Protecting the 2026 Election: A Briefing for State Legislators

With 12 days until the November 3rd midterms, state legislators hold a set of tools no one else does: you write the election laws your counties run on, you have standing relationships with the clerks, sheriffs, and prosecutors who enforce them, and your constituents already trust you as a local voice. Two new guides from the election protection community put those tools to work. This post summarizes what they say, pulls out the actions that matter most in the next two weeks, and points to other recent resources that fill in the picture.

A State Legislator's Guide to Election Threats. This guide from Protect Democracy explains the Trump Administration's approach as a three-part strategy: (1) deceive by manufacturing fraud narratives from inside the federal government; (2) disrupt fair elections by deploying federal power, threats, and rule changes against voters and officials; and (3) deny election results by either refusing to certify them or working to overturn them. This guide works through seven priority threats, from intimidation around voting through attempts to "nationalize" elections, seizure of ballots and machines, criminal investigations of election officials, interference with the count, mass voter challenges, and refusals to certify. For each threat, the toolkit lays out the key legal facts, what legal and civic organizations have already prepared, where legislators have unique leverage, and how to frame the message. A risk-window chart shows when each threat is most likely to surface: intimidation during voting, seizures and count disruption during tabulation, and certification pressure at the end.

National Security Leaders for America's Toolkit for Elected Officials. NSL4A, a nonpartisan network of former senior military, diplomatic, and national security leaders, working with partners under the Horizons Project, has produced a scenario-based playbook for local elected officials on one risk that much of the broader election protection efforts have not fully covered: military involvement presented as lawful. This toolkit walks through two scenarios: (1) the Insurrection Act is invoked over claimed civil unrest or protests, and troops in a major city effectively suppress turnout, or (2) the military is sent to polling places or counting facilities under the claim that a foreign government hacked voting machines, potentially breaking the chain of custody of ballots already cast. The toolkit's prescriptions are concrete: a daily press conference with the mayor, police chief, elections director, community leaders, and judges to build a public record that local order is intact; a Joint Information Center linking elections, law enforcement, and community partners; pre-drafted emergency court filings; trusted messengers at impacted precincts; and a plain-language Know-Your-Rights handout for voters. The toolkit also includes a timed Election Day checklist and communications protocols for each scenario.

Six things to do before Election Day

Across both guides, the same general tactics are lifted up, and none of these require passing a bill.

1. Call your county clerks, sheriffs, and prosecutors this week. Ask whether they have a plan and a direct line to each other and to the Secretary of State for reports of armed individuals or federal agents near polling sites, and whether they know their right to demand a court order before handing over any ballots, equipment, or records.
2. Know your state's chain-of-custody and anti-intimidation statutes cold. Your legislature wrote them. Be ready to cite them publicly, and confirm that county attorneys and election officials know what they require.
3. Go on record now that certification is a mandatory, ministerial duty and commit to accepting the results whoever wins. Ask colleagues across the aisle to do the same; a response voiced by one party reads as politics, and cross-partisan voices are the hardest to dismiss.
4. Plug into your state's election protection table. Most states have a 501(c)(3) coalition coordinating legal, communications, and field response. Make sure your office is on the call list so you can relay verified, de-escalatory information to constituents rather than rumors.
5. Push early voting, mail voting, and voting together. Every ballot cast before Election Day is one that cannot be intimidated on Election Day. Distribute Know-Your-Rights materials in every major language through schools, congregations, unions, and libraries.
6. Back your election officials visibly. Thank poll workers, pass or co-sponsor a resolution supporting them, and ask your attorney general and local prosecutors to commit publicly to enforcing voter intimidation laws.

How to talk about it without doing their work for them

Both guides stress that how legislators communicate matters as much as what they do, because each threat depends on a false narrative to create its pretext. The shared rules:

• Verify before you speak. Get facts from the sheriff, clerk, or state election director, not from social media. Unverified posts scare neighbors away from the polls.
• Don't repeat the lie, even to debunk it. Repetition makes claims more believable. Name the motive instead: a desperate attempt to reject results before votes are counted.
• Never say "emergency" alone. Say "fake emergency" or "so-called emergency," and keep the facts simple: states run elections, and no declaration overrides the Constitution.
• Acknowledge fear, then pivot to agency. Condemn intimidation in general terms, express confidence that everyone can vote safely, and give people something to do: check registration, make a plan, bring a friend.
• Lead with local voices. Election officials, clergy, veterans, and small business owners are more credible on this than any politician. Your job is often to amplify them.
• Repeat the hotline everywhere: 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), with Spanish (888-VE-Y-VOTA), Asian-language (888-API-VOTE), and Arabic (844-YALLA-US) lines.

More recent resources worth your staff's time

Since this summer, the election protection community has published a steady stream of complementary material. These fill gaps the two guides above point to but do not fully cover: the legal citations, the risk mapping, the count-and-certification timeline, and the messaging research.

The system holds when people in key roles do their jobs.

Every one of these guides lands on the same conclusion: the threats are real, but none of them work unless officials, courts, or the public accept a premise that is not true. So far, they have not. Courts have blocked the executive orders, rejected most of the Justice Department's voter-data demands, and compelled certification every time a local board refused. Election officials are still at their desks, and voters are still casting their early ballots or making plans to do so on November 3rd.

State legislators play a critical role in protecting our democracy. The organizations behind this work, including National Security Leaders for America, the Horizons Project, Local Progress Impact Lab, Protect Democracy, the Brennan Center, Voting Rights Lab, States United, Over Zero, and the national Election Protection coalition behind 866-OUR-VOTE, have done the legal and communications groundwork. What remains is for you to pick up the phone to your clerks, go on record about certification, and tell your constituents, as often as it takes, that their vote is protected and the way to prove it is to cast it.