An article by The Washington Post reports an increase in election-related lawsuits as the 2026 midterms approach. A reason behind this increase in lawsuits is partially due to President Donald Trump’s aggressive push for changes to mail-in ballots. While this change in election procedures may not appear to be inherently undemocratic, it still raises questions about the stability of democratic institutions and norms. These recent surges in election-related lawsuits essentially demonstrate how democratic erosion within the United States may occur through political leaders who manipulate the existing democratic institutions from within through the undermining of informal democratic norms. 

The Trump administration’s push to change the rules for mail-in voting began earlier this year in March 2026. The administration attempted to justify these changes with the argument of strengthening election security and preventing fraud. In response, many states and voting-rights organizations fought back, with the Supreme Court ultimately blocking the administration’s mail-in ballot restriction from taking effect for the 2026 elections. However, the Court’s decision was largely shaped due to the timing of the proposed changes. Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that election officials “do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement” the rule before the 2026 election. This is to say that the Court’s decision did not necessarily eliminate the possibility of these restrictions being implemented in a future election. With these restrictions still being possible, this conflict therefore further extends beyond a disagreement over mail-in voting itself. Instead, it now serves as an example of how U.S. political leaders may use existing democratic institutions to change the rules of democratic competition, a process that Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify as a potential threat to democratic norms.

Levitsky and Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die, argue that modern democracies do not collapse through one particular event. Rather, the process of democratic erosion tends to take place over time, in which political leaders undermine the informal norms and institutional practices of democracy. They emphasize two important informal norms in particular, mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. Mutual toleration involves a political actor being able to accept their political opponent as a legitimate participant in the democratic process, and institutional forbearance refers to the ability of a political actor to refrain from utilizing their full legal power in an undemocratic manner. Essentially, for Levitsky and Ziblatt, a democratic institution may be fully intact, while democracy itself becomes increasingly weakened through the breaking of these norms. 

The Trump administration’s attempt to change the rules surrounding mail-in voting can be best categorized under the idea of institutional forbearance. In this case, the administration relied on using its executive power to pursue its agenda of mail-in ballot restrictions. This is significant because, as mentioned previously, a political leader’s ability to refrain from using their power, even when those actions may be legally permissible, is vital in maintaining the informal norm of institutional forbearance. By using existing governmental power to attempt to reshape the rules of mail-in ballots, especially in the middle of an election cycle, the administration demonstrates its willing participation in democratic erosion within the country. The importance of this issue is not necessarily whether the action is a legal possibility in the future, but rather the ability of a U.S. political leader to use their power in ways that would undermine fundamental democratic norms. 

This conflict is not the first and only example of the Trump administration undermining the key informal norms of democracy. Levitsky and Ziblatt’s other major democratic norm, mutual toleration, has also been broken numerous times by Donald Trump. Throughout many campaigns, Donald Trump has referred to his opponents as illegitimate or even as a threat to the country. A prime example is during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump frequently referred to Joe Biden as either “Crooked Joe Biden” or “Sleepy Joe.” In 2016, his rallies repeatedly consisted of chants exclaiming “Lock her up!” in regard to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Rather than treating his political competition with peace and neutrality, he utilized harmful rhetoric that portrayed his rivals as illegitimate. This is important because, according to Levitsky and Ziblatt, when political actors stop viewing their opponents as legitimate, they become more willing to use their powers aggressively in order to prevent their opponents from gaining power. 

Essentially, this discussion of the process of democratic erosion occurring within the United States is not recent news, but this is an idea that has been steadily utilized and promoted under Trump and his administration. This process has been in gradual works, and it’s often difficult to recognize when political leaders continuously operate in undemocratic ways that it eventually becomes the norm for citizens. Additionally, the mutual tolerance and, mainly, the institutional forbearance example of the mail-in ballot restrictions heavily demonstrate the idea that democratic erosion does not necessarily happen through one singular major event, but instead occurs through repeated challenges to key democratic informal norms. With these actions being increasingly normalized, it is difficult to determine what this may entail for the future stability of democracy in the United States.