A little more than two weeks before the US midterm elections scheduled for 3 November, MAGA activists are pressing Donald Trump to resort to emergency measures in the event of “fraud” – from declaring martial law to suspending the elections. At stake is trust in democratic procedures – precisely what the Russian disinformation operation Doppelgänger is targeting.
In brief
- As reported by Axios, Peter Ticktin wants martial law declared and ballots and election equipment requisitioned, Gregory Stenstrom wants the elections suspended, and Tina Peters wants ballots filled in and counted by hand.
- Tina Peters, convicted in 2024 of crimes related to tampering with election equipment, was released in 2026 after Colorado Governor Jared Polis commuted her sentence; in October she met Trump again.
- Ukraine is not holding elections because martial law has been in force in the country since 2022, while in February 2025 Trump called Zelensky “a dictator without elections”.
- Under Article I, Section 4 of the US Constitution, the times, places and manner of holding congressional elections are set by state legislatures, and Congress may alter them. In Ex parte Milligan (1866), the US Supreme Court ruled that martial law cannot exist where civilian courts are operating.
- According to Alethea, the company cited by The New York Times, since 7 October more than 50 fake accounts and more than 1,000 accounts inserting posts into popular discussions have been taking part in the Doppelgänger operation on X, with the number of posts reaching around 150,000. The operation is run by the Social Design Agency, which is under US and EU sanctions.
- Russian media (Lenta.ru) presented the MAGA ideas under the headline “The US wants to introduce martial law”. I found no comment from Peskov or Zakharova, but Dmitry Medvedev predicted defeat for the Republicans in advance and named the culprits: Kyiv and Europe.
The MAGA camp’s recovery programme
A little more than two weeks remain until the US midterm elections (3 November), and the MAGA camp already knows they will be rigged. How? From the same source as always: the fear that they might lose them.
Axios describes how activists are pressing Trump to resort to emergency measures in the event of “fraud”. They presented their recovery programme during a video conference on 30 September and in conversations with the media:
Peter Ticktin, Tina Peters’s lawyer and Trump’s childhood friend, wants martial law and the requisitioning of ballots and election equipment “before anything further occurs”. Before anyone counts the votes, for instance.
Gregory Stenstrom, a witness to “irregularities” in Pennsylvania in 2020, would most happily suspend the elections altogether. The best protection against fraud is no elections at all.
Tina Peters wants ballots to be filled in by hand and counted by hand wherever possible. In a country where more than a hundred million votes are cast in midterm elections.
Peters is a story in herself. In 2024 she was convicted of crimes related to tampering with election equipment. She walked free this year after her sentence was commuted by a Democrat, Colorado Governor Jared Polis. At the end of June she was at the White House with Ticktin, and this month she met Trump again. A person convicted of tampering with machines now advises on machine security. It is a safecracker consulting on the bank’s alarm system.
Ukraine under missiles, America on the eve of elections
A small remark from Lviv. Ukraine does not vote because martial law has been in force here since 2022, and missiles and Shaheds are falling on our cities. Trump, meanwhile, called Zelensky “a dictator without elections” in February 2025. In recent weeks he has once again called for Zelensky to be replaced. Today, Trump’s camp is talking about martial law and suspending elections in a country where nothing is falling except approval ratings.
What do the US Constitution and the Supreme Court say?
Let us check what the law has to say. Article I, Section 4 of the US Constitution: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” There is no president in this sentence. Derek Tisler of the Brennan Center points out that emergency powers are not a blank cheque. Nor does martial law confer the right to seize election materials. The Supreme Court knew this as far back as 1866 (Ex parte Milligan): martial law cannot exist where civilian courts are operating.
Operation Doppelgänger on X
Meanwhile, Moscow goes about its business. According to Alethea (via The New York Times), Operation Doppelgänger, run by the Social Design Agency, which is under US and EU sanctions, has been flooding X since 7 October with claims that bipartisan support for Israel is falling apart. That date marked the third anniversary of the Hamas attack. The numbers:
- more than 50 fake accounts, often “Israeli women”,
- more than 1,000 accounts placing these posts in popular discussions,
- around 150,000 posts,
- links to clones of reputable websites.
Not a single post went viral. Nor did it need to. “It is really hard to hack someone; it is really easy to lie online,” says Lisa Kaplan, the founder of Alethea.
Moscow: the worse in America, the better
In Moscow, the Axios story was retold the same day. Lenta.ru ran it under the headline “The US wants to introduce martial law” (“В США захотели ввести военное положение”). In the headline, a handful of activists from a video conference on Rumble grew to the size of an entire state. The part for the whole – a classic of the genre.
The Kremlin – at least officially – is silent. By the time this text was submitted, I had found no comment from Dmitry Peskov or Maria Zakharova on the ideas of Ticktin and Stenstrom. Dmitry Medvedev, however, did speak up. On 16 October, on the MAX messenger and on Telegram, he predicted a possible Republican defeat in the congressional elections and immediately named the culprits: Zelensky, whom the “vindictive” Trump will not forgive, and Europe, which, in his words, is persuading Kyiv to wait the Republicans out. At that point, 18 days remained until the elections. The MAGA camp looks for culprits in the election commissions, Medvedev in Kyiv and Brussels. The method is the same: the defeat is explained before it happens.
The theme is not new. In the summer of 2022, Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, said on state television that Russia needs a “total internal breakdown” in America, and that Trump is just the man to make it happen. Military expert Alexander Artamonov put it more briefly: “The worse, the better”, Raw Story reported, citing the Daily Beast. In September 2024, Medvedev declared on Russia’s Channel One that “a new civil war in the US is inevitable”. Talk of martial law in America is ready-made evidence for this narrative.
Russia also knows how to manufacture such evidence. On 25 October 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI and CISA announced that a video in which someone in Pennsylvania tears up mail-in ballots cast for Trump had been made and spread by Russian actors; analysts linked it to the Storm-1516 network. Pennsylvania is the very state of Stenstrom’s “irregularities”. This year, according to Bloomberg, a Russian bot army has been inflating the view counts of AI-generated clips in which “Robert De Niro” or “Cher” attack Democrats and promote the hashtag #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. From “criminal Democrats” to “stolen elections” is just one step.
Assessment: there is no evidence that Peters, Ticktin or Stenstrom are playing from a Russian score. And that is the worst news of all: they do not need to. The Kremlin is not after a victory for one candidate or another, but after the defeat of trust. And today that trust is being undermined in America too – free of charge and under the Star-Spangled Banner.
Moscow does not need to rig American elections. It is enough for someone to declare them rigged before they have even taken place.
Author: Artur Żak
Official Russian and Belarusian sources cited in this text are for informational purposes only. Content from these sources may constitute disinformation or propaganda.
