Attorney General Blanche Won't Rule Out DOJ Blocking States From Certifying Midterm Results

Attorney General Todd Blanche declined on Thursday to rule out Justice Department action that could block a state from certifying its midterm election results, saying there could be a doomsday scenario in which the department would get involved.

Blanche spoke with reporters in Norfolk, Virginia, before boarding a plane. He said it is not the department's intention to improperly interfere with elections. But he would not say there are no circumstances in which it would act.

What he was asked, and what he said

Blanche had traveled to Norfolk with FBI Director Kash Patel to announce racketeering charges against Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas and six other defendants. After that announcement, reporters asked him whether he could rule out any department action to delay the counting of ballots or to block a state from certifying results.

"Yes. Of course there are scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, some doomsday scenario, for example," he said, in comments reported by NBC News and Democracy Docket. "It is not DOJ's intention, and it's never our intention, to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process, but to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course I'm not going to say that."

"Am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no," he added. Pressed about the department's election lawsuits against states, he said it was not trying to create chaos.

Certification is a state job

Certification is done by the states, and the federal government has no role in it, Democracy Docket noted.

Senators Alex Padilla, Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse wrote to Blanche last week asking him to commit that the Justice Department would not seize ballots or voting machines before states certify their results, NBC News reported. The senators cited the Justice Manual, the department's internal rulebook, which says the department should generally avoid interfering with election administration, tabulation, validation or certification. They asked Blanche to respond in writing by Oct. 29.

Lawsuits over voter rolls and mail ballots

NBC News reported this week that the department is weighing more election related litigation against states, after it sued California to compel officials to review 18,000 registered voters it suspected could be noncitizens. California sends ballots to registered voters automatically, and the department is considering lawsuits against other states that do the same, NBC News reported.

The remarks landed in an already tense week. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin limited Homeland Security field operations aimed at finding noncitizen voters in nine states, finding that the target lists behind them likely contained errors and included naturalized citizens. The order is stayed until Friday afternoon for an appeal, and is set to run until polls close on Nov. 3.

A pattern of not ruling things out

Blanche's answer fits a pattern that has drawn warnings from Democratic senators for months. At his confirmation hearing in July, he avoided any commitment not to deploy immigration agents at the polls, saying he would follow the law, Democracy Docket reported. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin left open the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the polls. After the July statement, a dozen Democratic senators warned Blanche, Mullin and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that deploying agents at election sites is illegal under federal law.

Voters decide control of Congress on Tuesday, Nov. 3.