to postponement.
Foreign influence campaigns are real. Changing votes is another matter: there is no evidence it has ever happened, and paper ballots plus audits are the safeguard.
Counting mail ballots takes days in many states by law. Fast counts elsewhere prove nothing about U.S. results (WLRN).
The phrase comes from October 2024 texts Musk sent Ashley St. Clair, shown in Alex Gibney's documentary Musk and authenticated by NPR. They describe no way of changing votes. Starlink's “lasers” link its satellites to each other for internet service. There is no evidence any vote count ran through it, and paper ballots plus audits would catch altered totals (PolitiFact). Musk's documented influence is his public spending (see “Big money,” above).
An intelligence-agency review of Puerto Rico's machines found fixable flaws but no evidence they were exploited or that votes were changed. A White House adviser's wider hunt found no evidence that foreign actors got into U.S. voting systems (Reuters).
We move the rating only on credible, named sourcing, and only after editorial review.
Email us at editor@america2.news with the subject “2026 Election Security,” and include a link to where you saw it. We check each claim against credible sources. If it holds up, it goes on this page. If it doesn't, we'll say so.