The New Worst-Case Scenario for Election Officials: Federal Interference

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 Summary

“State and local officials are training for potential federal interference, including ICE presence, monitor limits, and ballot seizures. Concerns center on Trump administration actions, though courts and officials like Dana Nessel note legal constraints.

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State and local plans for Election Day include how to react to potential ICE raids, misbehavior by federal election monitors and attempts to seize votes or machines.

Oct. 27, 2026Updated 12:51 p.m. ET

State and local election officials across the country have been redoubling training efforts to prepare for the potential for federal interference.John Locher/Associated Press

State and local elections officials regularly plan for floods, fires and computer glitches.

This year, they are teaching poll workers what to do if immigration enforcement officers show up. They are drilling them about the statute that bars federal agents from voting places. They are running through the limits of what federal monitors may and may not do on Election Day.

Much of the preparations for Nov. 3 can be distilled into one overarching concern — that the Trump administration will somehow attempt to meddle with the voting process or the results. The tricky part, officials said, is predicting what shape that interference might take while also recognizing that it might not materialize at all.

“This is the first time ever that we have had to engage in scenario planning to safeguard against potential federal interference in elections,” said Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state in Maine. “It seems like the federal government is now adversarial to the states.”

It remains to be seen whether any of these scenarios will play out. Many federal officials have dismissed the idea that agents or soldiers could be sent to the polls, and the courts have blocked most of President Trump’s efforts to insert the federal government into state and local election administration.

And some of the country’s most prominent voting advocates have sought to assure the public that election administrators are well-prepared to protect the vote. David Becker, a former voting rights lawyer for the Justice Department, said the most chilling possibilities are unlikely to come to pass because the courts would likely block them.

“But election officials feel more comfortable to know they’ve thought about this, and discussed it,” said Mr. Becker, who runs the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works to support election officials in both parties.

Even so, the Trump Administration has already taken significant steps to try to shape the voting process this year. Mr. Trump has sought to sow doubt about the security of elections. His administration has demanded that states turn over voter lists, and has tried unsuccessfully to change mail voting rules. Last week, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in Alaska seeking to pre-emptively block the certification of the Senate race there if the Republican candidate loses by a narrow margin.

With one week until Election Day, officials around the country say that they are bracing for even more unwanted and potentially undemocratic federal intervention — even as they can’t be sure what, if anything, the Trump Administration might do. To prepare, secretaries of state and other state and local officials have met with lawyers and local law enforcement agencies, trained poll workers and held meetings to consider what could come next.

Among their top concerns: that Mr. Trump’s attacks on the integrity of American voting systems could form the basis for challenging the legitimacy of the results. Along with that unease comes the worry that any federal intervention could further undermine public confidence in elections and cause voters to stay home.

The next step is a guessing game, they said.

Could federal officials try to seize ballots, as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Ga., as part of a criminal investigation that thus far hasn’t resulted in any charges?

Could Mr. Trump deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel or other federal agents to polling sites, even though his homeland security chief has said I.C.E. will not patrol polling stations and would be deployed to such an area only to investigate “specific threats?”

Might he invoke the Insurrection Act and somehow summon the military in connection with the election? Mr. Trump has refused to rule out the possibility.

“We really are shadowboxing here, because we don’t know when or if the blow is going to land,” said Steve Simon, the Minnesota secretary of state. “We don’t know the character of, or content of, what might be headed our way.”

Mr. Trump, who has long claimed without proof that U.S. elections are rigged, sought to overturn his 2020 election loss. Earlier this year, he said the federal government should “get involved” in elections, even though the Constitution empowers the states and Congress — not the executive branch — to govern elections.

Ms. Bellows and Mr. Simon are Democrats. But Republican election officials have also planned for the possibility of federal intervention. Deidre Henderson, the lieutenant governor of Utah and a Republican, recently saidthat while she did not “necessarily expect” such interference, officials in her state were still planning for it.

In a statement, Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said the bipartisan concerns about election interference were unfounded.

“The only ‘worries’ about election security are caused by radical Democrats who refuse to enact basic election security measures, supported by the majority of Americans, including voter ID and citizenship verification to ensure only Americans are electing America’s leaders,” Ms. Bis said. “President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections.”

