Howdy folks.

It was another week of frenetic court action on the election front with everyone’s eyes still on the Supreme Court. Here’s a look at what’s in this edition:

The Pugilist at Work: Markwayne Mullin is fightin’ mad
Votebeat Brunch: Nevada in the crosshairs
Missouri election uncertainty comes to an end

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You’re invited: Will the midterms happen? Your election questions, answered | Part 2

Will the 2026 midterms happen? Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Elections happen because thousands of local officials follow state and local laws requiring them to happen — and history shows they’ve done so before, even under immense pressure. The greater danger isn’t no election, but one that’s chaotic, unfairly challenged, or deliberately cast as illegitimate after the fact.

Got more questions about the midterms? Submit them to Votebeat reporters with your RSVP, and they’ll give you the long answer live on Sept. 15 at 1 p.m. EDT.

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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin isn’t one to shy away from a fight.

The former professional mixed martial arts fighter once challenged the Teamsters president to a brawl in the middle of a Senate hearing and clashed with U.S. officials while unsuccessfully trying to mount his own rescue mission to Afghanistan during the chaotic 2021 American withdrawal.

Now Mullin is stepping to the forefront of the Trump administration’s battle to exert more control over the fast-approaching November elections.

Mullin has threatened to lock up elections officials and withhold federal dollars from states that don’t adopt the election security measures dictated by his agency. He’s suggested that ICE officers might enter polling places on Election Day if they are trying to arrest a suspect. And he’s directed agents to step up voter fraud investigations in nine states.

The cascade of tough talk has propelled Mullin into the heart of the Trump administration’s expansive efforts to remake America’s electoral system in President Donald Trump’s vision.

Justin Levitt, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who worked in the White House under President Joe Biden on voting rights issues, said Mullin appeared to be driven by one overriding ambition: “Please the boss.”

“When the fourth grade soccer coach decides that everybody runs to the ball, everybody runs to the ball,” he said. “Regardless of what your actual job is.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Mullin took over as secretary in March after the tumultuous 14-month tenure of Kristi Noem, who was forced out by Trump after a series of controversies, notably on immigration enforcement.

“My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day,” Mullin said during a confirmation hearing in March that barely touched on election issues.

Mullin emerged as a prominent public face of the Trump administration’s election overhaul in July when the president delivered a primetime address attacking the integrity of the nation’s voting system.

The next day, Mullin held a press conference at the White House complex, where he claimed his agency had found more than 250,000 noncitizen voters on the rolls in four states, challenged the integrity of voting machines, and threatened to jail election officials who didn’t do enough to prevent voter fraud. States have pushed back on those numbers.

Since then, Mullin has shifted more focus onto elections, declaring that “election security is national security.”

Last week, news broke that Mullin had directed hundreds of agents to focus their efforts on hunting down noncitizens on voting rolls across the country, even though there is no evidence of a widespread problem with noncitizens voting in U.S. elections.

Mullin also told reporters that he might send ICE agents into polling places on Election Day if they get reports of undocumented immigrants inside they are trying to arrest. That stirred up renewed concerns that the Trump administration would try to use federal forces to intimidate and deter voters from casting ballots — a federal crime, Levitt and others said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson tried to calm fears by saying that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” but that did little to assuage concerns.

“We have to respond in a very calm, collected way” to the Trump administration, said Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, who leads the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. “We cannot respond in a chaotic manner that creates angst among the voters because we already know the administration is creating enough chaos.”

So far, Mullin’s efforts have had a limited impact. The Department of Homeland Security has quietly walked back its claims of 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls. In Nevada, for instance, the agency scaled back its estimate from 16,000 to 185.

The federal campaign to root out alleged noncitizen voting over the past month has led to the arrest of at least six noncitizens accused of voting.

Mullin has also asked the Justice Department to pursue an investigation into some voting equipment.

Levitt said Trump’s biggest leverage is the perception that he might seize ballots or send troops to polling places on Election Day, not that he would actually do so.

“My real fear is that people change their own behavior in response to the noise, rather than taking a breath and looking around and recognizing that the world outside their door doesn't actually look like the communications world he's trying to construct,” he said.

Votebeat Brunch: Nevada in the crosshairs

The Trump administration has put Nevada, a key swing state, in its crosshairs on election issues. It has accused Nevada of not doing enough to keep noncitizens off its voter rolls, sued it for access to the state voting database, and recently issued seven subpoenas for access to voter information. Aguilar is one of several chief state election officials from both political parties who have confirmed receiving letters from the U.S. Department of Justice warning them they are under investigation for refusing to provide requested voter data, the subject of ongoing litigation in dozens of states.

This week Votebeat spoke to Aguilar about the battles with Washington.

Q: You received seven subpoenas from the Justice Department. What can you tell us about them?

A: It’s related to voter information, which is pretty much all we can say. But it’s another level of intimidation and force from the administration.

Q: You also got a letter on Sept. 4 from the Justice Department which asked you to preserve records from the 2024 presidential election and notified you that you were under federal investigation over your refusal to provide unredacted voter data. What is your sense of where this is coming from?

A: All of this is coming because they're trying to appease a single individual, and when you're doing things to appease a single individual, rather than doing what's in the best interest of the country, you're gonna be very strategic about that approach, and this is all reactionary to that single individual. And so the fact that they don't have a single original thought doesn't give me fear that they're going to have the upper hand. We know we have better lawyers. We know we're better prepared. We know we have the law behind us.

Q: Do you feel like the Trump administration has put a particular bullseye on Nevada?

A: Absolutely, for a couple of reasons. One, I think Nevada is the road to the White House. We know the ‘26 election is about the ‘28 election. We know that if I get elected in ‘26, which I am on the ballot, I will be the one to administer the ‘28 election, which is going to determine — Nevada is going to determine who the next president of the United States is. The road to the White House runs through Nevada, and Nevadans have that opportunity to decide who is in the White House. Thirty percent of our voter base is Latino. Latinos have a very strong opinion about this upcoming election, and they're going to hold certain individuals accountable for the promises they have failed to deliver.

Q: Are you concerned about federal election monitors disrupting operations on Election Day?

A: No. We want to be as transparent as possible. That's our responsibility. That's our job. That's the law. But it cannot disrupt the process for other voters, and in Nevada, it's a felony to intimidate a voter. It's a felony to intimidate a poll worker or an election worker.

Q: The Department of Homeland Security has walked back its claim to have found 16,000 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter rolls and refined its number to less than 200. Where does that stand?

A: The data set they sent us is the work of a third grader. This is not the work of a sophisticated organization that is trying to improve the processes and system to ensure we are all on the same page. This is a political game, again, where they're trying to appease a secretary who's trying to appease a single master.