Election officials from across the political spectrum — including Republicans — are privately and publicly pushing back against President Donald Trump's continued efforts to alter election rules and challenge voter rolls in the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections. The pushback underscores a long-standing structural reality of American elections: under the U.S. Constitution, states and localities administer elections, and career officials in both parties have historically resisted federal pressure that they believe bypasses established legal procedures.

At a recent conference of election officials in Boston attended by representatives from 37 states, even GOP officials expressed frustration with the president's claims, CNN reported on Thursday. Speaking to more than a dozen officials, CNN reporter Marshall Cohen found widespread dismissal of Trump's assertions.

"You've got to be kidding me," one GOP election official told CNN anonymously.

According to Cohen, the officials in attendance — described as those who understand election administration best — are largely ignoring the president's demands. "The president's big prime time address really landed with a thud," Cohen said of the prevailing sentiment.

Trump's speech, the reporter noted, "was kind of shrugged off" and was not regarded as anything "serious." Officials conducted their own fact-checks and concluded that the president presented no new evidence of voter fraud during the 2020 election.

"I read the documents. It was old. I've already seen this stuff. It wasn't new to me," said one Republican election official from a state Trump has carried three times.

The administration has announced it is handing over hundreds of thousands of names of suspected noncitizens on voter rolls, demanding their immediate removal. Noncitizen voting in federal elections has been illegal since 1996, and existing federal law — including the National Voter Registration Act — already requires states to conduct regular list maintenance, though that process is governed by specific verification and notification procedures rather than summary removal. Sam Hayes, North Carolina's top election official, pushed back on the expectation of immediate action.

"There's nothing we accept at face value and just start removing folks. We've got to make our own independent assessment," Hayes said. He added that complying with the administration's demands before the election would be difficult given the limited time available.

Over the past week, the administration has warned election officials that if a noncitizen casts a ballot, not only the voter but also the responsible election official will be held accountable. These same officials are typically the ones who refer suspected voter fraud to prosecutors.

The threats resonated among officials from the 37 states represented at the conference, Cohen reported. In private conversations, Republican officials said they did not want to be singled out under the administration's pressure.

"We all know elections aren't rigged, but we have to keep our heads down and do our jobs," one Republican election official said.

The general counsel for Georgia's secretary of state issued a statement to the administration asserting that the state had long ensured election security and continues to perform ongoing maintenance to keep systems updated. Georgia has been a focal point of post-2020 election disputes, and its response reflects the operational posture state offices have taken when faced with challenges to their election integrity procedures.

In his speech last week, Trump claimed that China had obtained the voter data of 220 million Americans. However, as PBS noted, all of that information is publicly available. CBS News further pointed out that possessing such data does not equate to the ability to alter election outcomes. As the 2026 midterms approach, the dynamic between federal election-related directives and state-level implementation will be a key area to monitor, particularly in battleground states where voter roll disputes have already prompted litigation.