Navigating the Midterms: From Legal Challenges to Voter Rights

Hey, what's news listeners? It's Sunday, November 1st. I'm Alex O'Solev for The Wall Street Journal. This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news. On the show this week, Election Day is just around the corner. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has pushed to expand its role in elections by putting forth legal challenges and seeking to change the rules around mail-in ballots. We'll talk with journal legal affairs reporter Louise Rednaudsky about what these efforts could mean for voters. Plus, we hear from Wendy Weiser, Vice President for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, about the practical advice voters should bring with them to the polls. Louise, just at a high level, if you were to describe to someone from a different country, what is different about this election in terms of the actual voting process, what would you say? Probably, but there is an extreme degree of anxiety heading into these midterm elections. People are thinking about a lot of different things that could go wrong, including state officials who run the elections, and they have gained out a number of scenarios. And some voters too are very anxious. President Trump's statements about elections have been relatively consistent over the last few years, but what has been notable in his second term is the frequency with which he has called into question the U.S. election system broadly. Put together these discloses reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation and corruption. And what many people have seen in these statements heading into the 2026 midterms is a sign that he is unwilling to accept the results when they come in, that those results will be challenged above all, probably around this idea that ineligible people cast ballots and therefore the overall result has to be called into question. Louise, what are some of the ways that we've seen the Trump administration using the legal system ahead of this election? Even before the first ballots have been counted, the Trump administration has gone to federal court in two states to challenge results Alaska and California. Additional criminal subpoenas were sent out in California on Thursday to state and local officials. The litigation there that the Trump administration has brought trying to require counties to set aside up to 20,000 ballots that they alleged could have been cast by non-citizens is continuing. The administration was denied an emergency order in the appeals court. It was denied a restraining order in the district court and has gone back to the appeals court now. And it is arguing it there and is indicated with the speed that it's been moving out that's going to continue to litigate this very fiercely. And then there's also a state investigation in Alaska that Trump has spoken with the governor about. Right, let's back up for a second and talk about what's been going on in Alaska this week. There's the Democrat, Mary Peltola, and incumbent Dan S. Sullivan has been really tight between the two of them. But there's another Dan Sullivan on the ballot. His name is Dan J. Sullivan Jr. and the New York Times reported that the Peltola campaign allegedly recruited him to so confusion among voters. What has been going on with that was the sort of blowback or impact been in the state. The Trump administration refiled its challenge to the certification of Alaska results in light of the New York Times report. The legal arguments remained broadly the same, but they did want to make sure that the federal court was aware of this allegation. Peltola denies any involvement Senate Democrats campaign arms, so they are not involved with Dan J. Sullivan Jr. and then pointed out the Republicans, they say, have a long history of recruiting and propping up candidates with similar names. And Dan J. Sullivan Jr. told the Wall Street Journal that no one put him up to running in a story that published in September. What does all of this mean for voters in Alaska and for the outcome of this race? Alaska uses a ranked-choice voting system. The ballot, after this was litigated in state courts earlier this year, will indicate that Dan S. Sullivan is a senator and incumbent, and Dan J. Sullivan Jr. is not these things. The U.S. Department of Justice is already suing to block Alaska state officials from certifying the results, if it can be shown that Dan J. Sullivan's presence on the ballot effectively cost Dan S. Sullivan the election. The U.S. Department of Justice is arguing that votes that go to Dan J. Sullivan Jr. must have been intended for the senator, and they are arguing in court that they essentially should be redistributed. These kinds of early interventions from the Department of Justice are somewhat unprecedented. Our Democrat-led states preparing for the possibility that officials from the federal government will be showing up to the polls. The Department of Justice is sending election monitors to a number of states. What state officials have said about the notifications they have received is that it does appear as if DOJ monitors are going to be behaving normally, not interfering in the process of ballots being cast, talking to voters, etc. State election officials, particularly but not exclusively in blue states, have been extremely open about the fact that they're making contingency plans for a wide variety of worst-case scenarios. One of the other things that a lot of people acknowledge doing is pre-drafting legal briefs to go to court honor around election day if they need to, and again, the number of circumstances that they have prepared for is almost limitless there. They're bracing for, and this is true of a very wide array of states. Their processes and their results to come under a microscope when the counting begins. They have been preparing for months for their voter rolls to be scrutinized because the Trump administration has really focused heavily heading into this election on the idea that there are hundreds of thousands of ineligible people registered vote who could cast ballots. The states have pushed back saying they do a rigorous job of scouring their own voter rolls while also trying hard not to disenfranchise people who are eligible to vote. Another thing that's come up in the sort of run-up to this election is the new ways to check if voters are eligible, so election officials now have access to a federal immigration database. How did that come about and how might that change the sort of experience or practice of voting? The president issued an executive order in March 2025 that expanded the role of the Department of Homeland Security effectively in screening voter eligibility, giving the federal government a role that it hadn't really taken on at quite such an assertive