“Deceive, Disrupt, Deny.” The Looming Threat to This Fall’s Elections

Recent weeks have seen an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to interfere with this fall’s elections. Its aggressive efforts to restrict mail-in voting, for example, could potentially disenfranchise millions while sowing chaos in state election offices. President Trump has also threatened to arrest election officers accused of wrongdoing (many of whom are volunteers) and to send ICE agents to the polls. 

The nonprofit Protect Democracy argues that all of these actions are part of a larger scheme by the Trump administration to perpetuate election denialism, interfere with Americans’ right to vote, and thwart free and fair elections.  

How can citizens be prepared when they go to the polls this fall, and what they can do to protect themselves and others in their communities? 

Beau Tremitiere is the Deputy Director of Impact Programs and Counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy. Protect Democracy recently published a citizens’ guide on how to spot—and stop—federal voter intimidation. 

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available at Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Anne Kim: Your organization, Protect Democracy, has called the administration’s strategy, “Deceive, Disrupt, Deny.” To set the broader context, can you talk a little bit about what that means? 

Beau Tremitiere: If you look at every piece of news coming out of the White House, it can seem like chaos. It can seem like just the pure whims and caprice of a soon-to-be lame duck president. And to be clear, there is a part of that. There are things like the Reflecting Pool that are clear obsessions of his that don’t necessarily have an obvious tie to the abuse and retention of power. 

But if you zoom out and look at most things coming out of the administration, either ordered from the White House itself or being driven by lackeys throughout the administration, it’s clear that the tactics fall into three distinct buckets. 

The first one is deception—trying to undermine the faith that Americans have in the integrity and fairness of their elections and to suggest that folks should doubt the results that come in, especially if they’re ones that the occupant of the White House doesn’t like. 

Disruption is the second tactic—trying to get in the way of folks expressing their will at the ballot box and the ability of Americans to use the electoral process to select our leaders freely and fairly. [This includes] the mechanics of election administration, the environment in which politicians are competing, and whether people feel safe leaving their homes to cast a ballot. 

And then finally, denial—something we’re familiar with since January 6, 2021. [This includes] the various ways the administration and its allies could attempt to prevent the folks who lawfully won from getting to take their seats and serve in office. Almost everything we’re seeing from the White House is in service of one, if not multiple, of these efforts.

Anne Kim: For those of us who are not election deniers, who watched January 6 with our own eyes, it seems ludicrous that this strategy could be working, but it seems it is. They have made these claims so often that they have primed the public into seeing fraud where none exists. I saw a recent poll from UC-San Diego finding that just 60 percent of Americans think that the vote will be counted accurately this fall. They’ve done an effective job of repeating these false claims in a way that’s really having an impact. 

Beau Tremitiere: There are two things that are unprecedented here, and they cut in different directions. It’s unprecedented that we have the whole federal government behind the subversion effort. Looking back to 2020, you had the president, a handful of aides, and folks like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, but most of the federal government was committed to free and fair elections, including a lot of officials appointed by President Trump himself. That is obviously radically different today. We’re looking at the complete subversion of independent agencies to folks in cabinet positions who have made very clear their intentions to serve a man and not their nation. That is without precedent. 

At the same time, we have never seen the scope and scale of mobilization that civil society is currently engaged in to take that threat on. Nonprofit organizations around the country, local civic groups, and many elected officials all see what we’re seeing, understand the nature of the threat and are preparing accordingly. Folks are not going to be caught off guard because they see what’s coming and are prepared and engaged.

It’s a bit like an unstoppable force and an immovable object, right? We have these incredible trends moving in opposite directions, and I’m confident that civil society is going to put us on a path to free and fair elections and a successful transition of power.

Anne Kim: It looks like one place where civil society is winning is in the pushback to the SAVE Act. It does not look like that piece of legislation is going to pass no matter how many times the president talks about it. What are the arguments that seem to be resonating with citizens and with lawmakers to persuade people that this is a bad idea?

Beau Tremitiere: The SAVE Act is an interesting part of this equation. There is a compelling school of thought that the president never believed that he was going to be able to successfully pass this bill, and that making a lot of noise about its failure was the critical and principal tactic.

