A group of 10 Democratic senators and the party's top election lawyers quietly convened to game out responses to what they fear could be an unprecedented attempt to disrupt or overturn the results of this fall's midterm elections.
The closed-door session, first reported by Politico, brought together a roster of high-profile legal and political strategists, including former Attorney General Eric Holder and prominent Democratic election attorney Marc Elias, to walk senators through a series of extreme yet increasingly plausible scenarios. Among them: armed federal agents stationed at polling locations, the Justice Department seizing ballots in competitive races and a foreign-backed disinformation campaign powered by AI-generated deepfakes.
" Trump has talked about stealing the election, violating the election, perverting the election, over and over again," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who convened last week's meeting. "We are going to be prepared for anything that he throws at us."
The tabletop exercises, the first major effort from an election-protection task force Schumer launched earlier this year, produced concrete legal playbooks. Participants mapped out injunctions to block armed agents or citizens from appearing at voting sites, and drafted lawsuit strategies to compel the Trump administration to return ballots if confiscated in key battleground contests. They also coordinated messaging plans to counter disinformation in real time across campaigns, elected officials and advocacy groups.
Sens. Mark Warner, Dick Durbin, Adam Schiff, Raphael Warnock and Alex Padilla were among those who participated, and a second exercise is already being scheduled for July.
In other words, they're preparing to do what progressive activists have been advising for years. Better late than never!
