As US voters look to the November midterms, the Trump administration is obsessed with looking back to past elections, seizing ballots cast years ago in several states in search, it claims, of fraud or other malfeasance. But experts believe the goal may be more varied.

The seizures began in January when FBI agents armed with a warrant raided an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, and grabbed 600 boxes of ballots from 2020. This was followed in March by the Department of Justice obtaining ballot images from 2020 in Maricopa County, Arizona, and—citing claims about supposed fraud in 2020—demanding ballots from the 2024 election in Wayne County, Michigan.

These federal seizures have even trickled down to the local level. In March, a Republican sheriff in California obtained a warrant to seize about 650,000 ballots from a statewide redistricting election held in November. He announced, with no evident authority to do so, that his deputies would conduct a recount.

Election experts fear the trend could grow, creating widespread chaos after the midterms, if courts fail to scrutinize what appear to be politically motivated requests from groups intent on undermining election outcomes they don’t like.

“It’s really important for the public, for grand juries, for judges to not allow these actions … to become some kind of precedent,” says Gowri Ramachandran, director of elections and security at the Brennan Center for Justice. “This is not, and shouldn’t be, a rubber-stamp issue.”

It’s difficult to know for certain what parties seizing ballots aim to achieve. The DOJ could be fishing for evidence of fraud to legitimize President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Or it could be sending a message to voters and election officials that the federal government controls elections, despite the Constitution saying otherwise. The seizures may also be trial balloons to see how courts, election officials, and the public react. If the response is weak, it could embolden the administration to seize ballots after the midterms.