U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, in comments to reporters on Thursday, October 22, did not rule out that the Department of Justice (DOJ) could try to prevent a state from certifying its election results — a process over which the federal government has no authority, Democracy Docket reported.

Source: Democracy Docket

Asked whether the DOJ might try to block a state from certifying results, Blanche responded: "Yes. Of course there are scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically — some doomsday scenario, for example. 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 don't know what's going to happen in the future. It is not DOJ's intention — and it's never our intention — to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process, but to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that — of course I'm not going to say that."

Source: Democracy Docket

NBC News, whose reporting was quoted by the Election Law Blog, said Blanche also left open the possibility that the Justice Department could seek to delay the counting of ballots, while saying it was not his intention to "improperly interfere with elections." "Am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no," he added. At a related news conference, Blanche said the department was "not trying to create chaos" and was trying to alert officials to potential issues: "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."

Source: NBC News via Election Law Blog

Who actually certifies election results

States and Congress have authority for running elections, but the federal government has no role in the process of state certification of election results, Democracy Docket noted. Certification is carried out by state and local officials under state law, which is why the attorney general's refusal to give a blanket pledge drew attention from election watchers ahead of the November 3 midterms.

The remarks came as the Justice Department weighs more election-related litigation against states, NBC News reported this week. The department has sued California to compel state officials to review 18,000 registered voters it suspected could be noncitizens seeking to cast fraudulent ballots, according to NBC News. Those are the department's stated suspicions; the litigation is ongoing and no court has endorsed the claim in that case.

Thursday's exchange was not the first time a senior administration official has declined to close the door on a federal presence around voting. In his July confirmation hearing, Blanche avoided any commitment not to deploy immigration agents at the polls, instead affirming that he will "follow the law," and in September Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin similarly left open the possibility that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could make arrests at the polls, according to Democracy Docket. After Blanche's July statement, a dozen Democratic senators warned Mullin, Blanche and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that any attempts to deploy agents at polling places are illegal under federal law.