发布时间：2026年1月31日，美国东部时间上午6:00 | 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）政治频道
作者：弗雷德里卡·舒滕（Fredreka Schouten）、蒂尔尼·斯尼德（Tierney Sneed）、马歇尔·科恩（Marshall Cohen）
2小时前
华盛顿——
随着唐纳德·特朗普总统的任命人员加大力度为其早已被揭穿的选举舞弊指控寻找证据，民主党选举官员正在为联邦政府可能干预中期选举做准备。
明尼苏达州国务卿史蒂夫·西蒙（Steve Simon）告诉CNN，联邦政府干预州级选举的可能性“现在已属于一种需要准备的范畴，比如天气事件、炸弹威胁或停电”。就在他发表上述言论的几小时前，联邦调查局（FBI）搜查了佐治亚州富尔顿县的选票。
作为民主党人，西蒙强调他并非在预测此类干预的发生。但他和同事们已讨论了一系列应对措施，从确保选民在投票站免受与联邦执法人员的不当接触，到应对联邦政府要求获取数千万选民个人信息的行为。
特朗普政府一直在推动改变中期选举的基本规则，包括去年发布的一项行政命令，该命令已在法庭上受到部分阻挠。
就在FBI搜查富尔顿县选举办公室的几天前，司法部长帕姆·邦迪（Pam Bondi）将明尼苏达州的移民打击行动与司法部索要该州未编辑的选民名单联系起来，这令本就担忧网络攻击、工作人员面临威胁及其他计票障碍的州选举负责人感到恐慌。
“这现在已是一个需要合法规划的类别。这非常令人难过，但如果我们忽视这种可能性，那将是不负责任的，”西蒙在全国秘书协会（NASS）年度冬季会议上表示。
民主党籍州务卿们表示，他们不愿详细透露预先规划的具体内容，担心这会引起选民恐慌或为不良分子提供行动路线图。但他们称，随着特朗普政府带来的新型风险，他们的准备工作正在不断调整。
内华达州务卿、民主党秘书协会负责人西斯科·阿吉拉尔（Cisco Aguilar）表示，他希望确保东拉斯维加斯拉丁裔聚居区的投票站在高峰时段有足够的工作人员和投票设备，以缩短排队时间。
他担心排长队可能会让选民面临联邦移民局人员及其他人的骚扰，“尽管我们知道在内华达州没有非公民投票的情况”。ProPublica去年发现，有超过170起美国公民在移民行动或抗议活动中被拘留的案例。
就在本周，缅因州务卿申娜·贝洛斯（Shenna Bellows）在该州也成为联邦移民行动目标的情况下，查阅了限制武装军人出现在投票站的联邦法规。
“如果明年11月有武装联邦特工在街头游荡，人们会因为害怕出门购物或上班而不敢去投票，”她说。
康涅狄格州务卿斯蒂芬妮·托马斯（Stephanie Thomas）表示，她的团队正在应对网络攻击等长期存在的问题，同时也在关注特朗普时代特有的新威胁，比如“军队被派往投票站”的可能性。
“我们基本上是根据当天的新闻、最坏情况设想，确保在紧急情况发生前就考虑到所有可能的应对措施，”托马斯说。
针对这些担忧，白宫发言人阿比盖尔·杰克逊（Abigail Jackson）在一份声明中回应称：“民主党人的阴谋论没有事实依据，主流媒体不应该不加批判地放大他们的言论。”她指出，美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）“专注于将犯罪非法移民驱逐出境，他们本就不应出现在任何投票站，因为投票是犯罪行为”。
“特朗普总统非常关心选举的完整性——正如数百万根据他承诺确保选举安全的美国人一样，他们也支持他重新执政，”她补充道。
特朗普会派遣军队夺取投票机吗？
总统长期以来一直重复声称他2020年的失利是舞弊造成的，最近他也未排除派遣国民警卫队夺取投票机的可能性，正如他在输给民主党人乔·拜登后考虑过的那样。
“我本应该这么做，”他在今年1月接受《纽约时报》采访时表示，并补充道：“我们的选举非常不诚实。好吧，我明确地告诉你们。我不知道这么说是否符合政治正确。我不应该抱怨。我赢了三次。”
在特朗普政府早期，他削弱了一个协助选举办公室的联邦网络安全机构，并削减了用于各州间信息共享的联邦平台资金，该平台用于监测选举虚假信息和威胁。
司法部在没有独立证据的情况下，已起诉24个州要求提供完整的选民名单，包括社会保险号码和家庭住址等个人信息。
国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德（Tulsi Gabbard）——她否认了两党共识认为俄罗斯试图影响2016年选举的说法——在联邦调查局特工根据搜查令搜查佐治亚州富尔顿县2020年选票时在场。她的办公室随后表示，确保选举安全属于加巴德的法定职责，特别是在反间谍方面。
