With less than a week until Election Day, the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to shape the outcomes, prompting concerns that the midterm elections could face unprecedented interference by federal authorities.

In recent days, Trump officials have sued to potentially block the certification of a Senate race in Alaska, threatened election officials in California with jail time, and implied that the outcome in a Senate race in Minnesota couldn’t be trusted if the Republican didn’t win. Trump’s allies have also been urging the President to potentially take drastic measures, including declaring martial law to seize ballots.

Election officials in dozens of states are preparing for a wide range of possible interference on Tuesday when millions of voters will cast ballots, as well as in the days that follow as the votes are counted, the final batches of mail-in ballots come in and the election outcomes are certified.

The prospect of so many challenges has led to intense efforts by voting rights groups, election officials and teams of lawyers to be ready to respond to election meddling anywhere in the country.

Here’s how the Trump Administration could potentially interfere in each step of the election process—and how state and local officials, and various outside groups, are preparing for each scenario:

Polls open for in-person voting

Election workers are preparing for possible federal interference both inside and outside polling places on Tuesday.

Over the past few months, officials from the Trump Administration have given vague answers when asked if the Administration might try to deploy federal agents to the polls. Federal laws explicitly prohibit military or federal officials from stationing troops or armed men where elections are held in an attempt to interfere with a federal election. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine assured a Democratic senator in late August that the military had “no plan” to be deployed to polling locations during the midterm elections. Yet Trump has declined to rule out measures such as declaring a federal emergency on Election Day or sending ICE agents to the polls, telling TIME in an interview in September that he didn’t “rule anything out” at this point. 

At least three lawsuits have been filed to preemptively block ICE agents from being deployed to polling sites on Election Day. According to one of the lawsuits, at least one county sheriffs’ office in Colorado has already been cooperating with ICE and conducted “warrant checks at polling locations” this year. 

Along with the prospect of ICE agents conducting immigration enforcement, election officials have also expressed concern that the federal government might try other ways to disrupt polling places, citing voter fraud allegations as a premise. For months, the Administration has been involved in a legal fight with dozens of states over allegations that noncitizens are on their voter rolls. Election experts say voter fraud is incredibly rare. 

In some local communities, there are indications that federal agents showing up at polling locations could sow chaos at the polls. Virginia’s Arlington County stated in its preemptive legal filing against federal agents at the polls that the county had developed plans regarding “whether and how to make arrests, and any prosecutorial response or civil legal actions that might be necessary.”

“Arlington has never before needed to prepare for these threat scenarios,” the filing adds. When reached for a statement, the Arlington County government says the local police department remains in contact with election officials and is prepared to respond to any reported incidents.

Polls close and ballot counting begins

As polling stations close Tuesday evening, local election officials and voting rights groups are bracing for the prospect of federal officials possibly seizing election materials and voting machines. In January, the FBI raided the Fulton County election office in Georgia and seized election materials in connection with the 2020 election. In May, a federal judge ruled that the federal government could continue to retain the ballots. The FBI has not announced any wrongdoing stemming from the investigation.

“The lesson of Fulton County was that you have to be ready to be in court literally in minutes,” Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Action, tells TIME. Eisen has been working closely with voting rights groups as well as local and state election officials in multiple states to prepare for any federal interference in next week’s elections. That includes being ready to immediately file lawsuits as soon as any federal officials try to seize any ballots or voting machines.

Other legal scholars are also encouraging judges to consider alternative solutions if federal authorities seek to retain election materials. Rick Hasen, a law professor and director of UCLA’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, published a white paper urging judges who might see warrant applications for ballot seizure to consider ordering copies of the ballot to allow the election certification process to continue. 

Waiting for the last batches of mail-in ballots

Many mail-in votes won’t arrive until days after Election Day. Some will be from members of the military stationed overseas. The fight over who can receive mail-in ballots, and which mail-in ballots should be counted, has been underway for most of Trump’s second term.

In March, President Trump signed an executive order requiring states to work with the United States Postal Services to establish lists of verified voters and asking USPS to withhold mail ballots from anyone not on the lists. The executive order was quickly met with a flurry of lawsuits, which resulted in a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS from enforcing any new rules in response to Trump’s order. 

But election officials are still preparing for the possibility that some federal officials may try to get in the way of mail-in ballots being counted. On Monday, the DOJ asked the state of Washington to not count ballots from more than 400 voters whom it suspects to be noncitizens, as more than 1 million ballots have already been cast. 

Even with the federal effort on hold, state governments have pressed ahead with new rules that are already pushing ballot rejection rates higher. In North Carolina, the State Board of Elections implemented a new rule that requires voters to use at least three different envelopes to deliver their ballots and copies of their ID. Failure to seal any of the three envelopes would result in the ballot being rejected. So far, the state is already seeing an uptick in the ballot rejection rate compared to the previous election cycle, from 2.6% to 3.1% statewide, according to local media outlets.

Certifying the election results

After all the votes are tabulated, county officials will begin certifying the election results. Although each state has its own rules on raising and resolving a challenge from county officials, certifying the election results is a mandatory duty. According to the Campaign Legal Center, if an official delays or refuses to certify results, state officials and courts can step in to compel certification. State officials can also pursue criminal or civil penalties to hold local officials accountable. 

On Thursday, the Justice Department preemptively sued the state government of Alaska to block the certification of its closely-watched Senate race if Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. The department accused the state of failing to “protect the integrity of the election” by allowing independent candidate Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot. 

“The DOJ attempting to intervene at this late stage is entirely against department policy, as there is no legitimate enforcement of federal law here, and it raises serious concerns about political interference,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “I cannot recall an administration ever attempting to stop the certification of an election — and certainly not 11 days before polls close.” 

Various election officials expect that Alaska won’t be the only state that says a certification challenge. During the 2020 election, President Trump sought to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to undo the state’s certification of Joe Biden’s win and “find 11,780 votes”—the number needed to overturn his loss in Georgia. Trump’s allies also led a pressure campaign, meeting with lawmakers in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona in an attempt to overturn the election results, according to the investigation by the bipartisan January 6 committee.

Correction, Oct. 28

The original version of this story misstated Norm Eisen's title. He is the co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Action, not its executive director.

A woman who had accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in 1993 described it to congressional staff as rape and said the interaction left her bleeding and bruised, according to a report released Monday by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee examining Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Beatrice Keul, a model and former Miss Switzerland, alleged to Judiciary Committee staff that she was raped by Trump in a Plaza Hotel suite in Manhattan when she was 24. Keul said that while attending the American Dream Pageant, which had a partnership with Trump, she met with Trump at a press luncheon at the event.

Trump, according to Keul, promised to arrange her visa in the U.S. and ensure her acceptance into New York University through his friend Paolo Zampolli, a close Trump ally who was, until earlier this month, part of his Administration. At the same event, she also spent at least 10 minutes talking to Epstein who she said claimed to have organized “many parties with Don.”

Later that day, Keul alleges, Trump invited her to a hotel suite where Trump “grabbed Keul from behind and forcibly raped her,” causing “bleeding and bruising on multiple parts of her body,” the report says. Following the incident, Keul alleges Trump made her promise she would keep quiet and repeated his promise for visa and college admission.

Because Keul’s passport had been taken from her on her arrival, she was not able to leave the contest following the incident, she alleges, according to the report. After she returned to Switzerland, she declined to participate in an additional Trump-sponsored pageant in Hawaii several weeks later.

TIME has been unable to independently verify details of Keul’s account.

In a statement, the White House denies the allegations and says that President Trump has been “fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.” “This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis says. 

Keul has previously spoken in public about her sexual assault allegations against Trump, but the report provided new details of the alleged rape—as well as reviewing similar accounts of other Trump accusers. 

Read more: Trump Said He Banned Epstein From Mar-a-Lago. A Lawmaker Who Reviewed Unredacted Files Says They Tell a Different Story

In addition to Keul’s account, the report also compiled allegations from four other women who have directly accused Trump of rape or sexual assault in connection with the Epstein investigation. The allegations, spanning from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, had all been previously made public either through media interviews or FBI testimony released as part of the Epstein files. 

The report’s release, just over a week before Election Day, comes as Democrats are working to signal to voters how they will make use of their power if they gain control of one or both chambers of Congress.

On Monday, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee, called on the Department of Justice to appoint an independent special counsel to oversee the investigation of allegations mentioned in the report. So far, Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein confidant, is the only person to have been convicted of sex trafficking of minors in connection with the Epstein case. 

“An independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” Raskin said in a statement.

Allegations made against Paolo Zampolli

The report also alleges that Zampolli, a former Trump administration official and a close Trump ally, was “an active participant” in the Epstein sex trafficking allegations. 

According to the report, which cites multiple FBI reports included in the Epstein files, Zampolli arranged U.S. visas for young female models before they met Epstein. One FBI report mentioned that Zampolli arranged an 18-year-old model’s visa before she was recruited to give a massage at Epstein’s house, where Epstein allegedly raped her.

Zampolli himself has also been accused of rape and sexual assault in a separate case brought by model Victoria Drake, who alleges in an ongoing civil lawsuit that Zampolli drugged and raped her in 2023. 

TIME has reached out to Zampolli for comment. 

Previously, Zampolli has claimed that he had introduced First Lady Melania Trump to the President in 1998, but the report disputes that claim, citing two accounts—one from an unnamed Epstein associate and the other from Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian model—saying that Epstein had introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump. 

The New York Times reported in March that Zampolli had asked a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement  last year to detain and deport Ungaro, whom Zampolli had previously dated, amid a custody battle over their son. Zampolli denied making such requests. 

Until earlier this month, Zampolli held a diplomatic role under the State Department as Special Representative for Global Partnerships. He was fired two weeks ago over a months-long dispute with the department’s deputy secretary, according to Politico.

People first noticed the black helicopter in the sky. 

It was a chilly Sunday afternoon a year ago at La Catedral Arena, a popular track for horse racing outside the Idaho town of Wilder. Hundreds had gathered at the arena for a festival celebrating horse racing and Mexican culture. 

As the military-style helicopter hovered above them, attendees from the rural, predominantly Latino community, began to get nervous.

“Something is wrong,” Ivan Popoca, who attended the festival with his two kids, remembers thinking.

Within minutes, the festival grounds descended into chaos. Backed by armored trucks and snipers, more than 200 members of law enforcement stormed the grounds, some shot rubber bullets into the crowd and hurled flash-bang grenades into vehicles where people had fled to hide. Hundreds of people, including teens as young as 14, were detained and zip-tied.

When it was all over, federal authorities had arrested 105 people for alleged immigration violations. Yet on paper, this wasn’t an immigration raid at all. The only warrant for the Wilder raid was secured by the FBI. Its target: the owner of the track and four others for alleged unlicensed gambling. 

Twelve months later, the Wilder raid is at the center of a court fight that could shape ICE operations around the country. Advocates argue that in Idaho, ICE unlawfully piggybacked on an FBI operation, rather than securing their own warrant, as they would be expected to do on this type of operation. A lawsuit brought forth by the ACLU argues that federal authorities violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, by using an unrelated search warrant as a “cover to go fishing for immigration arrests.” 

“That is not what a criminal search warrant execution looks like. That is what a massively violent immigration raid looks like,” says Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, an ACLU attorney who helped bring the resulting lawsuit. 

