Investigating Who’s Meddling with the Midterms

Tina Peters is a former county clerk who was convicted of felonies for her role in breaching her county’s voting systems. So why is she allegedly meeting with Donald Trump and federal election administration officials ahead of the midterm elections? 

This week, we launched an investigation to uncover to what extent Peters and her allies have gained access to — and influence over — the federal agencies that help states and localities administer and secure the midterms.

Peters was released from prison in June — after Colorado’s governor commuted her sentence — and Trump hosted her at the White House that month. On Oct. 5, Peters reportedly met with Trump at the White House again. She says she urged Trump to fire members of the Election Assistance Commission. Trump fired the commission’s three remaining members in July. 

But Peters may have even more access to the administration. She claims she and several associates presented a plan for the midterms to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), one of the primary agencies responsible for election security. And she says that she met with Justice Department (DOJ) officials, including the DOJ official overseeing the administration’s failed attempts to seize information from states. 

While we don’t know the specifics of what Peters has said in these alleged meetings, we know what she is advocating publicly. On her website, Peters has published a plan to get rid of voting machines, a rallying cry of election deniers who have spent years spreading debunked claims about the 2020 election. 

Our investigation is after more details on Peters’ influence over federal election officials. We filed expedited Freedom of Information Act requests with the Department of Homeland Security, CISA, DOJ’s Office of the Attorney General and Civil Rights Division, the EAC, and the Commerce Department seeking emails, text messages, and meeting records among senior officials, Peters, and her associates.

Understanding Peters’ access is especially urgent in light of records we uncovered last month that showed election deniers pitched their conspiracy theories to high-level officials in the Trump administration, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. With the midterms in just two weeks, we need to know if fringe theories are driving major election administration decisions.

More on our investigations into challenges to 2026 midterm election administration

Across the country, election administration is being reshaped in ways that give election deniers more control over how elections are run. For months, we’ve been investigating what’s happening behind the scenes and this week, we published explainers breaking down what’s happening in two key states: Arizona and North Carolina. 

In Arizona, groups aligned with Trump’s agenda are pumping money into the state and the Trump administration itself is working with state and local officials. We’re investigating efforts to undermine confidence in Arizona’s elections system and suppress certain votes ahead of the midterms.

In North Carolina, state officials reshaped how elections work to benefit specific political parties, which could make it harder for many eligible voters to participate in the 2026 election. Our work has already uncovered some North Carolina election officials’ efforts to sway early voting plans and interactions with prominent election deniers who rejected the 2020 results.

And in case you missed it, we recently published a guide to the people, organizations, and myths threatening midterms and an explainer on our biggest concerns in Georgia. 

New investigation

Investigating ICE’s response to a hunger strike at the Folkston Detention Center

On October 4, men detained at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Georgia released a video calling public attention to their prolonged detention in ICE custody; lack of food, water, and medical care; and abuse. Two days later, people detained at Folkston began a hunger strike in protest that is still ongoing after more than two weeks. Now, there are concerns strikers are facing retaliation, including solitary confinement and deportation.

We’re investigating ICE’s response, and whether the strikers are safe, along with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. We sent ICE a FOIA request for incident and medical reports as well as related communications. These records could provide critical information about how facility officials have responded to the protest, including if ICE has used forced feeding or other interventions.

“The public needs to know whether ICE has retaliated against those participating in the strike and what it is doing to end the deplorable conditions in Folkston,” said our Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “ICE must act immediately to protect the people in its custody and be held accountable for its choices that put their lives in danger.”

American Oversight in the news

• Do Americans own the president’s papers? Appeals court to weigh in (NPR)
• Could Trump Sell Presidential Records on eBay? DOJ Doesn’t Say No. (Washington Sun)
• DOJ Challenges Legality of Presidential Records Act on Appeal (Bloomberg Law)
• Why is an official overseeing criminal cases leading DOJ’s assault on California ballots? (Democracy Docket)

Other stories we’re following

• DHS Plane Purchases Tied to ‘Ongoing Criminal Law Enforcement Investigation’ (Washington Sun)
• Judge restricts DHS investigations into noncitizen voting, citing flawed data (Washington Post)
• Ballot Rejections Soared in Rural Counties After USPS Reduced Mail Service (ProPublica)
• RFK Jr’s ‘deities of vaccine research’ raided by police in Guinea-Bissau (The Guardian)
• Supreme Court allows gender transition care for federal prisoners for now (Washington Post)