A draft emergency executive order to declare a national emergency to allow President Donald Trump to take unprecedented control over voting is being circulated by anti-voting activists who said they are in coordination with the White House.
Voting rights experts, democracy advocates, and at least one state election chief said Trump doesn’t have the authority to claim such powers — and any attempt would be blatantly unconstitutional.
The draft order — which is said to be based on a conspiracy theory that China interfered with the 2020 election — would allow Trump to unilaterally ban mail-in ballots and voting machines on the basis that they are susceptible to foreign interference.
The order comes from MAGA activists who have been coordinating with the White House. One of the advocates for the order is Peter Ticktin, the attorney for Tina Peters, the former GOP Colorado county clerk who is currently serving a nine-year state prison sentence for her role in a 2021 voting system breach, in an attempt to find voter fraud based on election conspiracies.
The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution explicitly gives states — not the president — sole authority over elections.
USAmericans are living in turmoil, struggling to makes ends meet; We see headlines like this, and then we see our representatives—Democrat representatives—sit around. I’m aware this order is illegal, and maybe it would be “pointless” to reiterate that; but maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe restating the president can’t take control of elections would actually persuade enough of the Supreme Court to tell Trump to ask Congress. Maybe a few defectors would join Democrats in refusing to give Trump that control. What else are our representatives going to be doing? Attending lobbyist parties?
This is why so many USA folks are bitter and jaded about our nation, the Democratic Party, and voting in general. We have seen resistance efforts against ICE, especially now in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We’ve seen lawyers and civil rights activists assemble to assist marginalized groups. Soup kitchens and food pantries continue to get essential support, even during this economic recession. During the shutdown, while SNAP benefits were illegally withheld, even restaurants were offering free meals to SNAP recipients. And not one bit of this was thanks to the so-called opposition party. People with local businesses or full-time jobs—people with family members to care for—are taking on this effort; and the vast majority of the folks making $174,000 a year in their political representative job aren’t involved beyond showing up to their cushy office, walking into the chamber, and pressing the “No” button that they know won’t stop anything. Then, when that vote would have power, they give the All-Clear to the fascists…all three times now.
Not one member of the Senate even requested the “Big Beautiful Bill” be read out in full—a procedure which likely would have delayed the bill by months. Introducing the bill by name alone requires unanimous consent; and Republicans got it. Again and again we watch as limp-spined Democrats follow their geriatric delulu leader Schumer, and their followers yell at everyone who criticizes them—pro-Palestine protestors; Newsom critics; those calling for resistance—It’s agonizing.