Overview
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convened a roughly two-hour closed tabletop session that rehearsed three hypothetical threat phases — before, during and after Election Day — using mocked-up graphics and AI-generated video to simulate disinformation.
- The July 23, 2026 session was the second such exercise this year and the first since President Trump’s primetime address that questioned the security of U.S. elections, and it was attended by about a dozen senators and advisers including elections lawyer Mark Elias and Vanita Gupta.
- Participants focused on three core risks: coordinated disinformation campaigns designed to sow confusion or prompt voter-roll purges, technical voter‑registration errors such as the New Jersey disclosure, and the prospect of federal law-enforcement presence near polling places.
- Schumer and others discussed working with local police and county officials to deter or respond to any unlawful deployment of federal agents, while legal experts on the call emphasized that sending ICE or other federal forces to polling sites would raise serious legal barriers.
- Organizers say the goal is practical preparation to protect election administration, but critics warn the planning could deepen voter distrust; the exercises are likely to prompt local coordination, legal readiness and continued partisan debate through the fall.