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Three top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration failed to show up to the annual conference of state election officials after making a splashy announcement that they would face a crowd of top state election officials.

The National Association of Secretaries of State altered its conference schedule Thursday to allow Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to speak Friday afternoon. This announcement came down to just Gabbard at noon on Friday. The entire Trump administration appearance was canceled just as it was supposed to begin. Neither agency nor the White House immediately responded to a request for an explanation about the appearance or the cancellation.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat running for governor in 2026, had a simple diagnosis for why they ultimately didn’t show up: “Cowards.”

Before Bondi, Noem and Gabbard canceled, it looked like they were going to appear before officials as a show of force as the administration works to force an unprecedented effort to take control of the nation’s elections before the 2026 midterms.

Bondi’s Justice Department has sued 23 states and Washington, D.C., including GOP-controlled Georgia, to obtain sensitive private voter information, including partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license identification numbers. While the department has not explained why it needs this data, states that comply with data requests are entering it into a database controlled by Noem’s Department of Homeland Security that is intended to identify noncitizens, although it often produces false positives.

Three federal judges have already dismissed these lawsuits. A California judge said the lawsuit against the Golden State was “unlawful and unprecedented.” In Oregon, a judge issued a rare ruling dismissing the lawsuit. And in Georgia, a judge dismissed the case because it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction.

Following these decisions, Bondi attempted to coerce Minnesota into releasing the data by demanding it in exchange for some reduction in the immigration enforcement operation that has already left two citizens dead at the hands of federal agents.

Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

Another threat to the election emerged Wednesday when the FBI raided a polling place in Fulton County, Georgia, and seized ballots, voter lists and scanner images as part of an investigation into the outcome of the 2020 election.

The shocking search and seizure of ballots appears to be part of Trump’s retaliation campaign against his perceived political enemies, including those he falsely claims stole the 2020 election from him. After losing that election, Trump lied that he won the state of Georgia and tried to pressure Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find “11,780” votes.

Interestingly, Gabbard was captured in a photograph of the raidraising questions about what exactly the country’s top counterintelligence official was doing investigating the national election.

“Spies should never participate in elections,” Bellows said.

Democratic secretaries of state said they wish administration officials had appeared and answered their questions.

Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas wanted to ask Bondi if her demand that Minnesota hand over its private voter information in exchange for reducing the state’s deadly immigration enforcement operation “is reaching other states.”

This concern was shared by Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas, who wanted to know “why the federal government is extorting states in exchange for reducing immigration activities.”

Bellows also expressed concern about how the administration’s immigration enforcement operations, like the one launched in Maine earlier this month, could affect the 2026 election.

While he noted that it is illegal for any federal agent to interfere with a polling place, he said people are already “afraid to leave their homes” during the current operation. That could decrease turnout if immigration agents are “patrolling the streets” on Election Day.