MS NOW: The next attack on free and fair elections won’t look like Jan. 6

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration mandated that cockpit doors be hardened and remain locked during flights.

The U.S. took a lot of other measures, too, ranging from invading Afghanistan and Iraq to requiring everyone take off their shoes before going through airport security, but terrorism experts generally agree that hardening cockpit doors was the most effective at preventing another hijacking.

After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, state and federal governments took a lot of measures to reform voting and elections, but the 2022 law closing legal loopholes in the electoral count law was probably the most effective.

But just as cockpit locks didn’t end the threat of terrorism, the Electoral Count Reform Act won’t stop the ongoing attempts to undermine free and fair elections in the United States. The next attack on democracy won’t look like Jan. 6.

For the fifth anniversary of the attack, I talked with a number of experts on voting and elections about their biggest concerns as we head into the midterms this year. Their answers vary, but a common theme was concern about what President Donald Trump’s administration may attempt to do.

Here’s what they each said was their top concern:

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New laws making voting harder

“What concerns me most about future elections is the wave of voter suppression laws enacted in recent years. Nearly 60 million Americans live in states that passed new voting restrictions in 2025 alone, meaning the rules will have changed when they head to the polls this November. Voter ID laws — our focus at VoteRiders — have been front and center in this wave of restrictions, and are particularly concerning because they have the potential to directly disenfranchise millions of eligible and at-risk voters while confusing and intimidating millions more.”

— Lauren Kunis, Executive Director, VoteRiders

Read the full article here.

January 6, 2026.