Trump Administration officials insist that the arrests made that day were lawful. “The facts haven’t changed: ICE helped dismantle an illegal horse-racing, animal fighting, and a gambling enterprise operation out of a property known as La Cathedral Arena in Wilder, Idaho,” a DHS spokesperson told TIME. Idaho Gov. Brad Little also defended the raid, saying in a statement at the time that it is “common practice” to detain others present while processing the scene. 

For Wilder residents, the La Catedral raid remains an open wound that refuses to heal. Popoca still recalls with anger how he and his 16-year-old son were zip-tied for hours for no apparent reason. 

The ACLU and some of the families involved in the case released a documentary online on Monday called Wilder Raids in which they discuss the raid’s impact, and why the legal challenge matters beyond people in Wilder. 

“Some community members don't even want to think about this anymore,” says Leo Morales, the executive director of the ACLU Idaho. “But there are also folks who are also realizing how critical it is to be able to push back, to organize and to demand fairness and justice.”

Recurring nightmares

Juana Rodriguez attended the festival with her three-year-old son. Despite both of them being U.S. citizens, they were zip-tied and detained for hours following the raid. Like many others who were detained, she described not being given access to food or water. 

“For the longest time, my son begged me for food. He begged me for water,” Rodriguez says. She repeatedly asked the officers she could be untied so that she could feed and console her crying son, she says, but was rebuffed. “I wish I could have done more in the moment, but I couldn't.”

Detainees were eventually taken into a tent and questioned by ICE agents about their immigration status.  Among the 105 people who were ultimately arrested, 75 are believed to have been deported to their home countries, according to local media, and 26 were released from ICE custody after their lawyers filed habeas corpus petitions. The whereabouts of the remaining four people are unclear. ICE did not provide an update on their case status.

The day after the raid, the Wilder School District reported absent rates soared, with 20% of students absent, according to The Idaho Statesman. More than half of the district’s student body is Hispanic or Latino.

A year later, Rodriguez says she is still scared to go to Latino cultural and other public events because of what happened at La Catedral. She also has nightmares about ICE officers taking her child away from her.

“I'm from here. My kids are from here,” she says. ”Why should I have to feel that? Like, I shouldn't.”

ICE’s growing legal fights

The ACLU filed a class-action complaint in February, charging that a variety of local, state and federal agencies violated the constitutional rights of those at the festival. Both sides are now waiting for a judge to rule on a motion by ICE and other agencies to dismiss, in which it argued that federal and state law enforcement are protected by qualified immunity, a longstanding legal doctrine when executing a federal warrant. 

The Wilder case is one of multiple lawsuits the Trump Administration is fighting over its immigration enforcement operations. In Minnesota, none of the federal agents involved in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have been criminally charged, but a string of civil lawsuits is beginning to emerge. Earlier this month, the family of Renee Good, who was killed last January by a federal agent during the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, filed a pair of civil lawsuits against the federal government, according to their legal representative. Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot by a Border Patrol agent during a confrontation on a Chicago street last year, has also filed a lawsuit against the federal government. 

Anyone seeking to hold federal agents accountable must be prepared for a long wait, says Borchetta. A lawsuit against the federal government can’t even be filed unless it’s been six months since a complainant filed a claim for compensation and the issue remains unresolved.  

“If a federal employee is driving their car negligently on the job and hits you with their car, you can bring a claim for them for that negligence,” Borchetta says. “It also applies where an ICE agent is mistreating you or causing you harm.”

But the law itself imposes many limitations on suing the federal government. Victims can seek compensatory damages for actual losses, but not punitive damages. And unlike state authorities who can be sued for civil rights violations in state courts, federal law enforcement authorities are generally shielded from such lawsuits based on legal precedents. 

But Borchetta says the impact of the lawsuits can be bigger than any verdict. She argues that the ongoing Wilder case has already helped change ICE’s conduct as well as how local governments collaborate with them. 

“While we don't yet have a decision from the court, we haven't seen more raids like this in Idaho,” she says. “The lawsuit itself exposes both the state and the federal actors to liability, and that can change behavior itself.”