Attorney General Blanche Won't Rule Out DOJ Stepping Into Election Certification in a 'Doomsday Scenario'

Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday, Oct. 22, declined to rule out the Justice Department stepping into states' certification of the Nov. 3 midterm results, saying a hypothetical “doomsday scenario” could prompt federal action, according to NBC News and Fox News.

Blanche said that is not his plan. “It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention to, improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process,” he told reporters in Norfolk, Virginia, NBC News reported.

What Blanche Said About Election Certification

Asked whether he could rule out any action that might delay the counting of ballots, Blanche said he could not promise there were no circumstances in which the department would get involved. “Of course, I'm not going to say that,” he said. “But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not.”

“Of course, there's scenarios that we can all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example, right?” Blanche said, according to Fox News. “So, I don't think it's proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what's going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what's happening in the future.”

He said the department was “not trying to create chaos” and wanted to alert state officials to potential problems. “I'm not trying to not have an election certified. Of course not,” Blanche said. “What we're trying to do is guarantee to the American people that the only people that are voting are people that are eligible to vote.”

Blanche spoke in Norfolk, where he and FBI Director Kash Patel held a news conference Thursday to announce charges against a Virginia state senator, NBC News reported.

The Limits of DOJ's Role in Elections

U.S. elections are run by state and local officials, who certify the results. Federal law chiefly allows the Justice Department to safeguard civil rights and prosecute people who break election laws, and no federal law specifically authorizes the department to challenge ballots or delay a state's certification, both NBC News and Fox News reported.

Blanche's remarks come as the department presses lawsuits against states over their voter rolls. It sued California election officials last week, arguing they did not move quickly enough to review voters the federal government identified as likely noncitizens, and asked a judge to block the state from counting mail ballots from those voters unless their eligibility is confirmed, Fox News reported. NBC News reported this week that the department is weighing more election-related litigation against states.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that noncitizen voting is a serious threat to election integrity. Voting experts say noncitizen voting is relatively rare, NBC News reported, and Fox News reported that documented cases of noncitizens casting ballots in federal elections have historically been rare.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats “have been preparing for this for months and will be ready.” “As Trump and his cronies attempt to steal this election, we are fighting them at every turn,” Schumer posted on X. “Our elections must always belong to the voters — not Donald Trump.”

Image: A ballot drop box (file photo), by Paul Sableman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Yossi Schmidt, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Digital Free Press

Hold Everyone Accountable.

Sources: NBC News, "Blanche won't rule out DOJ post-election action in a 'doomsday' scenario" (Oct. 22, 2026): https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/blanche-wont-rule-doj-post-election-action-doomsday-scenario-rcna605035 ; Fox News, "Blanche won't rule out DOJ blocking election certification in 'doomsday' scenario" (Oct. 23, 2026): https://www.foxnews.com/politics/blanche-wont-rule-out-doj-blocking-election-certification-doomsday-scenario