THE INSURRECTION ACT

The Insurrection Act does not and cannot legally cancel elections.

Yes, there will be an election in 2026.

There is no law in the United States that gives a president the power to unilaterally suspend, postpone, or void a federal or state election simply by invoking the Insurrection Act or any other “emergency power.”

The real question is whether people will feel safe enough to vote. What if polling places are surrounded by intimidation—or the appearance of it? What if there’s a heavy police presence writing parking tickets, running their lights, or taking their sweet time responding to a minor fender bender in the lot? What if ICE agents are there “just hanging out”? What if ICE rental cars take up every available parking space?

None of this needs to be illegal to work. All it takes is uncertainty, fear, even inconvenience. All it takes is someone thinking, “I don’t have time for this today,” or “This could get me pepper-sprayed—or worse.” And they leave. They don’t vote.

That’s how suppression works now—not always with laws, but with pressure.

The only real defense is participation. Be there. Vote. Bring others with you. OR VOTE EARLY BY MAIL.

What if militia groups challenge voter rolls at polling places?

This is far more plausible, and it’s already happened in past elections.

Legally, if credentialed, they may observe.

They cannot: Question voters directly, block access, carry weapons inside polling places or demand ID beyond what state law requires. Not that it stops ICE now, but in a polling place the laws are enforced locally. Elections are local affairs.

Often, they try to aggressively challenge voter eligibility, film or hover near voters, create confusion or fear and/or slow lines by mass challenges. This behavior is considered voter intimidation and is illegal.

Who enforces this:

• Poll workers (first line)

• Election protection attorneys

• State election officials

• Courts via emergency orders

• In some cases, DOJ Civil Rights Division (but don’t count on it)

Federal law (Voting Rights Act, Ku Klux Klan Act) and State criminal statutes ban armed or uniformed “militia” presence near polls.

They don’t need to stop everyone—just enough people to think, “This is too much trouble today.” That’s the real tactic.

What you can do is tell a poll worker, call your election protection phone number, call your Supervisor of Elections locally, and notify your Secretary of State (bring these numbers with you), OR VOTE EARLY BY MAIL.

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Post Election Perils

Expect a lot of resistance from Trump. If he loses, he knows he’s done. One of the nightmares I’ve had includes the feds taking the voting machines. For example:

What if ICE takes the voting machines?

ICE has no legal authority to seize voting machines used in state or local elections. If they did, it would be unlawful and immediately trigger court intervention. Voting machines are state property, controlled by state and local election officials, not the federal executive branch. Any federal agency that took machines would be violating the law.

ICE enforces immigration law, not election law but you can see how breaking the chain of custody could work to sow doubt about the results.

Seizing machines without a valid court order would violate:

• State election law

• Chain-of-custody rules

• Likely the Constitution (10th Amendment, and 4th Amendment)

The Tenth Amendment, which reserves election administration to the states, and the Due Process Clause, which requires lawful procedures and uninterrupted custody of election materials. Election equipment is property protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.

If The Feds took machines out of the control of election officials, the chain of custody would be tainted. That could be used to challenge the validity of the results. Not to “rig” votes (change them) but to discredit them.

State attorneys general would file emergency motions within hours. Federal courts would issue immediate injunctions. Machines would be impounded by courts, not ICE. Any results from those machines would likely be: reconstructed from backups, paper ballots, or logs OR excluded with court-ordered remedies.

This would be a constitutional crisis, and it would not stand.

The real risk isn’t ballot tampering—it’s delegitimization. Not stuffing ballot boxes, or hacking machines en masse, but creating chaos, fear, and procedural doubt about the validity of the count. In 2020 Coffee County, Georgia officials removed machines and allowed them to be breached.

You’re not being paranoid, if you can imagine any of the above scenarios, you’re being a realist. Trump has called all of elections since 2015 “rigged.” Even when he won! Expect more of the same. In 2020 he regretted not using the National Guard to seize voting machines.

Our system is sturdier than it looks, but participation is its backbone.

FINAL THOUGHT:

You don’t have the luxury of skipping this election. We can’t be too tired or scared now. Your friends, your family, your neighbors must all VOTE.

Make a voting plan. Stick to it. Go together if you can. VOTE EARLY BY MAIL if you can.

We must cast our ballots—and we have to win BIG. Winning BIG matters, because close elections get challenged. And this time, even landslides will be questioned.