Voting rights experts and at least one state election chief said Trump doesn’t have the authority to claim such powers — and any attempt would be blatantly illegal.

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.

  • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
    2·
    9 hours ago

    Your country probably has almost or exactly as many deranged morons as we do here with MAGA, per capita. The difference is we’ve weaponized voter disenfranchisement and bipartisan hackery (crucially including gerrymandering), largely abandoned ethical journalism standards, and never really properly dealt with the aftermath of our civil war, what with shaming our traitors and educating and rebuilding the nation. We were able to get away with all of that because we toot our own horn so hard for so long about being the bastion of democracy, and the world largely agreed with us.

    So we still have backwoods y’allQaeda training grounds who vote Trump because anyone with a (D) is the (D)evil, and their vote counts more than someone in an educated area due to the electoral college system.

    TL;DR: MAGA isn’t special - other countries have AfD, FdI, etc., which are all rising in popularity despite you turning your nose up at us for us being uniquely ridiculous.