They won’t say who attended. They won’t say where it happened. They won’t even say — on the record — what day it took place.
What House Democrats are willing to acknowledge is that more than two dozen lawmakers gathered this week for a closed-door strategy session to game out how they would respond if President Donald Trump or his administration sought to interfere with this year’s midterm elections, according to details shared exclusively with MS NOW.
“The president will do anything that he can to subvert the election, he’s made that clear,” said Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, who organized the meeting. “It’s not as though we’re going to be caught unaware.”
Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, has emerged as the point-man for House Democrats as they look to counter the president’s potential efforts to meddle in the elections. He said his team is gaming out “north of 100” potential scenarios in which Trump or his allies may try to intervene.
MS NOW was allowed to watch a test-run of the tabletop exercise earlier this week, with Morelle and his staff walking through a hypothetical scenario in which Trump attempts to unilaterally implement one key aspect of the SAVE America Act through executive action: requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship.
House Democrats have told MS NOW they fear the president’s SAVE Act push is merely a pretense, and that, if the legislation stalls, Trump will instead declare a state of emergency and implement some electoral rule changes administratively.
“That will be going into court,” Morelle said as part of the mock exercise, adding that Democrats will coordinate with local election administrators and secretaries of state to respond.
Morelle said Democrats’ overall strategy boils down to educating voters and local officials about the law and their rights, while also being prepared legally. He told MS NOW they have attorneys lined up around the country ready to file lawsuits for virtually any scenario.
“It’s organizing, it’s litigating, it’s agitating, it’s communicating, and it’s educating,” Morelle said. “We’re doing all of those things simultaneously.”
One hypothetical centered on Trump shutting down a polling place in a key Democratic city or county.
Beyond appealing to the courts, Morelle said in that scenario they would “first and foremost” reach out to “local election officials so that they know what the law is, so that they’re not, in a sense, bullied or intimidated by someone who shows up claiming to be in a position to shut the polling place down.”
Over the past several months, Trump has floated a number of ideas affecting election administration — from leaning on the U.S. Postal Service not to deliver mail-in ballots to deploying ICE agents at polling places.
“We’re frankly working through scenarios that have never been encountered in American life before,” Morelle said. “But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump.”
Morelle said he and his team have spent more than a year preparing for potential election disruptions, working with voting groups and meeting with local election officials from across the country.
While he has briefed his colleagues about his work, Morelle said this week’s closed-door exercise represented the first time many rank-and-file House Democrats participated directly in the planning efforts.
So far, Morelle’s team has declined to identify the outside organizations and law firms they are working with, arguing that naming them could expose those groups to reprisals from the president.
But House Democrats aren’t alone in stepping up their preparedness for possible presidential interference in the November elections.
Last month, Politico reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and nine other Democratic senators held their own war games to prepare for potential Trump intrusions. Senate Democrats have also announced a plan to train and deploy Senate staffers to act as election observers, documenting any efforts to interfere on Election Day or during the vote count.
Morelle argued there are steps voters can take to prepare, as well, including checking to make sure their voter registration status is up to date and has not been “purged.” He also urged folks to vote “as early as is allowable in your state.”
Pressed by MS NOW, Morelle insisted that Democrats will be able to stop the president and Republicans from any form of meddling in the elections.
“I have every confidence that Americans will get to the polls. They’ll have their chance to vote, and their votes will be counted,” Morelle said. “And we’re going to make sure that that’s the case.”
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