Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation, these people said.
Such a path could significantly raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, thrusting the Justice Department and the threat of criminalization into the election system in a way that has never been done before.
Federal voting laws place some mandates on how elections are conducted and ballots counted. But that work has historically been managed by state and local officials, with limited involvement or oversight from Washington.
In recent days, senior officials have directed Justice Department lawyers to examine the ways in which a hypothetical failure by state or local officials to follow security standards for electronic voting could be charged as a crime, appearing to assume a kind of criminally negligent mismanagement of election systems. Already, the department has started to contact election officials across the country, asking for information on voting in the state.
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