Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency
Source: WaPo
Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.
“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-executive-order-activists/
“.. a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.â€
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T17:18:09.496Z
@washingtonpost.com
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
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dweller
(28,105 posts)Is a hoax , tho …
wadda crock
✌🏻
slightlv
(7,665 posts)and "boxed in"... I suggest we start with HIM and his 2016 run! We ALL know Russia interfered with that election by giving him and his buddies billions in dollars, mobs of bots, and world propaganda.
Furthemore, add in this last major election. Musk may SAY he's an American... but he should be deported as a treasonous South African immigrant for all the digital/technical election engineering he did to make trump the winner.
They just will NOT be happy until they take away women's right to vote. I realize we're not the only ones who'll come up short... any elderly citizen will have the same and different issues as women, as well as legal immigrants. It will come to the point where they actually proclaim what the originalists wanted... only white men who owned property can vote.
I know most of us are law-abiding, peaceful people. But some days, it's so hard not to lost myself in a fantasy of violence against him... by anyone... but especially by his "own" people who "finally" see the light that he's dissed and used them from the very beginning. When MAGAs get mad, they truly get violent.
Frasier Balzov
(4,985 posts)SCOTUS had better be ready to act quickly if he tries this at the last minute.
TheRickles
(3,287 posts)
poli-junkie
(1,545 posts)
twodogsbarking
(18,259 posts)
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)
Wuddles440
(2,054 posts)They (MAGATs) actually ultimately succeeded in their original objective by eventually taking control of the federal government, dismantling agencies, and eliminating any independent oversight. January 6, 2021 proved that actual violence by their fanatical supporters, or even the future prospect of such, is an effective means to instill fear in the opposition and intimidate those contemplating any accountability for criminal behavior. With the Project 2025 blueprint, they had four years to refine and develop the necessary infrastructure to aggressively implement the destruction of our democratic republic once Drumpf resumed power. The moral, ethical, cultural, societal, and institutional damage that has already occurred is generational and will take a herculean effort to restore this nation.
angrychair
(12,052 posts)From no more elections.
Don't worry, I'm sure someone will send a sternly worded letter and all will be better.
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)Just like all his other election related EO’s have been ignored.
angrychair
(12,052 posts)Is he can declare an emergency and federalize the national guard or use his Gestapo ice agents or just deploy the military and station them outside every polling station to "check" IDs before they are allowed to vote.
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)Even if he withdrew every service member from overseas, reassigned every fighter jet pilot, and emptied the entire US fleet, there would not be enough troops to control every polling place in the nation.
And that presumes there would be no resistance from the states, the courts, congress or the people.
dpibel
(3,847 posts)As of 2022, there were around 89,000 polling places in the U.S.
As of March 2025, there were 1.32 million active duty members of the US miltary.
To "control every polling place in the nation" would not, by any stretch of the imagination, require the drastic measures you claim.
I'm not saying it's likely to happen.
But If you want to convince those you characterize as doomers that their concern is silly, best do it with real arguments.
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)it gets so tiring listening to you post nothing but negative comments, respectfully, try posting positive comments for those of us actually trying to make a difference, we can, and will, defeat this Nazi regime through people power.
angrychair
(12,052 posts)A significant portion of the people on websites like this know at least some of what is happening.
The point is about awareness. It's hard to have conversations about stuff like this if no one talks about it.
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)people power, which, at this time and place, seems to be working.
Just a friendly piece of advice my friend.
ColoringFool
(529 posts)MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)Have a great weekend.
Jack Valentino
(4,786 posts)Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)States have, and will continue to control their elections, just as they did following 9/11, and during every war, including the Civil War.
angrychair
(12,052 posts)He just needs the justification to put armed troops outside every polling station. He just has to do it in such a way that by the time any court gets around to making a decision that the midterm elections will already be over.
To be frank, he doesn't even have to listen to the courts. The DOJ is overtly ignoring 70+ court orders and absolutely nothing has happened.
If the court orders them to stop who, specifically, is going to enforce those orders? The DOJ? 😂
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)Despite acting with lawless impunity on a daily basis, This administration has been stalled, stymied or restrained numerous times over the past year.
No troops were deployed in Chicago or Portland
Kilmer Garcia is free on US soil
Little Liam and his father are free and back in Minnesota.
And those are just the headline grabbers.
You don’t seem to understand the physical logistics of “putting armed troops outside every polling station”. The troops have to be transported, housed, fed etc. It’s not something that can be done quickly and quietly, in secret overnight.
It’s also a physical impossibility to do it outside every polling place, and a strategic impossibility to accurately choose which places would be the most important to disrupt, given that 2024 red Trump districts have been swinging 15-30 points towards the Dems in elections over the past year.
Trump may attempt to defy the laws of the land, but nobody can defy the laws of physics.
To the rest of the folks still in the reality-based community, never forget this one absolute truth:
Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)I agree with some of the posts, but the negativity is becoming tiresome.
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)Jack Valentino
(4,786 posts)even if he wanted to.... it would be demographically IMPOSSIBLE!
angrychair
(12,052 posts)He could federalize each state's NG and use them. He could just threaten them with a GCM if they don't comply to his orders.
Of course states could fight it but by the time the case is heard in court the election is already long over.
dpibel
(3,847 posts)And explain to me the impossibility.
330 million people has nothing to do with it.
The issue is 89,000 polling places vs. more than a million active duty military, 86% of whom are stationed in the U.S. Not to mention reserves and National Guard.
The idea, after all, would not be to shut down polling stations. It would be to decrease the likelihood that black and brown people would show up to vote.
quaint
(4,898 posts)Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)1. Constitution say states run elections, period
2. A “national emergency” around foreign interference wouldn’t just apply to federal elections- the Chinese might care about who wins the race for dog catcher in Perryton TX.
