Commentary: The troubling takeaway when gaming out election threats

Commentary: The troubling takeaway when gaming out election threats

Published 7:45 am Tuesday, July 7, 2026

To take a look at whether or not our nation’s founding rules stay robust sufficient to make it one other 250 years, PBS shocked a bunch of 9 outstanding Americans with a hypothetical worst-case state of affairs for the midterm elections.

We began by assembling notables who have been prepared to go on nationwide TV to recreation out a gripping story by which our democracy is examined. We discovered a information content material creator with hundreds of thousands of followers (Aaron Parnas). A group activist (Brittany Packnett Cunningham). A billionaire (Mark Cuban). A former governor (Chris Christie), senator (Claire McCaskill) and secretary of Defense (Mark Esper). A congressman (Dan Crenshaw), an election professional (Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson) and a authorized professional (Melissa Murray). Four Republicans, 4 Democrats, one impartial.

Such “tabletop” workout routines have lengthy been used within the navy and in pure catastrophe planning, arenas by which split-second choices could make the distinction between a disaster and a disaster averted. Sadly, the identical excessive stakes are actually all too believable with American elections.

Moreover, enjoying out a worst-case democracy state of affairs on nationwide TV can have the extra good thing about modeling civic dialogue. If sparring companions like Christie (a Republican) and McCaskill (a Democrat) can present that it’s potential to work collectively by way of an electoral disaster, then maybe Americans can be just a bit extra prepared to speak with neighbors who solid totally different ballots in November.

To begin, our members generally discovered stunning settlement on politically contentious points. McCaskill and Cuban, for instance, have been open to becoming a member of with Republicans on the panel to assist wise voter ID necessities. In the wake of President Trump’s controversial SAVE Act, Americans may view voter ID as a binary subject, however there’s an unlimited center floor to be explored.

Participants additionally acknowledged, generally fearfully, that a lot uncertainty owes to our quickly altering period of knowledge. The group additionally sensed that present threats to our democracy mirror a deeper downside: widening financial inequality. As Cuban put it, if folks can’t afford healthcare or placing fuel of their tanks, it’s going to be awfully exhausting for them to care about democracy.

By far essentially the most harrowing chapters of our hypothetical story unfolded when the navy was requested to enter a big metropolis in a purple state two days earlier than an election, on the idea that it was crucial to guard towards a international assault.

I put former Trump secretary of Defense Mark Esper within the function of an Army normal and requested whether or not he would lead such a troop deployment. Esper agonized over the order, expressing a laudable want to maintain the navy out of U.S. cities. But he finally defined that he had little alternative however to observe the order if legal professionals assured him of its legality. For anybody hoping the navy will save us from democratic erosion, the alternate was a dose of chilly actuality.

Finally, I requested members how they’d reply if the Department of Justice secured a search warrant to grab a state’s ballots earlier than they could possibly be totally counted. This is a serious concern amongst election watchers. If ballots are seized earlier than the counting course of concludes, that will disrupt the chain of custody and fatally undermine election integrity. Yet the Trump administration already gestured at this tactic when it seized 2020 ballots from Fulton County in Georgia.

In our state of affairs, state officers (together with Christie) determined to file an emergency lawsuit to dam the seizure of the uncounted ballots. But lawsuits take time — and even a couple of hours can imply the distinction between ballots being seized or secured.

The train could have been fictional, in different phrases, nevertheless it was removed from fantastical. And as we method probably the most consequential midterm elections in current reminiscence, could all of us hope that the democracy dilemmas we posed by no means come to move.

Aaron Tang is the host of the PBS collection “Breaking the Deadlock” and a legislation professor at UC Davis.