Littwin: Don’t worry about the polls. Worry about whether Trump will undermine the election.

Thanks to my boss, who took pity on an old, weary columnist, I’m just back from my latest vacation — two-plus glorious weeks in Spain, mostly in Andalusia, where 1492 was about much more than just Christopher Columbus — hale and hearty, refreshed and reinvigorated, and yet, scared to death. (Thanks, by the way, to those who reached out to The Sun to do a wellness check.)

As I write this, we’re a week out from Election Day, and the question before us is, what could go wrong?

Or maybe this: What won’t go wrong?

And how could it affect Colorado’s 8th Congressional District race between GOP incumbent Gabe Evans and Democratic challenger Manny Rutinel? The district is rated as a toss-up. If you missed the story, Trump is planning to send in the Justice Department to monitor the voting in Adams County, which leans Democratic, but not Weld County, which leans Republican. Parts of both counties are in the 8th CD.

What do you make of that? I know what I make of it.

You see, I’m not talking just about the polls and whether they possibly overrate Democrats’ chances to take back the House and the Senate in what is — as we’re told time and again — the most important midterm elections in memory. It’s certainly the last, best chance to pull in the reins on Donald Trump’s all-out assault on democracy, not to mention his assault on D.C. architecture and good taste, before he leaves office, hopefully, in 2029.

(By the way, didn’t you love Barack Obama’s Cheesecake Factory line on the ballroom? Guess who didn’t love it?)

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No, I’m talking about the chances that Trump will try to interfere with the election process next week to undermine the results before Dems gain control of Congress and start their investigations of the Trump family and the tech boys who have profited under Trump. Is it any wonder that Elon Musk has poured nearly $450 million into races across the country?

This is not some wild conspiracy theory. We leave that to MAGA World. This comes straight from election officials who are worried that Trump will do something, and they’re not even sure what it might be, to meddle with the vote. 

The New York Times had an article Tuesday on how election officials in states across the country are planning for worst-case scenarios. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit, as Trump ordered it to do, in Alaska asking to preemptively block the results there if the Republican loses in a close election. Even the GOP-led Alaska administration has filed a countersuit. Reuters asked election officials what they’re worried about in this election and came up with nine ways Trump could interfere with the midterms.

Trump is quite open about all this. It’s not exactly a new idea. Just look back to the January 6th assault on the Capitol, meant to stop the counting of  Electoral College votes. You may recall that Trump pardoned all the insurrectionists, even those convicted of violently attacking police.

I mean, he had Tina Peters to the White House recently, presumably to discuss election, uh, strategy. How much more open can you get? By the way, I hope you saw the “60 Minutes” episode featuring the election grifter, who came off as unhinged as ever. And there was Jared Polis pathetically trying once again, without success, to defend his decision to spring Peters early from prison over the objections of nearly everyone except Trump. Is it a coincidence that federal money is now flowing back to Colorado?

We’ve never had an election like this, not in my lifetime anyway. We know Trump has said he wants to “nationalize” the election. He tried to stop mail-in voting, which he has said for years, despite no supporting evidence, is conducive to fraud. He has threatened states, like Colorado, that won’t turn over their voting rolls. We know he encouraged Republican voters at the GOP’s weird midterm convention to “cheat like hell” and to vote whether or not they’re registered. We know that Trump has seized voting machines before and has often said he wished he had done so after the 2020 election. We don’t know — but we worry — that he’ll do it on Tuesday.

Will he send in his ICE jackbooted thugs to intimidate voters? Colorado officials doubt it, but they note that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused to rule out the possibility, saying they could be sent in if there was “an active public safety threat.” In any case, Denver has joined with voting groups to sue to block ICE agents from showing up.

Speaking of threats, might Trump declare a national emergency sometime before the House is seated? That’s your worst-case scenario right there. Well, Polymarket bettors say there’s a 29% chance he will.

How would you bet?

Look, maybe the point of the threats about ICE agents is just so much fear-mongering. Or maybe it’s a clear sign of Trumpian desperation.

But let’s take a closer look at the 8th CD to understand what might be going on. The feds have an easy explanation for why they want to observe voting in Adams County but not Weld. It’s just that the explanation is thin, to say the least. Adams is one of seven counties in the state that is required by what’s left of the Voting Rights Act to provide ballots for voters where 5% of voting-age citizens speak another language. Weld doesn’t qualify.

Do you think Trump cares about Spanish speakers getting help? Let’s be real. Do you think he hopes to scare away Spanish speakers in a swing district? Bingo.

During the summer primaries, some federal observers seemed to try to do more than observe. That’s what makes Josh Zygielbaum, Adams County clerk and recorder, nervous. And the Democratic clerk wonders why Adams County has been singled out.

In a guest commentary in the Denver Post, Zygielbaum wrote that when he 

considered “this decision alongside the administration’s broader rhetoric about elections, I cannot ignore the possibility that this scrutiny could intimidate voters rather than reassure them.”

Federal monitors have come to Adams County before. “The difference,” Zygielbaum said in another forum, “is that they are not coming in a support capacity, and the attorneys being sent are prosecutors.”

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association and a former Republican Arapahoe County clerk, says he is not surprised that the DOJ wants to send observers to Adams County, a Democratic county in a swing district.

Crane told 9News that “observing truly means just that. It’s not participating, it’s not engaging, it’s just observing. The main thing is they shouldn’t be talking to poll workers. They shouldn’t be talking to voters.”

And Crane said this of Trump, “When it comes to election administration, this administration, I would say, has a challenge with the truth and what really happens. And so, of course, that raises flags, too.”

Flags are, in fact, flying. Let’s just hope that after Election Day, Democrats aren’t flying flags at half-staff.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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