Attorney General Todd Blanche said federal intervention remains possible in extreme scenarios, even as election laws limit the Justice Department’s authority.
Attorney General Todd Blanche declined Thursday to rule out the Justice Department seeking to intervene in midterm election certification, saying hypothetical extreme scenarios could prompt federal action, Fox News reported.
Blanche made the remarks to reporters before boarding a plane in Norfolk, Virginia, where he and FBI Director Kash Patel announced racketeering charges against an 82-year-old state senator, according to NBC News. Blanche insisted that the administration does not intend to improperly disrupt election outcomes or confirmation proceedings, but he repeatedly refused to dismiss the possibility of federal intervention if a doomsday scenario unfolds.
Blanche’s comments on certification
During the press conference in Virginia, reporters questioned Blanche on whether the Justice Department would take steps to delay or halt the counting and certification of ballots. Blanche said he could not make conclusive statements about future actions because he has no knowledge of what will happen.
He also rejected suggestions that his team is actively preparing to block state outcomes. When asked about his schedule around Election Day, Blanche said, ‘But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no, not at all.’
Blanche maintained that the department is not trying to generate chaos. Instead, he argued that federal officials want to flag potential irregularities for state election workers and confirm that only eligible voters participate in elections.
Legal boundaries on federal election authority
Under the U.S. Constitution and federal law, state and local officials run and certify elections. The Justice Department holds a limited statutory role in voting. Federal statutes permit the department to protect civil rights and bring criminal charges against people who violate election laws, but they do not authorize federal prosecutors to challenge individual ballots or postpone certification deadlines.
While private citizens and political candidates hold legal standing to contest ballots or election outcomes in court, no federal statutes grant the Justice Department the power to delay a state from finalizing its count.
Voter roll litigation and mail voting
Blanche’s statements follow recent federal legal actions targeting state voter files. The Justice Department moved against state voting procedures last week when DOJ sued California over voting rolls to force a review of thousands of registered voters.
The news outlets gave different figures for the number of voters targeted in that action. Fox News reported that the federal government asked a judge to stop California from counting mail-in ballots from roughly 20,000 individuals unless their eligibility was confirmed, adding that the state was given 48 hours to complete the check. NBC News reported that the lawsuit sought to compel California officials to review 18,000 registered voters suspected of being noncitizens.
California conducts elections entirely by mail and distributes ballots to registered voters automatically. Seven other states and Washington, D.C., also conduct all-mail elections: Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington state. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized mail voting as susceptible to fraud ahead of the 2026 midterms, although he casts his own ballot by mail in Florida.
Trump has also repeatedly claimed that noncitizens voting in federal elections presents a widespread danger to election security. Documented cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare, according to voting experts, academic studies and past prosecutions.
Court battles and congressional pushback
The Justice Department has considered filing additional lawsuits against other states over voting records. However, a federal judge this week temporarily barred the department from conducting certain election-related field operations and interviews across nine states through Election Day. The judge stayed that injunction until Friday evening to allow the administration time to appeal.
Democratic leaders and voting groups also filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the administration, accusing federal officials of voter intimidation and threats ahead of the midterms.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to Blanche’s remarks on Thursday. Schumer wrote on X that Senate Democrats ‘have been preparing for this for months and will be ready’ to challenge any administration effort to disrupt the midterms.
