As she canvassed for Zohran Mamdani in New York City on Tuesday last week, Batul Hassan should have been elated. Her mayoral candidate—a 33-year-old state assemblymember—was surging in the polls and would within hours soundly defeat Andrew Cuomo on first preference votes in the Democratic primary election.

The Justice Department is looking into whether it can bring criminal charges against election officials the Trump administration believes aren’t doing enough to safeguard their computer systems, The New York Times reports.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls.