Ever since President Donald Trump signaled he would rig the 2026 midterm elections if he could not win them legitimately, American voters have been on edge — an anxiety that has deepened since he offered a $1 million bounty to anyone who uncovers voter fraud.

"As polls show the Republican majority in Congress in peril, Mr. Trump has ramped up his baseless attacks, even dangling a $1 million reward to tipsters who help secure a voting-fraud conviction," wrote The New York Times' Beth Reinhard and Kevin Williams on Sunday. "Some voters are nervous about what he might do next." Their report comes at a time when the administration's election-related orders are already facing resistance in federal court.

Tiffany Hall, a 56-year-old Black physician from Ohio, was among those unsettled by this prospect. "I am very concerned that the election will be disrupted in ways that will affect the margins," Hall told the Times.

Jeanne Russell, a 77-year-old Black retiree and registered Democrat from Maine, told Reinhard and Williams she anticipated foul play, though she remained hopeful that election officials could prevent it. "I'm kind of foreseeing that there will be some dirty tricks," said Russell.

Esther Bowling, 43, also from Ohio, argued that elections could be stolen and said the remedy was stricter identification rules. "If you are an American citizen you should have to show a photo ID to vote," Bowling told the Times. Bowling's focus on identification rules reflects a different strand of election anxiety than the fears of interference voiced by Hall and Russell — a sign that public concern about elections runs in more than one direction.

The concerns extend beyond individual voters. In a June conversation with AlterNet, Dan Vicuña, senior policy director for voting and fair representation at Common Cause, argued that the Trump administration could ultimately break the law — through measures ranging from voter roll purges and new voter ID requirements to the use of law enforcement to influence the vote.

"I think some of these attempts to federalize, to nationalize elections are clearly illegal," Vicuña told AlterNet. "You've seen some of that overreach already struck down — attempts to order independent agencies to force a strict voter ID requirement on people. That has been rejected." This argument rests on a defining feature of American elections: they are administered by state and local officials rather than a federal election authority — a structure that keeps the limits of federal power a recurring question before the courts.

Vicuña added that Common Cause is challenging the latest executive order in court, which, he said, would turn the United States Postal Service into an election administration agency and create an additional bureaucratic layer that would make postal voting more difficult.

"In terms of the president's authority to order around USPS, it's illegal," he said. "In terms of USPS's authority to become some sort of national election administration agency, it far exceeds the legal authority that Congress gave to the postal service. The statute describing what kind of work the postal service would do is about postal service work — processing mail and selling stamps. It has nothing to do with election administration." The dispute over the role of the Postal Service is one of the legal threads to watch as the November 2026 midterm elections approach.