Several voting advocacy groups have offered training and advice to election officials to help them get ready. One organization, the Government Counsel and Election Officials Network, explains to election administrators the legal basics that could be helpful in the case of federal action, whether civil or criminal, such as the seizure of machines or documents.

The group’s website provides samples of what federal grand jury subpoenasand search warrants look like. It also advises how to respond to a federal investigation, including what to do when agents show up with a search warrant.

“Step 1,” the site says: “Stay calm.”

Tina Barton, the co-chairwoman of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, said her team has helped run about 140 training sessions for officials with local government and law enforcement this year, up from 67 such sessions in 2024.

Some of those officials, including law enforcement leaders in Northern Virginia, said they were concerned about how immigration enforcement might affect the election process. Although Mr. Trump’s homeland security chief has said ICE will not patrol polling stations, Some congressional officials nonetheless expressed concern about the possibility. She said she helped lead a training scenario in which ICE enforcement was near a polling location.

Ms. Bellows, the Maine secretary of state, said her team introduced a new slide this year into its training presentation for law enforcement. It provides the text of the federal statute that bars armed federal agents from polling places.

“It’s sad that we’re in this posture,” Ms. Bellows said in a phone interview. “But it’s just the way it is in 2026, given the administration’s rhetoric, and their actions.”

Barb Byrum, the clerk of Ingham County, Mich., said she was already concerned by some actions of the Trump administration, including the Justice Department’s deployment of federal election monitors to her county during the August primary. She said it was the first such deployment of federal monitors to her county in her nearly 14 years as clerk.

“The feds suggested that there were long lines, voters were not offered provisional ballots and clerks and precinct workers failed to use the qualified voter file to check voters,” she said. “All of which is simply not true.”

After the primary, Ms. Byrum put her election workers through additional training on what federal monitors were and were not permitted to do under state law.

“They can watch the process,” Ms. Byrum said. “They can’t touch anything, they can’t ask any questions. They can literally just watch — monitor.”

Ms. Byrum said she found it disheartening that she now considered the federal government a potential threat to the election.

Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, formerly worked on voting rights for the Biden administration. He said nearly everywhere across the country, Justice Department observers must adhere to the same rules of behavior at polling places as any other member of the public.

Earlier this week, Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, said the Justice Department’s civil rights division had sent notices to seven Michigan municipalities that election monitors from the department would come to their polling places on Election Day. In a statement, Ms. Nessel, a Democrat, sought to quell anxiety about the plans.

“It’s important for residents know that D.O.J. monitors are a standard part of our election process, and we anticipate they will comport with state and federal law,” she said.

Some officials are hesitant to share granular details of their preparations, for fear of giving the federal government a tactical advantage if legal skirmishes arise.

For Democrats, the politics of discussing preparations are also complicated. By having an open discussion about pre-election planning, they said, they show their constituents that they are taking the threats seriously. But they also recognize that such discussions could intimidate voters from going to the polls.

In an interview, Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general and a Democrat, said he and Mr. Simon, the secretary of state, have been working in tandem to prepare for election threats.

Asked how concerned he was about the threats to the Nov. 3 election on a scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Ellison said: “I’m at a seven.” He added: “It’s as high as it’s ever been for me.”

During a recent online forum, Lisa Lyons, the clerk and registrar of deeds in Kent County, Mich., said her staff regularly communicated with her government’s legal team about potential troubles.

“We’re going to follow the law,” she said. “We’re going to follow the Constitution. We’re going to protect our election equipment.”

Richard Fausset is a national correspondent for The Times who writes about the way Americans live in a polarized country.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

David W. Chen is a Times reporter focused on state legislatures, state level policymaking and the political forces behind them.”

 

Michigan Senate Race Drives Anxiety Among Jewish and Muslim Voters

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 Summary

Michigan’s Senate race between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed heightens anxiety among Jewish and Muslim voters over U.S. policy toward Israel. Both communities fear hate crimes; El-Sayed faces Islamophobic rhetoric and accusations of stoking antisemitism.

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More than elsewhere in the country, U.S. policy toward Israel is at the forefront of the race between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed.

Oct. 27, 2026Updated 12:47 p.m. ET

The Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism held an event at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Mich., this month. Synagogues and mosques alike have security concerns.Rosem Morton for The New York Times

By Jennifer Medina

Jennifer Medina interviewed more than two dozen voters in Southfield, West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills, Mich.

