1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Protect the 2026 Midterms: Stop Election Interference and Reject Any Emergency-Powers Pretext As a constituent, I am asking you to use every tool available to you — oversight, appropriations, legislation, and public pressure — to stop the administration’s escalating interference with the 2026 midterm elections and to preemptively reject any attempt to use “foreign interference” claims as a pretext to seize federal control over how states run their elections. This is not speculative. On July 9, 2026, President Trump fired the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission’s Democratic members, prompting the remaining Republican commissioner to resign and gutting the only federal agency devoted to election administration months before the midterms. DOJ has pushed states for full unredacted voter rolls, including partial Social Security and driver’s license numbers, and a federal court already struck down key parts of Trump’s March 2026 executive order that tried to direct DHS and USPS to restrict mail voting. PBS News has reviewed a full 17-page draft executive order that would let the president declare a national emergency over alleged foreign interference and take sweeping control of voting mechanisms nationwide, including mandatory hand-counting and new re-registration requirements. No cited legal authority actually grants a president that power — it belongs to states and Congress under Article I, Section 4. I am also asking you to get ahead of what election security experts are already warning about: this administration reportedly plans to give a speech centered on newly declassified intelligence about 2020 foreign interference and alleged voting-machine vulnerabilities, despite a 2021 intelligence assessment finding no foreign actor altered any technical aspect of that election. Any future claim of foreign interference from this administration should be treated with real scrutiny — is it a consensus assessment from career intelligence professionals, or a selective, politicized release being used to justify federal overreach into elections that belong to the states? I am asking you to: 1. Demand full oversight hearings and, if necessary, subpoenas on DOJ, DHS, and ODNI regarding voter data collection and any emergency-powers planning tied to the 2026 election. 2. Publicly and preemptively commit to opposing any attempt to invoke national emergency powers to override state control of elections, regardless of the justification offered, and support legislation that closes this loophole in the National Emergencies Act. Your public position and vote on this will factor into how I evaluate your service. Please respond and let me know the specific steps you intend to take.