By helping shape public understanding and public discourse that these sorts of changes are necessary and critical for us to have free and fair elections, it allows him to then say that if an election was administered absent those rules, we should question its legitimacy.

It’s been clear going back months that there was substantial opposition from the president’s allies on Capitol Hill—that this is a bad piece of legislation, inappropriate for the government the federal government to be doing, and not possible for states to administer. There’s a host of reasons why his allies have been the reason that this has not moved forward, in addition to unified opposition from the other side of the aisle. 

You have to think about how he is using this as a tool of deception, to get the public to further doubt the integrity of the results. I think it’s important to see it through that lens so we can plan and react accordingly.

Anne Kim: That is really interesting. So he’s setting up a tails he wins, heads he wins kind of situation. That’s fascinating. Do you think the same strategy applies to his executive order on vote by mail? Now the U.S. Postal Service has said that it will not deliver ballots if states don’t turn over citizen rolls. What is the dynamic around that set of issues?

Beau Tremitiere: There’s a similar set of strategies at play, but there’s a critical difference here in that courts are getting an opportunity to weigh in. And they’re making clear that those sorts of rules are plainly unlawful and establishing well in advance of the election that the Postal Service does not have this authority, and the president doesn’t have authority to dictate what the Postal Service does. 

That’s a trend that I don’t think has gotten enough attention—that the district courts have been an incredible bulwark over the last year and a half. Of course, there are exceptions, but on the whole, it’s been remarkable how much judges are recognizing the unlawful nature of the actions the administration’s taking. 

They’re ruling clearly and often using their bully pulpit of the bench to be able to communicate to the public. They’re also, in an unprecedented way, calling out the federal government when it’s lying nakedly and trying to make representations to the courts and to the public that are simply not truthful. 

Anne Kim: How much confidence do you have about what the Supreme Court will do? 

Beau Tremitiere: To be clear, I would not carry over all that praise of district judges to the Supreme Court. They certainly have not met the moment in the same way that a lot of their colleagues around the country have. I think that there are at least a few votes on the Court that seem willing to entertain whatever signal the White House sends. 

There are signs that cut both ways. 

The Court ruled on the president’s attempt to deploy National Guard troops domestically in a way that had no modern precedent, using a statute that had never been interpreted in the way they were trying to use it, and there was a clear majority that said you can’t do that. 

Similarly, the Court in the Watson decision earlier this summer rebuffed the administration’s attempt to rewrite law in a way that would make states unable to accept late-received ballots cast before Election Day. That largely exhausts the decisions the Court has done to stand up to attempted abuses by the administration. 

Looking back to 2020, one instructive lesson is that when the voters turn out in large numbers, and it’s really clear who the winner was, local officials refuse to cow to pressure. They do their job. At some point, you get to a place where even if a court is interested in reaching a certain outcome, it’s so far removed from reality that the tactics simply can’t work. It’s only with really close margins and genuine disputes over outcomes and what happened on the ground where you have some play in the joints.

I’m confident that if the electorate shows up, and people make their voices heard in the numbers that polling suggests that they might, there could be so much daylight between what the White House wants to have happen and what the American people say that the Court will side with the people and the law.

Anne Kim: That’s happened in Hungary, right? They had historic turnout. I remember before the election, there were concerns that Orbán would contest the results there. But with practically 80 percent of the population turning out, the defeat was so resounding that he peacefully transferred power. So to your point, turnout is going to be the key.

So far, we’ve talked about actions that the administration is taking that could disenfranchise folks and prevent them from voting at all, like with the mail order ballots, or requiring proof of citizenship, that kind of thing. But your organization has also talked about potential threats to voters when they show up at the polls—actual federal interference. What could that federal voter intimidation look like? What could voters be facing when they show up at their polls this fall that you are worried about?

Beau Tremitiere: I think it’s important when talking about this to balance two things. One, we need to be prepared. We need to anticipate what’s coming so we can be ready and understand how to respond if threats materialize. But it’s important when we talk to our friends and neighbors to be careful about our rhetoric and to not inadvertently do the administration’s work for them and intimidate people.

We don’t want to overhype the risk and have folks feel like they aren’t safe going out into their communities and going to their polling places. So it’s an important and nuanced area. 

