With time running out, Trump digs in on changing midterm election rules

Fearing a Democratic takeover of Congress, the president has spent months trying to alter how the midterms will be conducted, but obstacles keep cropping up.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to alter how elections are run faced an avalanche of setbacks last week, as Republican senators rebuffed him and court after court hindered his administration’s plans to, as one judge put it, undercut “the sacred right to vote.”

The pushback has infuriated the president, who has ramped up his threats and demands as he openly grows increasingly worried about the investigations and impeachment that could come if Democrats win control of Congress.

But with the general elections just four months away, Trump is racing the clock as states make final preparations for early voting.

The urgent push to change election rules by several arms of the federal government has created a volatile sea of shifting and contested election policies, many of which are before the courts. The climate of uncertainty is creating headaches for election officials and risks confusing voters, reanimating conspiracy theories about rigged elections and spurring postelection disputes.

“The administration is doing as much as possible to inject chaos into the election cycle,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a voting rights organization that has sued the administration over election policies. “A top priority for this administration is to try to interfere in this election.”

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