1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

Protect the 2026 Midterms: Congress Must Act Now I am writing to urge Congress to act immediately to protect the integrity of the 2026 midterm elections. A ProPublica investigation published today reports that the federal guardrails that helped prevent election subversion in 2020 have been systematically dismantled. The facts are stark. At least 75 career officials who played important roles in elections work at DOJ, DHS, and other agencies have left or been removed — resigned, fired, or reassigned — and have been replaced by roughly two dozen appointees, many with ties to the election-denial movement. At least 11 of those appointees have ties to the Election Integrity Network, led by Cleta Mitchell, who attempted to help Trump overturn the 2020 election; these officials have given the network’s members private government briefings. And senior federal election officials — including the DHS official in charge of election integrity — attended a summit convened by Michael Flynn at which participants pressed Trump to declare a national emergency to take over the midterms. I ask that you take three specific actions before November: 1.         Hold public oversight hearings on staffing changes at DOJ and DHS affecting election administration, ethics compliance, and election-security decision-making, and on private briefings given to outside political organizations by sitting federal officials. 2.         Codify, fund, and insulate CISA’s election-security and DOJ’s voting-rights functions so they cannot be eliminated or politically redirected by executive action alone. 3.         Affirm publicly that Congress will respect lawful election outcomes and oppose any executive interference in the election-certification process. In 2020, career officials helped preserve the integrity of the election. ProPublica reports that many of those safeguards and the people behind them are now gone. Congress must act now.