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The optimistic story about the FBI’s surprising Wednesday raid on Fulton County, Georgia, voting offices to seize ballots and electronic materials related to the 2020 election is that it’s another instance of the United States Department of Justice and other parts of the federal government indulging in Donald Trump’s fantastical belief that he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in 2020 because of fraud. If that reason for the raid is right, the investigation will amount to very little, even if Trump and allies mangle whatever evidence the FBI produces to continue spreading ridiculous voter fraud claims. If the government attempts to bring criminal charges (that may well be barred by the statute of limitations), they are far more likely to be about Trump’s retribution campaign than about actual intentional violations of federal law protecting the integrity of elections.

The pessimistic story is far darker. It’s about the raid being a test run for messing with election administrators and the counting of ballots in the midterm elections in 2026, when control of both houses of Congress could be at stake. Now is the time for state and local governments, the courts, and the people to work against such potential election subversion.

The Fulton County saga goes back to the hotly contested 2020 presidential election, which was conducted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Donald Trump was an unpopular incumbent running against former Vice President Joe Biden. Many states made it easier for people to vote by mail in 2020, which was much safer than voting in person and potentially getting sick. Trump had long spread unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud, from massive noncitizen voting to fraud committed in large American cities like Philadelphia and Detroit that have substantial minority........

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