Just north of the highway that runs through Southfield, Mich., is Congregation Shaarey Zedek, a soaring modern synagogue that has been an anchor for Jewish life in suburban Detroit since the 1960s. On the other side of the road stands Umma, a Muslim congregation that opened this year and regularly attracts hundreds to Friday afternoon prayers.

The two congregations, both worried about the hate that has permeated the national political atmosphere, share a quiet but persistent fear that they could be victims of hate crimes at any time.

This year’s high-stakes Senate race in Michigan has inflamed those tensions and heightened their anxiety.

The Democratic nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, would be the country’s first Muslim senator if elected, and his candidacy has drawn ugly Islamophobic rhetoric from agitators at campaign events and from high-profile supporters of his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, including President Trump. At the same time, Dr. El-Sayed has been accused of stoking antisemitism with his relentless criticism of Israel. Some who have spent a lifetime voting for Democrats are considering casting a ballot for Mr. Rogers — or not voting at all.

Some longtime Democrats are considering voting for Mike Rogers, a Republican former congressman, left, instead of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.Emily Elconin for The New York Times; Nick Hagen for The New York Times

“Somehow we’re suddenly arguing about which candidate we are most afraid of,” said Andy Bocknek, a financial planner and a former president of Temple Israel in nearby West Bloomfield, the site of a violent antisemitic attack in March.

“It’s a sad statement when we’re hoping for a candidate who will do the least amount of damage,” Mr. Bocknek, 46, said. “There’s a lot of pain in this current moment for us.”

Just north of Northwestern Highway in Southfield, Mich., is Congregation Shaarey Zedek, a soaring modern synagogue that has been an anchor for Jewish life in suburban Detroit since the 1970s. To the south stands Umma, a Muslim congregation that opened this year inside a towering office building.Rosem Morton for The New York Times

Urgent and personal

In Southfield and across Oakland County, where Yemeni coffee shops sit next to kosher butcher shops, Muslim and Jewish voters make up a significant slice of the electorate. The sprawling front lawns of many homes blend into each other, much like the suburban communities themselves. Many move to the area for top-tier public schools, including the one Dr. El-Sayed attended in Bloomfield Hills.

For decades, the area has been the heart of Jewish Detroit, home to dozens of large synagogues. When Dr. El-Sayed was growing up in the 1990s, Muslims had begun to plant roots too, and the community has grown exponentially since. The same neighborhoods are also home to the country’s largest community of Chaldeans, Iraqi Catholics who emigrated to the United States over the past two generations.

The area can feel like a microcosm of the country and yet entirely singular. Like everywhere, voters are frustrated with the cost of gas and groceries. But more than in most American communities, foreign policy and local politics here are intertwined — urgent, personal and visceral.

Many Jewish voters worry about a repeat of the attack on Temple Israel, in which a man drove his truck through the synagogue, narrowly missing the preschool classrooms where 140 children were playing. Muslim voters, worry about Islamophobic attacks, fearing that either they or Dr. El-Sayed could be targeted.

Michigan has been politically divided for decades, especially in the Detroit suburbs. But the current fault lines are defined by a raw mix of fear, anger and resentment over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

In 2024, feeling forsaken by the Democratic Party, which they had traditionally supported, some Arab and Muslim voters organized the “Uncommitted” campaign during the presidential primary, withholding their support from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to signal their dissatisfaction with his backing of the Israeli government.

This year, some Jewish voters — also a mainstay of the Democratic coalition — have expressed their own feelings of abandonment as sentiment within the party has shifted sharply against Israel.

The Senate campaign has played out against this fraught backdrop. Dr. El-Sayed has linked U.S. aid to Israel to domestic problems, arguing that the money sent there could instead fund schools and health care here. And he has argued that Israel’s military operations in Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on Israel have amounted to genocide. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country’s leading pro-Israel lobby, has spent millions of dollars to try to defeat him.

Both Muslims and Jews feel deeply vulnerable. They worry that their children will see political advertisements that portray Dr. El-Sayed as un-American or blame U.S. support for Israel for Americans’ struggles to afford the price of eggs. They fear the heightened rhetoric will encourage violence against both communities.

