So this article has a narrow scope, it only considers two ways Trump might interfere:
This interference could take many forms. But recent events have increased experts’ level of concern about two possibilities in particular:
- That the Trump administration will try to seize ballots and voting machines from key jurisdictions before votes have been fully counted.
- That Trump will deploy ICE or other federal agents to the vicinity of critical polling places, so as to deter turnout among voters in general — and those with undocumented family members, in particular.
So for context, the people who don't think Trump will succeed are:
Wendy Weiser, the VP of the Brennan Center,
and Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and prior Biden-era deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ's civil rights department.
For context about the Brennan Center:
The Brennan Center for Justice is an American liberal[2][3][4] nonprofit law and public policy institute. The organization is named after Supreme Court justice William J. Brennan Jr. The Brennan Center advocates for public policy positions including raising the minimum wage, opposing voter ID laws, and calling for public funding of elections.[5][6] Its operations are centered at the New York University School of Law. The organization opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by nonprofit organizations.[7][8]
The stated mission of the Brennan Center is to "work to hold our political institutions and laws accountable to the twin American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all".[9] Its president is Michael Waldman, former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennan_Center_for_Justice
So why does the article say the attempts will fail?
“There is a very high risk that the administration will use every tool at its disposal to get voting machines or ballots in the course of an upcoming election,” the Brennan Center’s Weiser told me. “But I don’t think there is a high risk that they will succeed.”
“I think every magistrate judge in the country would understand the difference between a search warrant to seize materials for an election that happened five years ago and a search warrant to seize election materials from an election in progress,” Levitt said. “I understand why people are worried. But it’s not remotely the same.”
So Weiser and Levitt think rule of law will prevail and the courts will not grant Trump the authority to seize election materials during the election.
What about ICE?
Even just having ICE presence at polling stations could deter certain voters, it's hard to say what the aggregate effects of these measures might be, from the article:
Their reasoning is simple: If ICE is harassing residents and causing traffic jams in heavily Democratic precincts, fewer Americans will make it to the voting booth in those areas. And voters with undocumented family members may be especially likely to stay home.
“Trump wants to project ICE as an all-powerful force everywhere,” Levitt said. “And they are, as Minneapolis is proving emphatically, not. There simply aren’t enough ICE personnel to blanket a modestly large city. We live in a big country. And it is hard to control through fear.”
Even in the Twin Cities — where Trump deployed some 3,000 immigration enforcement agents — ICE’s presence seems to have mobilized Democratic voters, rather than deterring them. In a special election on January 27 for Minnesota House district 64A, the Democratic candidate defeated her Republican opponent by a 91-point margin. In 2024, a Democrat had won the seat by 66.6 percentage points.
“There is clearly an effort afoot to interfere in our elections and that is something that people should be alarmed about,” Weiser said. “But this can be thwarted. And it must be.”
So the argument is that ICE doesn't have enough manpower for this strategy to work across the US, and attempting to use ICE this way could backfire and result in stronger Democratic wins like we saw in Minnesota.
What isn't mentioned are other ways Trump could attempt a coup or election interference that might ignore the constitution - the two individuals who are doubtful Trump will succeed are assuming the law will be respected and followed, and they don't consider other possibilities.
