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The idea of federal law enforcement seizing ballots in the middle of an active election would have once been considered impossible.
Now, as President Trump continues his unprecedented hunt for voter fraud, ballot seizures and search warrants are scenarios voting officials and the legal community are actively preparing for.
One state election official, who did not have permission to speak publicly, told NPR their office has led three separate statewide trainings this year to prepare for the possibility of law enforcement seeking to take possession of ballots or election materials while the election is ongoing.
And UCLA's Safeguarding Democracy Project released a guide Wednesday, shared first with NPR, to help judges navigate search warrant affidavits related to the voting process.
"Lots of things that were off the table are now on the table," said Rick Hasen, the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, and the guide's lead author.
Trump has said he regrets not pushing harder for the federal government to seize election equipment after the 2020 election. Already this year, two different search warrants, executed in Fulton County, Ga., and Riverside County, Calif., involved the seizure of ballots.
All that has voting officials preparing for different worst case scenarios this fall.
"This is the thing we really fear," the state voting official, whose state has conducted the trainings, said in a previous interview with NPR. "[Say] we have really close races [in our competitive districts] then the DOJ, FBI come knocking on one of our county doors and they say, 'We believe there's hijinks going on, we're going to confiscate all the ballots so we can count them.'"
If a warrant were served and ballots were seized before an election is certified, it's possible voting officials wouldn't be able to confidently know how many ballots were returned, or whether the ones that were seized were tampered with.
In elections, this is known as breaking the chain of custody.
"They could do so much damage if they did that," the official said.
Legal experts say it is still an extreme and unlikely scenario. Notably because there is a last line of defense that must sign off on any attempt to seize ballots: a judge.
"Right now, the judiciary writ large has their antennae up, anticipating what might be coming down the pike," said retired federal judge Philip Pro, who served as the chief judge for the District of Nevada. "They're going to be prepared."
An affidavit isn't 'gospel'
The warrant executed at the elections office in Fulton County, Ga., was a wake-up call for the legal community not solely because it happened, but because how it was approved.
"Eventually we got to see the search warrant and it confirmed some of our worst fears," said Hasen. "It contained information about potential fraud in Georgia that was based on discredited conspiracy theories."
Magistrate judges, who are generally the ones dealing with warrant affidavits, are not experts in elections, Hasen said, which means this fall, they could also find themselves wading through dubious claims at a time when misinformation is rampant.
Therefore, one of the UCLA guide's recommendations to judges is not to go it alone.
"One of our key recommendations is to bring election administrators into the conversation," Hasen said.
The process for requesting and granting warrants typically happens in secret, without public hearing or testimony, which limits the court's ability to scrutinize requests, said retired Judge Maureen O'Connor, who served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. But in the case of an ongoing election, transparency should be prioritized, she said.
"This isn't something that the judge has to just look the officer in the eye and say, 'yeah, I think I can trust him,'" O'Connor said. "That deserves to be discussed in a courtroom on the record, with the judge asking questions of witnesses under oath and determining then, by the totality of the circumstances, whether there should be a warrant issued."
Both O'Connor, and retired Judge Pro of Nevada, are members of Keep Our Republic, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting democracy and the rule of law, and one of the many civil society groups working to prepare for potential federal interference this year.
"[Judges] are going to be looking behind the curtain rather than simply relying on what is presented [in the affidavit] as being gospel," said Judge Pro.
Other options for investigation
In putting out the guide, Hasen wanted to emphasize to judges the gravity of signing off on a warrant during an active election and breaking the chain of custody. He pointed to a case in Michigan where the chain of custody was broken for just a few dozen ballots in 2025, and the result of that mayoral race — decided by 11 votes — is still in dispute.
Voting officials worry a controversy like that could escalate to chaos if it were in a House or Senate race that decides the balance of power in Congress.
"We want judges to understand you can't unscramble the egg," Hasen said. "Once the ballots have been taken out of the custody of election officials, there are at least going to be conspiracy theories that ballots have been altered or added to or removed."
The UCLA guide lays out a number of alternatives judges should consider if law enforcement requests access to ballots, including waiting until after certification to execute any warrant, considering whether copies or reproductions could satisfy the government's investigative needs, or allowing law enforcement to observe tabulation or a recount instead.
The guide also lays out procedures a court should follow if a warrant is granted, but Hasen said he hopes once a judge considers all their options, it doesn't come to that.
"Because all the things to do, if that does happen," Hasen said, "are really second-best solutions."
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