‘As if your life depends on it’

Even amid their worry, Muslims in Michigan have a sense that the election of Dr. El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, could represent an important shift in American politics. They regard him as the first national politician who shares their fervor for a Palestinian state.

“We were never this close to making this big of a difference,” said Asim Khan, a 59-year-old engineer and local leader who has helped establish several mosques in the area. For months, he has helped register voters during Friday prayers, hoping to get as much as 85 percent of the Muslim community to vote. Volunteers at Umma, which means community in Arabic and is also an acronym for the United Michigan Muslim Association, have also handed out voter information.

“I keep saying, work as if your life depends on it,” he said. “Because you never know when we will get another chance like this.”

Fatima Salman, 48, was a young adult in Oakland County during the “war on terror” that followed the 9/11 attacks. Back then, she said, she could never have imagined that Michigan would be on the verge of electing a candidate like Dr. El-Sayed. She could have hardly imagined the possibility even two years ago.

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Ms. Salman is the daughter of Indian immigrants, and her father often helped new arrivals settle into the area through his work at a local mosque.

Mr. Trump’s first election in 2016, and especially his anti-immigrant rhetoric, had frightened many Muslim Americans, but in some ways the aftermath gave Ms. Salman hope. Many non-Muslim acquaintances were eager to protest the new administration’s “Muslim ban” barring people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.

She worked with interfaith groups for several years. But those relationships began to fray in early 2024, amid the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

“I was seeing everyone so behind Israel and whatever it did,” she said. “I thought, we can’t continue this relationship. We broke bread and now you can’t even see the humanity of Palestinians? What was all of that for?”

Across Oakland County, where Yemeni coffee shops sit next to kosher butcher shops, Muslim and Jewish voters make up a significant slice of the electorate. Rosem Morton for The New York Times

She began to think that the reported rise of antisemitic incidents was overstated. When she read through some media reports, she said, she was taken aback by complaints that involved people shouting insults on the street. “I just thought, I deal with this happening to me every day as a hijabi,” she said.

Ms. Salman began to focus on pushing for change within the Democratic Party, organizing with Uncommitted. While the movement had some success, organizers were enraged by the party’s refusal to allow a Palestinian speaker to address the Democratic National Convention from the stage.

Ms. Salman is stunned by how much has changed in two years.

“What’s happening now is heartening, but I can’t believe it — it’s shocking to see in my lifetime,” she said.

Still, for others, the spotlight on Dr. El-Sayed has reminded them that Muslims are still viewed with suspicion.

Sumaiya Ahmed Sheikh, 35, remembers the heightened security at her Islamic school after 9/11. This year, she cajoled other parents to pay for security guards at the Islamic school her two sons attend. “When you grow up knowing you have a target on your back,” she said, “you’re kind of used to it.”

Snipers on the roof

Rabbi Aaron Starr looks out over stained glass panels in Shaarey Zedek and winces when he thinks about the staggering sums the congregation spends on private security each year.

“We haven’t yet dug the moat and built the wall,” he said dryly. “But that might be coming next.”

Security cameras and armed guards are now an inescapable feature of Jewish communal life. For the High Holy Days this year, Temple Israel placed snipers on the roof.

For many Jews here, the attack on Temple Israel on March 12 irreparably broke their sense of security.

The next day, Dr. El-Sayed released a video on social media in which he condemned the attack but also declared that “hurt people hurt people,” referring to the fact that the attacker had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon. Many Jews were enraged, believing that he was making an excuse for the attack.

Dr. El-Sayed apologized, but the anger has lingered.

“That line felt to us like being kicked after we had already been attacked,” Rabbi Starr said. “Some people have forgiven him for that. Most of us have not forgotten.”

Some Jewish voters say Dr. El-Sayed’s candidacy has left them deeply discouraged about the election and the future of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Bocknek finds himself unable to bring himself to vote for either Dr. El-Sayed or Mr. Rogers. He is leaning toward writing in Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate Democrat who lost in the primary.

“It feels like an opportunity to make a statement that says there are still moderate Democrats here who aren’t so far left, but who also can’t justify voting for a Republican,” Mr. Bocknek said. “The push from the far left has been significant, and there is a definite slice of the community who feel politically homeless right now.”