特朗普还打破惯例，启动了中期重划选区运动，旨在帮助共和党在11月的中期选举中额外获得美国众议院席位。司法部后来加入诉讼，试图推翻加利福尼亚州民主党人报复性重划众议院选区的行为。
在本周的会议采访中，民主党选举负责人对联邦政府与州及地方当局的对抗加剧表示担忧，而联邦政府却大幅削减了对选举的网络安全支持。
“选举安全的基本机制……已被完全消除，取而代之的是这些毫无根据的离奇阴谋论，”缅因州务卿贝洛斯表示。
科罗拉多州务卿吉娜·格里斯沃尔德（Jena Griswold）称，明尼阿波利斯最近发生的联邦特工在反ICE抗议中打死两名美国人的事件，“已经显示出他们为推进议程愿意走多远”。
“这是我们历史上一个可怕的时期，”格里斯沃尔德说。
部分共和党人也表示反对
全国秘书协会（NASS）年度会议通常是一个低调的两党活动，顶尖选举官员会听取专家意见，讨论网络安全等议题的最新进展，并交流政策问题。
本周在华盛顿市中心一家酒店举行的会议，仍带有典型会议的氛围：摆满糕点和切片水果的自助早餐，走廊里摆着介绍选举软件和投票机的供应商展位，胸牌帮助政府官员、非营利组织倡导者和私人选举顾问互相介绍并交换名片。
过去一年的巨大变化是会议中不可避免的话题。
在一次公开会议上，犹他州副州长迪德丽·亨德森（Deidre Henderson）——该州最高选举官员，共和党人——向一名白宫官员发难，称司法部民权负责人哈米特·迪隆（Harmeet Dhillon）称各州需要联邦帮助来清理选民名单。
“她基本上诽谤了我们所有人，”亨德森表示，“对我来说，公开声称州务卿们没有履职，而联邦政府必须取而代之，这是有问题的。这不可接受。”
大多数州都在抵制司法部索要敏感选民登记数据的请求，而迪隆办公室现在已起诉24个州获取这些记录。
现任NASS主席、密西西比州务卿迈克尔·沃森（Michael Watson）是共和党人，他已移交了联邦政府索要的选民数据，但拒绝签署司法部提出的要求该州在45天内“清理”选民名单的协议，认为这侵犯了密西西比州自下而上的名单维护流程。
“联邦政府在选举中只应扮演极小的角色，我明白这一点。国会采取行动时情况不同，”沃森告诉CNN，“但除此之外，州政府应该负责。”
不过，他并不认为联邦干预会成为中期选举的主要问题。
两党合作的削弱在州选举界双方都造成了影响。尽管许多民主党人公开批评白宫的做法，但一些共和党人却为其辩护，并支持政府在选举权上施加更多安全措施——包括提议在选民登记中加入公民身份证明——这可能也会使符合条件的选民难以投票。
西弗吉尼亚州共和党籍州务卿克里斯·华纳（Kris Warner）告诉CNN，他“不担心”联邦政府在2026年选举中进行干预。他的兄弟、前西弗吉尼亚州务卿马克·华纳（Mac Warner）去年加入特朗普政府，担任司法部高级官员。
华纳承认，有些民主党人“在他们的州有担忧，但在西弗吉尼亚州我不认为这是个问题”。
正如爱达荷州务卿菲尔·麦克格雷恩（Phil McGrane）指出的那样，选举官员正在弥补联邦政府取消选举网络安全支持所造成的缺口，各州正在建立自己的协调平台。
“如果我们能像过去一样协同工作会更好，但我知道大家已尽最大努力确保选举系统的韧性不会被削弱，”他告诉CNN。
‘Worst-case scenarios’: How Democratic election officials are preparing for potential Trump intrusion in the midterms
Published Jan 31, 2026, 6:00 AM ET | CNN Politics
By Fredreka Schouten, Tierney Sneed, Marshall Cohen
2 hr ago
Washington—
Democratic election officials are preparing for potential federal government intrusion in the midterms, as President Donald Trump’s appointees escalate their efforts to find evidence for his long-debunked election fraud claims.
