Mr. Trump, who also made unfounded allegations of fraud in the 2016 election, although he won, has signaled that he does not hesitate to go back to election day if he does not like the result. Unlike in 2000, when the Justice Department largely sidelined, Democrats worry Mr. Barr will intervene in civil matters, investigations or public statements, and doubt the outcome if Mr. Trump seems to lose. And some Democrats say they are not sure how Mr. Trump would react, with the presidency on the line, to a court ruling against him.
Some Democrats even express the fear that Mr. Trump would send federal agents into the streets, as he did in recent weeks in Portland, Ore. Democrats have game-planned situations in which Mr. Trump deployed immigration activists in Spanish neighborhoods to intimidate citizens shortly before the election and suppress turnout.
“It’s very, very worrying,” said Alex Padilla, the secretary of state of California.
Mr. Trump’s advisers dismissed such talks as overheated partisan messaging. Justin Clark, the president’s deputy campaign manager, said states like California and Nevada trying to support post-vote on the fly were the ones setting the stage for a chaotic election.
“Hurrying to carry out universal voting by e-mail leads to delays in counting, delays in results and uncertainty about who won an election,” he said.
It took six weeks for the New York authorities to determine the winners of two House Democratic congressional primaries as they contested with 10 times the normal number of absentee votes, a case study potentially for a long count in the fall , even if not an example of fraud as Mr. Trump has falsely claimed.
Mr Clark is one of the party’s top fighters in the fight against electoral fraud. In a 2019 survey, he told fellow Republicans: ‘Traditionally, Republicans have always suppressed votes in places. Let’s start protecting our voters. ”
Republicans, he said, need to be more aggressive. ‘Let’s start making a little offense,’ he said then. “You’ll see that in 2020. It’s going to be a much bigger program, a much more aggressive program, a much better funded program.”