In synagogue halls and on group texts, Jewish voters have engaged in intense arguments over how to navigate the election.

Rabbi Starr addressed the situation directly in his Rosh Hashana sermon.

“For us as Jews, for us as Americans, the world feels, quite simply, on fire,” he said that day. He added, “I am worried not only about feeling afraid, but about becoming a fearful person.”

He concluded with a startling rephrase of Dr. El-Sayed: “Hurt people help people.”

A few days later, another rabbi asked if he could use the quote on lawn signs, which now pop up around the neighborhood. (The signs infuriate Ms. Salman, who believes Dr. El-Sayed has apologized enough for his statement.)

Still, there is far from unanimous thinking among Jews. Jeremy Zeltzer, a local Democratic fund-raiser, recently organized a gathering for skeptical Jewish voters to speak directly with Dr. El-Sayed.

“There is nothing more quintessentially American than to listen, hear, and ask tough questions,” Mr. Zeltzer said.

Marcie Paul, a Democrat activist who attended the event, said she has been so consumed by the election that “it is in my dreams.” Every day, she said, she talks with friends who are weighing whether they are more worried about Mr. Trump or Dr. El-Sayed.

“I know I will vote for him,” she said of the Democrat. “And I will complain about it endlessly.”

Israel Has Committed Genocidal Acts in Gaza Since Cease-Fire, U.N. Human Rights Panel Says - The New York Times

Israel Has Committed Genocidal Acts in Gaza Since Cease-Fire, U.N. Human Rights Panel Says

"The panel also accuses Israel of committing crimes against humanity in the West Bank. Israel condemned the report.

Oct. 26, 2026, 4:30 p.m. ET

An Israeli strike on a Gaza City mosque in July.Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

A commission of United Nations human rights experts said on Monday that Israel was committing genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians in Gaza despite a cease-fire agreement there and carrying out crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

The report by the U.N. Independent Commission of Inquiry, which comes on the eve of Israel’s first general election since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack, is meant to look at the drivers of violence by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the panel said. It said that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian children and was using torture, rape and sexual violence as part of a broader attack aimed at displacing and subjugating the Palestinian population.

Israel immediately rejected the claims.

The report, delivered to the U.N. General Assembly, noted that between the cease-fire announced on Oct. 10, 2025, and the end of September 2026, Israeli airstrikes, artillery and gunfire had killed 1,431 Palestinians in Gaza, including 300 children. The report rejected a claim in May by the Board of Peace set up by President Trump that the cease-fire had “largely held.”

The combined findings of the U.N. commission, an independent panel of three human rights experts that has already released multiple reports, represent the most authoritative legal analysis of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza pending a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on an allegation of genocide filed by South Africa.

“The intentional killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians and destruction of homes in the West Bank combined with Israel’s persistent denial of responsibility form part of a broader strategy to exterminate and displace Palestinians and impose conditions of life that are unlivable,” Srinivasan Muralidhar, an Indian lawyer who serves as the panel’s chairman, said in a statement accompanying the report.

The commission also includes Chris Sidoti, an Australian expert on international human rights law who has served on the panel since it was set up in 2021; and Florence Mumba, a Zambian judge who served on international criminal tribunals investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The commission cited a series of Israeli airstrikes, artillery bombardments and sniper attacks in Gaza and said they “show that Israeli authorities and forces continue to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva called the report misinformation and an attempt to demonize Israel.

Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador in Geneva, condemned what it called “efforts by actors such as the U.N. Commission of Inquiry to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and deny its fundamental right to exist and defend itself.”

The U.N. panel first asserted that Israel committed genocide in the war in Gaza in September 2025, when the commission was led by Navi Pillay, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The new report said that Israel’s government and security forces had deliberately inflicted death, severe injury and mental harm on Palestinian children, amounting to “age-based persecution.” 

It also said that since a report on sexual violence in March 2025, the commission had verified more cases against detainees from Gaza and the West Bank, including gang rape, groping, forced nudity and cavity searches. It also said the commission had investigated two cases of sexual violence against participants in a flotilla of about 50 boats that were apprehended in the Mediterranean Sea as they tried to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. 

The panel said Israeli forces were increasingly applying lethal force against Palestinians in the West Bank, killing 1,080 Palestinians since the cease-fire agreement.

