Donald Trump has long promoted the Big Lie that he won the 2020 election without offering evidence, the reason he has consistently lost in court. The data say that no U.S. candidate has lost an election this century through fraud, including him. He still maintains it was rigged.
Fast forward to 2026, and we see Trump and Republicans overtly trying to rig the 2026 election. Trump strongarmed Texas into doing a mid-decade gerrymandering of their state to gain seats in the U.S. House. Both blue and red states followed suit, pursuing this undemocratic strategy. New Hampshire Republicans are trying it now.
Trump’s Big Lie and many lies to follow were intended to undermine the public’s trust in our election system. Surely you remember the bogus claims that thousands of Massachusetts and Maine voters were supposedly crossing the state line to vote in New Hampshire. Or the charge that millions of non-citizens are illegally voting, when the truth is that voting fraud by non-citizens is extremely rare. And how about his accusation that voting machines were rigged, an assertion that was disproven in court. Who can forget Trump’s Election Integrity Committee, which disbanded because they could find nothing.
Republicans have leveraged their lies about voter fraud to justify “fixing” this nonexistent problem. Accordingly, they’ve engaging in a systematic suppression of voting (i.e. throwing up roadblocks) on the state level, believing such efforts would affect Democrat voters more than Republicans. They’ve tried to stop or hinder mail-in voting (think the elderly and disabled) and drop boxes because both are used more by Democrats. They’ve reduced early voting and Election Day locations and hours to create long, discouraging lines, especially in minority districts. In Georgia, a citizen cannot offer food or water to support those in long lines. Concluding that increased voter turnout favors Democrats, they oppose the use of voting machines because they speed up both the process of voting and the counting of votes (which, by the way, can be verified by backup paper records).
As we know here in New Hampshire, Republicans have also required registering voters to prove their citizenship with either a passport or original birth certificate. This targets first-time voters in a district, more likely Democrats because they are younger and more transient. Think college students. Married women are vulnerable to this because their birth certificate would not necessarily match the married name on their ID, which would require them to produce an official certificate of marriage. Voter purges (partisan?) will force more potential voters to go through this unnecessary process.
Another issue is the counting and certification of votes. That’s what the Jan. 6 insurrection was all about. That was also the central issue when North Carolina Republicans tried to throw out 100,000 votes to produce a Republican Supreme Court justice. The courts disagreed, and the rightful Democratic winner was installed. But Donald Trump wants to be the final arbiter of which votes count, though the Constitution doesn’t remotely give him that power.
Trump famously said, the U.S. “shouldn’t even have” midterms in November. He has called on Republicans to take over elections to “protect the party.” That’s why he’s pressed them to pass the unconstitutional SAVE Act, shifting election control from state and local governments to the federal government. If that fails, he’s drafting an executive order, which declares a national emergency so that the federal government can take over elections, including giving him the power to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines.
The efforts to undermine fair elections have been constant. Trump’s DOJ demanded sensitive voter information from states. Trump’s FBI seized voter information in Georgia. Trump issued an unconstitutional executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship. Ally Steve Bannon has proposed placing ICE or military at voting stations to secure (intimidate) voters. Can Trump duplicate what an NBC report found in the 2024 election: that postal mail (i.e. mail-in votes) was slowest in key swing states? Then again, he could just take a page from the playbook of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro: simply declare himself the winner regardless of the vote counts.
So, what can you do to secure your own vote? If you are voting for the first time in a New Hampshire town or precinct, start your registration process as soon as possible to leave time to assemble any necessary documents. If you haven’t voted regularly, make sure your name has not been purged from voting rolls. If you’re worried about safety, vote with a partner and bring a phone. To protect others, volunteer to be a poll watcher (Open Democracy) or a poll worker.
Stop the steal. Our democracy depends on it.
Allan MacDonald is a retired public school educator and small businessman. He lives in New London.