Senior US Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, gathered in Washington DC last month to participate in planning exercises focused on potential election disruptions. Senators Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, Elissa Slotkin, and Raphael Warnock were also present as legal experts presented various scenarios.
One scenario involved realistic deepfake videos, created with artificial intelligence, depicting widespread election fraud spreading on social media before voting. Another considered a threat to withhold Office of Management and Budget (OMB) funding from states that do not submit their voter rolls for federal oversight.
Justin Vail, from the non-partisan advocacy group Protect Democracy, stated that these tabletop exercises are a standard planning tool to prepare for potential scenarios. The aim is to identify gaps, test assumptions, strengthen coordination, and develop recommendations to increase preparedness.
The exercises also considered more extreme scenarios, such as responding to armed individuals at ballot drop boxes, online license-plate doxxing, and the unilateral deployment of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and the national guard to polling stations.