The West Bank has experienced soaring levels of settler violence, but the commission said Israeli security forces were responsible for 95 percent of killings and 82 percent of injuries to Palestinians in this period.

The combination of Israeli military operations and settler violence “had formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population in the West Bank,” the panel said, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The targeting of children by security forces and settlers was deliberate and intended to form part of the attack on the civilian population, it said.

Israeli military operations since January 2025 had driven more than 34,000 Palestinians from their homes by August 2026, in what the commission said amounted to the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967, when Israel captured the territory from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war that year.

The commission also said that the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had used excessive force resulting in killings in the course of large-scale operations targeting Palestinians wanted by Israel and conducted in coordination with the Israeli authorities.

Over a period of about two years up to October 2025, such operations had resulted in the deaths of at least 14 Palestinians, the commission reported. The Palestinian Authority responded harshly to criticism of these operations, targeting journalists and human rights defenders in an attempt to silence dissent, it said.

Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations at Geneva, said in response: “We remain committed to ensuring that law enforcement respects the law and human rights, including freedom of expression and the work of journalists and human rights defenders. Any misconduct will be addressed.”"

Israel Has Committed Genocidal Acts in Gaza Since Cease-Fire, U.N. Human Rights Panel Says - The New York Times

Netanyahu Pushed for Attack on Iran Ahead of Israeli Election, Officials Say - The New York Times

Netanyahu Pushed for Attack on Iran Ahead of Israeli Election, Officials Say

"Israel’s military chief resisted the prime minister, who then pressed in recent days for a separate action, short of an overt strike, according to an official and a person briefed on the matter.

Oct. 26, 2026Updated 9:34 p.m. ET

A campaign billboard in Tel Aviv depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump on Monday, the eve of Israel’s national election.Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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In advance of Israel’s pivotal election on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought for weeks to orchestrate a new airstrike on Iran but ran into resistance from the military’s chief of staff, according to three senior Israeli defense officials and three other people briefed on the matter.

Then, over the past few days, the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, became concerned that Mr. Netanyahu had begun pushing for a separate action against Iran, short of an overt strike, according to an Israeli official and a person briefed on the matter, neither of whom described the nature of such an action. General Zamir believed that this would be a miscalculation that could provoke Iran into attacking Israel.

Spokesmen for Mr. Netanyahu did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The Israeli officials and the people briefed on the deliberations spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Mr. Netanyahu’s rationale for pressing to attack Iran before the election was not clear, but a return to war could have potentially disrupted or even delayed the vote.

The behind-the-scenes tensions over a possible Israeli attack or other action against Iran come as Mr. Netanyahu has been publicly portraying the stakes of the election in increasingly apocalyptic terms. Over the weekend, he posted an A.I.-generated image on social media of a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv and warned in a television appearance that the vote would decide “Israel’s existence.”

The appeals to Israelis’ fears are meant to get voters to see the conflict with Iran as the most urgent issue and to entrust him with continuing to lead the struggle against Israel’s chief regional adversary.

When Mr. Netanyahu pushed to heat up the conflict with Iran, General Zamir raised a number of objections and concerns and ultimately concluded that there was no immediate or urgent need for action, the officials and people briefed on the matter said.

Such a determination by the military chief carries special weight: It can make it harder to portray the timing as a military necessity.

While General Zamir was not opposed to taking action against Iran in principle, he objected to doing so before the election, according to an Israeli official and two people briefed on the matter. General Zamir and the Israeli air force commander, Maj. Gen. Omer Tischler, cited the political sensitivities  and the difficulty of explaining to the public why it had to occur then, according to two senior Israeli defense officials.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its operational decision making was strictly based “on security considerations,” as well as “its responsibility as a national institution.”

The concerns about political motivations for an attack on Iran do not expire on Tuesday. According to three senior Israeli defense officials and two people briefed on the matter, a resumption of fighting with Iran in the weeks after the election could also have a large impact.

If Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents prevail in the election, they would likely have an opportunity to form the new government, but a return to war could hinder or even thwart their ability to assemble a governing coalition within the time allotted by law. Renewed fighting could also create political pressure to establish a national unity government that includes Mr. Netanyahu.

