Is There Such a Thing as a Quiet Midterm?

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2026

Different time, different methods; similar fears.

It’s the midterms: control of Congress is in the balance while the rules and machinery of elections themselves are under political attack and revision. One party holds the presidential office and both chambers; broad economic and political dissatisfaction is the new norm; ballot and voter fraud are a major focus at all levels; and tariffs of nearly 50% are straining consumers and some industries. Well, that’s 2026 for you, right?

Except it’s 1890, and the Republican Party is pushing a bill intended to protect Black voters from intimidation, fraud, and discrimination at the local level, saying the government may need to intervene. Southern Democrats are arguing that it looks a lot like a federal takeover.

In June, Henry Cabot Lodge will introduce the Federal Elections Bill (known as the “Lodge Bill”). This historic effort to protect the voting rights of Black Americans fell victim to poor timing, a decimating election, competing regional interests, and what is described as one of the first successful Southern filibusters of a U.S. civil rights bill: a months-long filibuster by states’ rights advocates, aided by Western Republicans who gave up and cut deals with them.

Americans had been tinkering with voting before those midterms. Of course, Americans have been tinkering with voting since its inception, even as the playbooks change from administration to administration. The balance of power relies heavily on the will of the people, or more plainly, elections. That has led to such a dizzying array of election-swaying tactics that recent AP polls found that 34% of American adults actually trust the process a great deal. And if you listen to politicians, it sounds like some don’t trust the process much either, since the phrases “rigged” or “stolen” periodically falls from their lips.

So, it begs the question: If politicians and leaders use the term “stolen election,” just what do they mean? After all, use the word “steal” in front of me, and I imagine someone slyly pocketing something or a brazen group making a heist. I’m envisioning something done out of sight or in a way that it goes undetected.

Just how could an election, a massive national or statewide vote, be stolen? Not surprisingly, the answer begins long before election results are announced, which means there has to be more than just the simpler question of what “stealing” means.

Reverse-engineer what “election theft” might mean, and it starts with votes. Votes lead backward to voters, to voter rolls, to districts and states, and those jurisdictions leading to seats. And whether at the state or federal level, those seats lead to the power over the rules governing the system itself.

Those elected through this machinery can end up responsible for the many parts of the machine. Historically, they write and police election rules, but they also end up with the strongest potential for stealing, or at the very least, forcefully shaping the outcome of the election.

Take the 1888 presidential election: ballots were redesigned in the “Australian ballot” style, with some states printing ballots and creating private voting booths while also restricting “politicking” inside polling stations. Two years later, the 1890 midterms became one of the earliest elections when Americans faced less risk of intimidation at the polls. It is also when elections began to resemble the system we are familiar with today.

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1890

But if we’re looking to see if those who write the rules and police elections might be using their power to steal them, 1890 has another lesson to share. In August, as the fight over federal election protection heated up, over 100 men in Mississippi gathered for a constitutional convention. Led by Judge Solomon Saladin Calhoon, the men were tasked with one thing: excluding Black voters from casting their ballots throughout the state without violating federal law. The results of this convention were so effective that they established a 75-year period of voter suppression using literacy tests, poll taxes, and violence to prevent lawful voters from casting their ballots.

Is there a parallel to that playbook at work now? In 1890, voter rolls were used effectively through exclusion, with eligible voters intentionally kept off them. In our era, voter rolls are described as “dirty”: containing deceased, non-citizen, or relocated voter enrollments. Both eras also identify the physical nature of their voter rolls as a risk of electoral theft. It was local paper ledgers in the 1800s; today, it is digital databases.

Just this summer, federal investigators ran voter information through government databases, and only 41 people were charged with election-related crimes (out of more than 150 million who had voted) between January 2025 and May of 2026. The rationale for the investigation, as provided by the administration, was that it was necessary for accurate voter rolls and public confidence.

In June, a federal judge blocked the administration’s use of a version of the immigration database used to check the accuracy of state voter rolls, saying: “The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.”

The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.

A FEDERAL JUDGE, JUNE 2026

Scratch the surface, and you’ll find more connective rhetoric swirling around the 1890 and 2026 midterms than seems possible: interference with voters, ballot counting or ballot manipulation, changes in voting rules, corporate or financial influences, and the ever-popular federal-versus-state disputes.

But all the rhetoric leads to some fundamental questions: Who belongs on the voter rolls? Who gets to decide that? When does the federal government intervene? When does it get to decide states are “getting it wrong”? Most significantly: When does federal protection become intrusion? When does it become clear that a state or federal action has, effectively, helped steal an election?

No state or federal government has to actually intrude on an election for voters to be nudged one way or another. In July of 1890, “Bayonets at the Polls,” shouted from the front page of “The Morning News” from Savannah, GA, drawing attention to an article that belabors Republican efforts to pass the Lodge Bill, without any explanation for the dramatic title. Just last week, one headline read,“...immigrant rights groups sue DHS to stop armed officers at polls.”

Those similarities go on and on, whether it’s mail ballots, polling place “security,” district mapping, campaign money, ballot access, or something else. They all tell us something crucial: each is a part of a larger machine, and it is a machine under constant testing. And while none of its parts are interchangeable, merely questioning one part can cause faith in the entire machine to fail. It’s where many American voters find themselves today, losing faith in the entire machine because of a few parts.

We live in an age of constant information, so it can get very noisy around any issue, especially one with the highest-stakes outcomes. It’s exhausting, but important to listen to the noise. We will read or hear news about the midterms full of words like fraud, human error, campaign spending, redistricting, and ordinary political persuasion. We will be flooded with ads. We will hear a lot about rigged elections, election integrity, and stealing. It is the noise the machine always makes, and just because it’s noisy, it doesn’t mean it is malfunctioning.

Even now, early voting for the midterms is underway as election litigation and federal-state disputes continue. Another struggle for some control over the machine has begun. But now, as it was in 1890, it is crucial to remember that the smallest part matters most.

Why else is there so much noise around your one little vote?

Faithfully,