posture before. The idea being that there could be a single source of verifying whether a voter was a US citizen or not. There are a number of concerns that have been expressed about the accuracy of the data in there, but the federal government has certainly used that in similar other techniques to go into question. Some state voter rolls, there is an outsized focus compared to previous elections on the eligibility of voters, and particularly eligibility based on US citizenship, where they are likely to be issues is when the federal government and potentially state officials are having an adversarial interaction, should we say, over the reliability of that state's results. Under the Constitution states run elections as they see fit. They do so under some federal laws that have been passed by Congress. There is no role in the Constitution for the executive branch. You know, elections traditionally, the way that's been legally interpreted, what the administration is arguing is that it has the power to enforce certain laws and take steps as a result that are really taking everybody into legal new waters here. I want to talk about one of the ways that President Trump has sort of cast some doubt over the outcome of some elections, which is the process of mail-in voting. So nearly a third of Americans use mail-in voting, but earlier this year, the Trump administration tried to change the rules around that process. But changes did they try to make, and where did those efforts stand? The Trump administration, through an executive order, sought to impose significant restrictions on mail-in ballots, essentially giving the US Postal Service a much more active role in screening those ballots before they could either be transmitted to or from voters. That portion of the executive order was blocked by the Supreme Court. It is not an effect. States say that generally mail-in voting is running as normal. There are some issues in some states that officials have highlighted around delays, although the US Postal Service generally has indicated that it treats election mail as a priority and tries to move it as quickly as possible. What state officials have been saying this time around is particularly in response to the number of the fears that are out there, is if you are concerned that your ballot will not be transmitted through the mail on time, you should take it to a drop box. I feel like there's this thread that we keep coming back to, that the Trump administration is sort of laying the groundwork to potentially contest some of the results of this election. Overly in places like Alaska, as you mentioned, but also in maybe more subtle ways or more even on a federal level, what might that look like in practice, and when might we see it? Sometimes helpful to think about the election in three phases, the ballot-casting phase that has been underway for many days prior to what is traditionally known as Election Day, millions of ballots have already been cast, in addition to the ones that people will drop off or cast in person on the day. There is a second phase, the count of results, the processing of ballots, the tabulation of results, ultimately what is generally understood as the count, and then there's a third phase, date certification of election results from which members elect, take certificates of their credentials, essentially, to Congress, and then they are seated. But where we are probably going to see most of the attention around the validity of results is slightly after ballots have been cast during the counting phase. That was W.S.J. Legal Affairs Reporter Louise Rodinowski. Thank you Louise. Thanks for having me. Coming up, three things to know about your rights at the polls. That's after the break. For Wendy Weiser, Vice President for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, these moves from the Trump administration don't make her worried that the actual voting process will change. What I am worried about is, you know, all of this furor, all of these efforts to interfere, all of this smoke has shaken the confidence of many Americans. And I am worried that there are going to be partisans and disruptors after the election that are going to try to stoke fears that the election has been mired with irregularities or fraud and to try to reduce confidence in the election outcomes and to justify taking, you know, radical actions after the election. And so I am much more worried about the efforts to so mistrust in the system and to shake confidence than the actual strength of the system. That's because Weiser says, nothing has legally changed the process. Listeners should understand that elections are run by state and local authorities, not the federal government. The federal government has not changed anything about voting. Courts have ruled against each of the administration's attempts and the elections are well underway. Tens of millions of Americans have already voted at this point with no incident. People should feel confident that they can vote safely and with confidence. Part of voting with confidence Weiser ads means knowing your rights before you head to the polls. If you are an eligible voting age, American citizen, you have the right to vote to cast an effective ballot that will count. Definitely do what you can before showing up the polls to check and verify that your registration is up to date and accurate. And check also, if your state allows same-day registration or if the registration deadline hasn't passed yet if there are any problems. If you are still in line when your polling location closes, you still have the right to vote, don't leave. But if you do show up at the polls and your name has been improperly removed, you still have the right to vote a ballot that will count. Everybody is entitled to what is called a provisional ballot, a ballot that will be set aside until your eligibility is verified afterwards. And you also have the right to learn whether or not your vote was counted to find out the disposition of your provisional ballot. So you should absolutely follow up and make sure that your ballot is counted. But before doing that, and if there's any question about your eligibility or somebody disrupting the polling place or somebody questioning your ability to vote or how you are voting, you should definitely call 866-HOUR-VOTE to make sure that there isn't a way that you can cast a regular ballot. Either way, don't leave election day without casting a ballot. That was Wendy Weiser, Vice President for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. And that's it for what's new Sunday for September 1st. Today's show was produced by Pierre-Bienaume with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Alex Osala, and we'll be back tomorrow with a brand new show. Until then, thanks for listening.