The Trump administration's months-long campaign to challenge how states conduct elections and pushback against those efforts came to a head on Election Day on Tuesday.
Those efforts have included lawsuits, an attempt to implement a new U.S. Postal Service rule for mail-in ballots this year, threatening letters to state election officials and a plan to increase the number of poll monitors.
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On Tuesday afternoon, The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice had sent letters to about 20 Democrats, among them prominent election lawyer Marc Elias, informing them that they might be targets in a criminal investigation of how a candidate with the same name as incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan ended up on the ballot of the Alaska Senate race.
NBC News reported that the tally of letters includes both target letters "and preservation requests to third parties to retain records."
Elias has represented Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee in the Alaska election. In addition to him, at least one official at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was sent a target letter, The Times reported.
"The department is investigating possible donor fraud and conspiracy charges," according to The Times, citing a person familiar with the investigation.
Receiving a target letter does not mean a person has been charged with a crime, and does not necessarily mean that they will be charged.
In a statement, Elias said, "No one should be surprised that President Trump's Department of Justice is targeting me and my law firm on Election Day."
President Donald Trump, during an interview earlier Tuesday on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," blasted Elias.
"You had the Democrat Party headed up by Elias, their lawyer, who was a bad guy, very bad guy — should go to jail, in my opinion, " Trump said. "But you had the Democrat Party look all over Alaska for somebody named Sullivan."
A federal judge on Sunday dismissed the DOJ lawsuit that sought to delay certification of Alaska's Senate election if incumbent Sen. Sullivan loses by a margin that could be attributable to voter confusion from having another Dan Sullivan on the ballot. The DOJ is appealing that ruling.
That case, and the reported letters to Elias and other Democrats, underscore the likelihood that the Trump administration's election-targeting efforts will continue beyond Election Day.
Democratic lawmakers, attorneys general and advocacy groups are poised for battle if the administration tries to interfere with voting sites or challenge ballot counts, particularly in the states that could determine whether Trump's fellow Republicans lose their narrow Senate majority.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Sunday night convened the entire Senate Democratic Caucus for a briefing by him and Elias about what a Democratic aide said was the "current landscape of election threats from Trump and his allies." The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private briefing.
"We've been, you know, blocking and tackling and protecting and defending our elections for months and through the last few weeks of the voting window, and it'll all culminate tomorrow," California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CNBC on Monday evening. "And each of Trump's attempts has failed."
"I'm not sure what he has up his sleeves," Bonta said of Trump.
Bonta said he and other California officials, along with the 23 other Democratic state attorneys general for months have been preparing for Election Day and potential actions by the Trump administration "to disenfranchise and suppress votes and voters."
"We game-planned, and ... war-gamed and tabletop- and scenario planned all the possibilities," Bonta said.
Bonta said that if extreme events happened, California officials would quickly seek relief from the court system.
He noted, "We have laws in place right now where it is a criminal offense" to remove ballots from the custody and control of an election official.
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On Monday, multiple federal courts dealt with urgent motions in election-related lawsuits and appeals by and against the Trump administration.
The DOJ on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block California from counting about 20,000 mail-in ballots from voters whom the DOJ suggests might not be U.S. citizens. Hours later, the Supreme Court rejected that request without any noted dissents.
In U.S. District Court in Washington, a DOJ lawyer told Judge Reggie Walton on Monday that the department expected to deploy 900 people to monitor polling places at sites in all 50 states.
"In 2024, there were about 100 monitors," the lawyer, Kathryn Barragan, said.
The DOJ on Tuesday said it was deploying approximately 1,000 election monitors and observers across the country. The areas it is focusing on are primarily in urban areas that vote Democratic.
Barragan's statement came at a hearing where Walton was considering an emergency request by the NAACP to bar the DOJ from using election monitors who are federal law enforcement personnel.
John Cusick, assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, a civil rights group, said the administration has used the DOJ, Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to target election procedures this election cycle for three main reasons.
"First and foremost, it's an attempt to intimidate voters and election officials," Cusick said in an interview.
"The second component is confusion" about election rules, he said. "And the third, the unfortunate part, is trying to lay the groundwork for challenging the post-election counting and certification of ballots."
He said there has been a "constant barrage" by the administration to target election workers and election officials with unlawful actions.
"That has created such a chilling effect," Cusick said. "There's no doubt that the threats are threats to our democracy."
The DOJ, which did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC for this article, has previously defended its election-related efforts.
"Voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters is a federal crime, and the department will enforce the law whether a case involves one illegal ballot or hundreds," the DOJ's rapid response account on X said on Oct. 12.
Attorney General Todd Blanche, when asked on Oct. 22 if there was any scenario in which the DOJ would try to block states from certifying their election results, conceded that was possible.
"I mean, is there any scenario?" Blanche told reporters in Virginia. "Yes, of course. There's scenarios that we could all come up with, hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example."
"It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention to improperly interfere with elections and the state confirmation process or certification process," the attorney general said.
"But, you know, to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that? Of course I'm not going to say that."
Cusick and other experts note the president and executive branch of the federal government have no official role in administering elections, which are handled by the states as designated under the Constitution.
In her ruling Sunday dismissing the DOJ's Alaska Senate lawsuit, District Court Judge Sharon Gleason said the Trump administration was making requests that involve "the time, place, and manner of Alaska's election, which are the responsibilities of the State, not the executive branch of the federal government."
Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty Images
On Monday, a bipartisan group of former election officials in a filing told the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that "increased federal pressure and threats on election officials ... are part of a pattern by the administration of attempting to assert authority over elections and questioning the integrity of state and local officials."
The filing came in a case where the DOJ is appealing an order issued Friday by a federal judge in California barring the Trump administration "from carrying out a series of efforts to actually or attempting to intimidate, threaten, or coerce election workers who aid others in exercising their right to vote."
The judge cited threats by the DOJ to prosecute state and local election officials if they process and count ballots using procedures that are legally required.
Bonta, California's attorney general, said he expected Trump and the DOJ To continue targeting states over their election procedures through the next cycle in 2028, when voters will choose a new president.
"We can't be naive about it. We have to expect it to get worse, prepared for it to get worse. I don't want to be alarmist," Bonta said. "I am a realist though, and I see the way he thinks and acts and what he's done, and maybe we'll be prepared for the worst, and it'll never happen."
"But we can't not be prepared for it. And I expect him to escalate as he gets more desperate."
