“Stop the Steal!” That was President Donald Trump’s rallying cry as he protested – frequently but falsely – that the 2020 election had been rigged against him. Now that slogan is relevant again – but for two totally different reasons.

Today, it is Democrats warning that Trump and his MAGA loyalists are threatening the integrity of next fall’s elections. And unlike Trump six years ago – who had absolutely no basis for his claims – the president’s critics can cite a wide range of nefarious actions aimed directly at preventing a Democratic victory.

“The sanctity of the 2026 elections is indeed under threat,” warned an editorial in The New York Times. “And the reason is Mr. Trump. He has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to interfere with elections to benefit himself and his party. He has broken the law to do so and broken longstanding bipartisan traditions.”

Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center voting rights program, put it more bluntly in the Times: “The campaign to rig our elections is well underway.”

But so is the campaign to stop the steal. Judges, election officials and even some Republicans who still uphold the Constitution are trying to thwart the attempted thievery. The battle is engaged and the stakes are enormous.

Trump and his minions are not hiding their insidious intentions. “We should take over the voting,” he declared, and a week later mused, “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated even more plainly, “When it gets to Election Day, we’ve been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.”

Trump’s most obvious effort to take over the voting has been pressuring Republicans at the state level to defy tradition and redraw Congressional districts well before the next census. Texas and several other states complied, but his blatantly underhanded strategy has backfired in other places. Indiana Republicans refused to go along, while Democrats in states like California and Virginia have retaliated with massive redistricting plans of their own. The net result is probably a wash.

On another front, Republicans have pushed through the House a bill that would require individuals to present added documentation when they register and vote. It is a solution to a nonexistent problem – voter fraud is exceedingly rare – but the goal is clear: to deter groups who tend to back Democrats from voting.

The Brennan Center estimates that 21 million Americans “lack ready access to those documents” required by the bill, and the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center asserts the legislation “would actually amount to one of the harshest voter suppression laws nationwide.”

Proponents are pushing hard in the Senate, but the measure is likely to die there, in part because true conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky resist Trump’s drive to nationalize election law. “That’s not what the Constitution says about elections,” he told MS NOW.

A third battlefield is the federal courts. Trump’s Justice Department has ordered states to turn over voting records in a transparent attempt to intimidate local officials and perhaps justify purges of voter rolls. Some Republican governors have agreed, but election officials representing both parties from 27 states have refused. And so far, three federal judges have upheld their resistance.

One of them, Judge David O. Carter, warned, “Now it seems the executive branch of the United States government wants to abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots.”

In another obvious attempt at intimidation, FBI agents searched an election center in Atlanta and seized ballots relating to Trump’s baseless accusations of fraud in 2020. To amplify their menacing message, agents were accompanied by Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

“But if the search was rooted in the past, it might also be a harbinger of things to come, signaling Mr. Trump’s growing willingness to use the vast powers of federal law enforcement to intervene in election matters in the lead-up to the critical 2026 midterms,” reported the Times.

Then there is the looming threat that armed and masked ICE agents could be deployed at polling places next November. Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, says he is “greatly afraid” that “those ICE roving vans [could] be used to try to go and intimidate voters at the polling station” and adds, “candidly, you don’t need to do a lot to discourage people from voting.”

Trump’s lust for unbridled power remains unlimited. But the guardians of election integrity remain undeterred. This time, they must stop the steal. For real.

• Steven V. Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be reached at stevecokie@gmail.com.