The potential for federal government intervention in state elections “is now in a category, like a weather event, like a bomb threat, like a power outage” that officials must prepare for, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon told CNN. Simon spoke just hours after the FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia.
Simon, a Democrat, stressed that he was not predicting such an intrusion. But he and his colleagues have discussed a range of moves, from seeking to protect voters from interactions with federal law enforcement at polling places to navigating the administration’s push for access to personal information about tens of millions of voters.
The Trump administration has pushed to alter election ground rules ahead of the midterms, including with an executive order last year that has been partially blocked in court.
The FBI search of Fulton County’s elections office came days after Attorney General Pam Bondi linked the immigration crackdown in Minnesota to her agency’s demand for the state’s unredacted voter rolls, alarming state election chiefs who are already worried about cyberattacks, threats to workers and other potential hurdles to completing each count.
“This is now a legitimate planning category. It’s extraordinarily sad, but it would be irresponsible for us to disregard the possibility,” Simon said during the annual winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State.
Democratic secretaries of state said they were reluctant to provide explicit details about their advance planning for fear of alarming voters or providing a roadmap for any bad actors. But they said their preparations were evolving with the novel risks posed by the administration.
In Nevada, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who heads the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said he wants to ensure that polling places in heavily Latino east Las Vegas will have enough staff and voting equipment to keep lines short during peak hours.
He worries long lines could expose voters to harassment by federal immigration agents and others, “although we know that noncitizens are not voting in Nevada.” ProPublica last year found more than 170 cases of US citizens being detained during immigration operations or protests.
Just this week, as her state also became the target of a federal immigration surge, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows looked up the federal statute that limits the presence of armed military at polling places.
“If people are too scared to go out to get groceries or to go to work, they’re going to be too scared to go out and vote, if there are armed federal agents roaming the streets next November,” she said.
Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas said her team is preparing for longstanding issues such as cyberattacks but also new threats specific to the Trump era, like “if troops are sent to a polling place.”
“We basically take the news of the day, worst-case scenarios, and make sure that we are thinking about any emergencies before they occur,” Thomas said.
Responding to those concerns, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “Democrat conspiracies have no basis in reality and their claims shouldn’t be amplified uncritically by the mainstream media.” She said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is focused on removing criminal illegal aliens from country, who should be nowhere near any polling places because it would be a crime for them to vote.”
“President Trump cares deeply about the integrity of our elections – and so do the millions of Americans who sent him back to office based on his pledge to secure our election,” she said.
Would Trump send troops to seize voting machines?
The president has long repeated debunked claims that his 2020 loss was marred by fraud and recently declined to rule out sending the National Guard to seize voting machines, as he considered doing after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
“I should have,” he told The New York Times in a January interview, adding later: “We have very dishonest elections. OK, I say it to you loud and clear. I don’t know if it’s politically correct or not to say it. I shouldn’t complain. I won three times.”