Reports of disagreement between Mr. Netanyahu and the military over a possible attack, first carried by Israel’s Channel 12, sparked outrage in Israel. One of Mr. Netanyahu’s rivals, Avigdor Liberman, demanded Monday that the attorney general open an investigation into whether the prime minister had committed treason.

“The attempt to drag Israel into a war on the eve of elections, including sacrificing Israeli soldiers, just because of the fear of losing the elections, is a betrayal of the nation,” Mr. Liberman, a defense minister and foreign minister in earlier Netanyahu governments, wrote in a formal complaint.

Mr. Netanyahu, 77, is battling to keep his hold on power in the face of opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff.

Mr. Netanyahu’s appeals to voters became increasingly disturbing over the campaign’s final weekend, with the prime minister saying that his defeat could lead to Israel’s annihilation. He has also suggested that tougher times could be ahead for Israel regardless of the outcome.

On Friday, he said that Israelis should prepare for the end of billions of dollars in American military support from the United States, given the sharp decline of Israel’s standing in U.S. public opinion. He also said the possibility that Israel will face “banking sanctions” arising from international condemnation could force the country in coming years to rely on cryptocurrency to circumvent the penalties.

The remarks prompted a wave of criticism. Israel’s nonpartisan central bank, the Bank of Israel, issued a rare warning, saying that cryptocurrency would not save the economy in the event of international sanctions. And a former governor of the Bank of Israel, Jacob Frenkel, said that turning away from the global financial system would make Israel into “a leper.”

Opposition leaders accused Mr. Netanyahu of essentially accepting that Israel would become a pariah state.

“He’s lost it,” said Yair Lapid, one of Mr. Netanyahu’s centrist rivals. “Israel’s prime minister, in an election campaign, is saying three days before the elections to vote for him and he’ll ensure that Israel stays isolated.”

For weeks, Mr. Netanyahu has also been saying that Iran might attack Israel in an attempt to sabotage the elections — statements that some military analysts consider destabilizing. His messaging became even more dire over the weekend.

On Sunday morning, Mr. Netanyahu posted the image of an A.I.-generated cloud from a nuclear blast mushrooming over Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest metropolis. He attached a quote from a supporter to the effect that the scandals dogging him — he is currently facing trial on corruption charges, which he denies — were a distraction from “the real and tangible existential danger” that Iran posed.

Iran denies that it is pursuing a nuclear weapon but has also repeatedly threatened Israel, which is widely believed to have its own nuclear arsenal.

Hours later, Mr. Netanyahu gave one of the final interviews of his election campaign to Israel’s Channel 14, a network that largely echoes the prime minister’s talking points. He warned that his right-wing bloc was facing possible defeat.

“It’s not in our pocket and it’s not a lost cause,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

The prime minister warned that Israel was at risk of joining the ranks of countries like Belgium, Britain and France that, he said, have been “ruined” by an alliance between “the left and radical Islam.”

Rising to his feet, Mr. Netanyahu likened himself to a Jewish leader warning 1930s European Jewry of the impending Holocaust. Mr. Netanyahu said Mr. Eisenkot and his allies would not do what was necessary and vowed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and topple its government.

Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly boasted of having destroyed the Iranian nuclear program, only to speak of it as if it remains an imminent threat. “We cannot live side by side with this bomb,” he said. “Either they will either destroy us or we will destroy that poisonous cult.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents also believe the future of their country is hanging in the balance on Tuesday. Many liberal Israelis fear that this election is their last chance to prevent their country from becoming an authoritarian state, under the sway of the religious right and shunned on the world stage.

On Sunday evening, Mr. Eisenkot made his own final pitch to voters, calling for the country to come together “to save our Israel.” He vowed to order an inquiry into the government’s failure to prevent the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, uproot Hamas’s rule in Gaza within 18 months and force Mr. Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies, now exempted from military service, to share the burden of conscription.

“At stake in the elections is nothing less than the security of Israel and the survival of the Israeli story as we know it,” Mr. Eisenkot said.

David M. Halbfinger is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. He also held that post from 2017 to 2021. He was the politics editor from 2021 to 2025.

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.

Natan Odenheimer is a Times reporter in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.

Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.

Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.

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Netanyahu Pushed for Attack on Iran Ahead of Israeli Election, Officials Say - The New York Times