‘Look, You Can’t Cancel the Election’

Could the Trump administration really cancel an election? President Trump once again mused about the possibility, telling Reuters recently that he’s accomplished so much that “we shouldn’t even have an election.” This isn’t the first time the president has flirted with the idea of forgoing the midterm elections, and his repeated remarks on the matter have turned what many previously dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory into a real concern.

At an Atlantic Across America event in Arizona this week, staff writer Yvonne Wingett Sanchez interviewed Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and asked what he believed could happen. “Look, you can’t cancel the election,” he told her. “We’ve got a whole bunch of scenarios that we’re playing through to make sure that we’re prepared for the types of processes that might be necessary to preserve our democracy so that if somebody tries to cancel something, if somebody tries to take some stuff they’re not entitled to, we can go to the courts, get the orders, and hopefully have the backup of law enforcement to make sure that we can move forward through this.”

He continued, “But here’s the problem: The fact that we’re running through these scenarios in the first place should tell you something about the health of our democracy.”

Fontes also talked about his experience with the 2020 elections, how he’s preparing for 2026, and how his office plans to combat election misinformation at a time when it seems to be coming from the very top. You can watch the whole conversation here.