In the early weeks of the administration, Trump hollowed out a federal cybersecurity agency that assists election offices, and the administration cut funding for a federal platform for information-sharing between states to monitor election misinformation and threats.
The Department of Justice, which has amplified claims that undocumented immigrants have infiltrated US elections, without independent evidence, has sued two dozen states for full voter rolls, including personal information such as Social Security numbers and home addresses.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who rejects a bipartisan consensus that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election, was present when FBI agents seized the 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, under a search warrant. Her office said afterward that ensuring election security is within Gabbard’s legal duties, particularly with regard to counterintelligence.
Trump has also upended convention by kicking off a mid-decade redistricting campaign aimed at helping his party eke out additional US House seats in November’s midterms. The Justice Department later joined a lawsuit seeking to invalidate California Democrats’ retaliatory effort to redraw their own House maps.
In interviews with CNN during this week’s gathering, Democratic election chiefs worried about the administration’s increasing confrontations with state and local authorities, all while the federal government has drastically scaled back cybersecurity support for elections.
“The mechanics of securing elections … has completely been eliminated, and instead, it’s been replaced with these bizarre conspiracy theories that have no grounding in the way things actually work,” said Bellows, the Maine secretary of state.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said the recent events in Minneapolis, where federal agents killed two Americans during anti-ICE protests, “is already showing people how far they are willing to go” to push their agenda forward.
“This is a scary time in our history,” Griswold said.
Some Republicans also push back
The annual NASS meeting is typically a low-key, bipartisan affair where top election officials listen to experts to discuss the latest advances on topics such as cybersecurity and compare notes on policy issues.
This week’s gathering at a downtown Washington hotel had some of the air of a typical conference: A breakfast buffet laden with pastries and sliced fruit, skirted tables with vendors hawking election software and voting machines lining the halls, name badges that helped government officials, non-profit advocates and private election advisers make introductions and exchange business cards.
The drastic changes over the last year were an unavoidable part of the conversation.
At one open session, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who serves as her state’s top election official, confronted a White House official about Justice Department civil rights head Harmeet Dhillon saying that states needed federal help to clean their voting rolls.
“She’s pretty much slandered all of us,” Henderson said. “And to me, that’s problematic to publicly claim that secretaries of state are not doing our jobs and that the federal government has to do it for us. Not OK.”
Most states are resisting DOJ’s requests for their sensitive voter registration data, and Dhillon’s office is now suing two dozen states for their records.
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican and the current president of NASS, has turned over the voter data the administration is seeking. But he refused to sign an agreement put forward by the Justice Department requiring the state to “clean” the rolls within 45 days of the DOJ’s review, seeing that as an incursion on the bottom-up process of list maintenance in Mississippi.
“The federal government has a tiny role in elections, and I get that. And when Congress acts, that’s one thing,” Watson told CNN. “But outside of that, the states are the ones that should be in charge.”
Still, he doesn’t expect federal action to emerge as an issue in the midterms.
The erosion of bipartisanship has cut both ways among the state election community. While many Democrats were openly critical of the White House’s approach, some Republicans came to its defense and encouraged the administration’s efforts to impose more security measures on the franchise – including with proposals to add a proof of citizenship to voter registration – that could also make it hard for eligible voters to cast ballots.
Republican West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner told CNN he has “no fear” of federal interference in the 2026 elections. His brother, former West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, joined the Trump administration last year as a senior Justice Department official.
Warner acknowledged that some Democrats “have their concerns in their states, but I don’t see that as a concern in West Virginia.”
Election officials are adapting to make up for the gap created by the administration’s elimination of the federal government’s cybersecurity support, as Idaho’s Secretary of State Phil McGrane noted, pointing out states are standing up their own coordination platforms.
“It would be better if we were working in unison, as we have done in the past, but I know there has been a lot of efforts to ensure that the resilience of the system isn’t weakened,” he told CNN.