What Blanche said
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday left open the possibility that the Justice Department could try to stop states from certifying votes in the midterm elections, according to NBC News. He also insisted it was not his intention to "improperly interfere with elections."
Reporters asked Blanche whether he could rule out any department action that might delay the counting of ballots. He spoke before boarding a plane. "It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process," he said.
Blanche then acknowledged that a "doomsday" scenario could draw the department into the certification process run by state and local election officials. "To say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that .... of course, I'm not going to say that," he said. He added: "But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not."
The setting and the broader legal push
Blanche was in Norfolk, Virginia, with FBI Director Kash Patel for a press conference announcing racketeering charges against an 82-year-old Virginia state senator. His remarks on elections came around that event.
NBC News reported this week that the Justice Department is considering more election-related litigation against states. That follows a lawsuit against California seeking to compel state officials to review 18,000 registered voters whom the department suspected could be noncitizens trying to cast fraudulent ballots.
California holds an all-mail election and automatically sends out ballots. According to NBC News, so do seven other states and Washington, D.C.: Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington state.
Mail voting and noncitizen claims
Mail voting has often been a target of President Donald Trump's claims of voter fraud, which NBC News said have escalated ahead of the 2026 midterms. The report noted that Trump uses the method himself to cast his ballot in Florida.
The legal threats are part of a wider Trump administration campaign focused on voting by noncitizens. Voting experts say the phenomenon is relatively rare, according to NBC News.
What the law says about DOJ's role
The department's role in U.S. elections is limited by law, NBC News reported. It chiefly allows the department to safeguard civil rights and to prosecute individuals who violate election law.
Private citizens and candidates can sue to challenge ballots or election results. But NBC News reported that no U.S. law says the Justice Department can challenge ballots or delay certification. Elections are run by state and local officials, who are charged with certifying the results.
Democrats respond
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded to Blanche's comments by saying Senate Democrats "have been preparing for this for months and will be ready for whatever" the Trump administration attempts.
In a post on X, Schumer wrote: "As Trump and his cronies attempt to steal this election, we are fighting them at every turn." He added: "Our elections must always belong to the voters — not Donald Trump."
