STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Democrats are in a strong position, according to polls, for the midterm elections. But they're preparing for a new kind of challenge - what to do if President Trump attempts to undermine the election results? Democrats in Congress have convened a task force of lawmakers, staff and experts to face this. And NPR congressional reporter Eric McDaniel is here in Studio 31 to talk about it. Eric, thanks for coming by.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: So what does this task force see as its purpose?
MCDANIEL: Well, the goal's pretty straightforward. I spoke to Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware about it.
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: Our goal is to protect this election before the election happens, during the election and after the election.
INSKEEP: OK.
MCDANIEL: And this task force is made up of lawmakers and staff from at least 11 Senate offices as well as outside advisers, like President Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, and a constellation of leaders from Good Governance Group. One part of this work, just as an example, Senate congressional staff have been meeting in person each week for months and have a list of about a hundred-ish threats they're developing responses to that run the gamut, from issues at a single polling location to the potential that President Trump sends troops to voting sites.
INSKEEP: Wow - a hundred scenarios and pretty extreme range there. How do you get ready for all those?
MCDANIEL: I should say it's not just what they're preparing for here in the coming weeks. It's what they're already doing. Here's Marc Elias, an election litigator and task force member.
MARC ELIAS: Right now, my law firm of 60 people is litigating 87 cases in 43 states.
MCDANIEL: And those cases right now are largely centered on the DOJ's efforts to obtain state voter rolls and a White House effort to restrict mail-in voting. The task force's work now is getting lawmakers prepared to be the connective tissue between pro-democracy groups and litigators and their state and local counterparts working to actually administer the midterms around the country. Obviously, there's not a lot they can do legislatively as the minority party. But as members of Congress, they do have big megaphones.
INSKEEP: So let's talk about the threat here. We know that President Trump lost the 2020 election, according to thousands of election officials, but tried to overturn the results. Even after his own allies couldn't find evidence that he had won, he continued making this false claim. But what is he saying about the midterms coming up in which he's not on the ballot?
MCDANIEL: Well, since returning to office, he's mused about declaring a national election emergency, whatever that means. He's also refused to rule out sending troops to polls, though a DHS official told NPR that ICE would not be sent to polls. In a speech from the White House in July, Trump questioned why Democrats won't support his election overhaul bill, the SAVE America Act.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat.
MCDANIEL: White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told me that every American should be asking why Democrats are fighting against the SAVE America Act, which includes commonsense election integrity measures, she said, that are strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans.
INSKEEP: Is this Democratic task force assuming that efforts will be made to compromise the vote?
MCDANIEL: They are, but they're optimistic that things will go OK. The task force members I spoke to were broadly confident that the democratic system will eventually win out over any effort to disrupt the election process. Here's Vanita Gupta, a senior Biden DOJ official now at NYU Law.
VANITA GUPTA: Maybe the process of getting from here to a new Congress may be messier than any of us would like. But we are going to have free and fair elections so long as people don't take for granted their right to vote.
MCDANIEL: And, Steve, that sentiment was shared by everyone I spoke to. People should feel confident to cast their ballot.
INSKEEP: NPR's Eric McDaniel, thanks for coming by.
MCDANIEL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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