We see the risk evolving and don’t expect there to be a uniform approach all over the country. But there’s been a lot to suggest that the administration could consider using the vastly expanded core of DHS agents in ICE and CBPA [Customs and Border Protection] to be present in communities that have high percentages of naturalized citizen voters or high percentages of immigrants.

[They wouldn’t] necessarily go to polling places directly because federal law and state law are really clear that you can’t do that, but they could still be in communities and intimidate and disrupt in ways that would be inappropriate, unlawful, and clearly designed to suppress voter participation in communities that they expect don’t support the candidates that the administration wants to win. 

The broader ecosystem sees this coming, and so there’s a lot of great work being done to ensure that folks are voting early in person where possible, and if you can vote by mail, doing it early and using drop boxes so that [the U.S. Postal Service] never touches the ballot.

[We’re also] thinking about how to lift up community leaders, whether it’s local faith leaders, veterans, or others in the community to stand in solidarity with voters who might feel concerned about this.

The president himself with his own two hands can’t do any of this. This only works if thousands of other people are complicit in lawbreaking. So every day is a new opportunity for every civil servant to look in the mirror and decide whether they want to be a part of a free and fair society or if they want to be a part of suppressing those who are disfavored by the administration. 

We’ll see what it looks like when folks are presented with that choice and seek the opportunity to stand on the right side of history.

Anne Kim: To your point about walking that fine line—finding that balance between preparation and panic—your voter guide has some useful tips on how to handle potential intimidation at the polls. And I’m wondering if you can give some of the best advice about what people can do pre-election to be ready, and how they should handle it if they do see something that’s concerning. You have some interesting do’s and don’ts about the right way to handle a situation that might be troubling.

Beau Tremitiere: One thing, again, is getting your vote in as early as possible to ensure that you’re registered and counted well before things could potentially escalate. Of course, the administration might seek to increase deployments or take other actions later in the process, but there’s no harm making sure that you are counted as early as possible.

I think that there’s a lot that we should be doing identify ways to help those in our communities who might be a little concerned and figuring out what they need to be able to fully and freely participate. I think one of the most valuable things we’ve seen happen throughout civil society is people taking advantage of technology and using peaceful and safe filming as a means of accountability. The important caveat of course is that filming within polling places is typically not allowed. In some places, there are clear lines as to how far away you need to be and rules around how close you can be to officers or other officials. Those are going to vary in place to place, but you have a First Amendment right to be able to observe and document in a safe and unobtrusive way. And that is critical for both deterring bad conduct and ensuring accountability after that. Organizations around the country are helping support local community members to make sure they can do that effectively.

It’s critical that folks remain nonviolent and that they don’t take the bait of the administration to escalate and to create a pretense of violent unrest. Similarly, when folks are a part of large demonstrations and individuals within those demonstrations engage in violent activity, it’s important that you draw a clear line between what they’re doing and what the rest of folks are doing. 

Looking at the tens of millions of folks who have gone to the streets since the start of the administration, all but a rounding error have been consistently and uniformly nonviolent, and people have done a really amazing job from the organizers all the way down to first-time protesters to adhere to those principles. 

Anne Kim: I was really struck by the tips in your citizen’s guide about how to communicate effectively and responsibly. Your guide makes the point that it’s going to be everyone’s impulse to record something and then post it right away with just attention-grabbing language in the hopes of going viral. But that’s not necessarily the most effective tactic. So what is the responsible way to report something that might concern someone?

Beau Tremitiere: That’s a great question. We’re seeing organizations around the country working in concert to figure out how to be prepared. Folks like 1-866-OUR-VOTE and other leading election protection organizations are [serving as] a clearinghouse for reports and working closely with lawyers both locally and around the country to understand how these threats interact with legal rules to support cases they’re bringing to challenge improper action. 

The other dynamic that is unprecedented here is the role that generative AI could have in shaping the information ecosystem we’re operating in. I think we all have a heightened burden of scrutiny to understand and assess the legitimacy and veracity of the information we’re seeing, and we should expect a lot of false information to be flooding our feeds. The flip side of that—the frustrating and challenging part—is that very real, very true footage is going to be met with skepticism by some.

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