He will fail.
quaint
(4,898 posts)
samsingh
(18,385 posts)tonekat
(2,501 posts)...smells like right wing owned businesses being flambeed.
Qutzupalotl
(15,769 posts)Or maybe we're all paying for Trump's insecurity and inability to accept a loss.
AZ8theist
(7,217 posts)
Bayard
(29,213 posts)Where did that come from?
Of course, if I haven't heard of something, it doesn't exist!
muriel_volestrangler
(105,963 posts)Arizona Republicans are examining whether there is bamboo fiber in ballots that were used in the 2020 election, an activist assisting with the ongoing audit of the ballots told reporters this week. The latest claim underscores how rightwing conspiracy theories continue to fuel doubt about the results of the results.
“There’s accusation that 40,000 ballots were flown in to Arizona and it was stuffed into the box and it came from the south-east part of the world, Asia, and what they’re doing is to find out whether there’s bamboo in the paper,” John Brakey, a longtime election audit advocate, told reporters.
...
The search for bamboo fibers illustrates how the latest GOP audit of all 2.1m ballots cast in Maricopa county, home to a majority of Arizona voters, is elevating absurd claims about the 2020 election. After election day, rightwing activists falsely claimed that China had imported ballots to tip the election for Biden and that those ballots could be identified because there was bamboo in the paper. Earlier, workers were using UV lights to examine ballots; while the purpose of doing so was never clear, there was a conspiracy theory after the election that Trump had watermarked ballots (the UV examinations have stopped).
...
One of the people who spread the lie about China dumping ballots, according to Slate, was Javon Pulitzer, a treasure hunter and inventor, who is reportedly assisting with the Maricopa county audit. Though it’s not clear in what capacity Pulitzer is assisting, Brakey told reporters on Tuesday that the machines capturing the microscopic images of the ballots were linked to Pulitzer. “This guy is nuts,” he said. “He’s a fraudster … It’s ridiculous that we’re doing some of this.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/arizona-republicans-bamboo-ballots-audit-2020
Yes, it had the same credibility as the Italian Satellite Election Theft, but that hasn't stopped them before, so it won't now. They need to be locked up to deter them.
Bayard
(29,213 posts)
orangecrush
(29,690 posts)samsingh
(18,385 posts)he may wish he did, but he does not. The States run elections.
BComplex
(9,836 posts)messed with the 2024 election?
Huh?
2naSalit
(101,670 posts)Wags that dog any harder shit will start flying out of his diaper in public.
SSJVegeta
(2,642 posts)...under emergency powers?
muriel_volestrangler
(105,963 posts)Is this really "news"? The named activists are Jerome Corsi, a by-word for election bullshit, and Peter Ticktin, Tina Peters' lawyer - ie another known election bullshit artist. What they are suggesting is not "news". And before you think "but this is in the Washington Post", remember that Jeff Bezos has converted that to a propaganda rag, so that he can get government contracts. This article is a devious attempt to make a claim that Trump can take over elections look viable.
NameAlreadyTaken
(2,283 posts)KPN
(17,287 posts)Orrex
(66,908 posts)Baitball Blogger
(52,021 posts)
PATRICK
(12,356 posts)but messing with and prohibiting use of the mail for elections puts all his appointed people in administration on the spot, especially if he wants them to cover themselves with crime or allow seizures or prohibition of state ballots. Maybe it's just our USPS Chinese agents? Remember a lot of the GOP like to use mail-ins, including GOP candidates. Any resistance will only sow some chaos, which is the one advantage that Orange Nero might get. Then it's the last ditch discrediting and withholding of results, not seating the elected and generally finally freezing the government into real paralysis- or more real than it is already?
Not that he will have a moment of sanity or true patriotism any time this side of Hell, but it his failures and incompetence and shredding of his own federal agencies work very hard against the idea that anything will succeed in the worst way. Just the usual crap from the positively absolutely crappiest government America has ever had.
Those supportive goons making an obvious false and utterly hypocritical(mad)justufucation to overthrow elections are committing high bar treason. High bar going for the world record.
Jack Valentino
(4,786 posts)anybody who could shut his fucking mouth would be a 'national hero',
and I would market their face upon t-shirts and posters!
travelingthrulife
(5,010 posts)MarineCombatEngineer
(17,943 posts)and who threatened CO. State officials unless Peters was released and who now claims that Trumpedos's pardon of Peters should be upheld and she should be released, even though it's not a lawful pardon.
orangecrush
(29,690 posts)Another insurrectionist en route to a prison cell himself.
no_hypocrisy
(54,690 posts)made sure that Trump "won" in 2024.
What changed?
Fiendish Thingy
(22,694 posts)If Musk was so powerful, how come his candidate lost the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race that he invested so much time, money and ego into?
If he couldn’t flip one race in WI, how did he manage to flip multiple states in 2024 undetected?
(Please don’t answer that - I’ve already heard the “forensic statistical analysis” theories)
We must stay firmly rooted in fact based reality in order to fight this regime.
2024 election denialism is as toxic as 2020 election denialism.
bucolic_frolic
(54,784 posts)How is it an emergency if you saw it coming 8 months out?
The "emergency" is he might lose the election, make no mistake.
AKwannabe
(6,889 posts)Is how we got here…
angryxyouth
(333 posts)Because he did it himself, which is how he became president the second time. One of the main topics of his state of the union speech was getting rid of mail in ballots, this was also Putin’s concern when they met in Alaska. The reason for this is because mailing ballots are much harder to manipulate. Work done by nonprofits to audit voter data in swing states shows that there were less malicious anomalies in the mail in ballots then in the electronic voting machine and tabulators. In the electronic voting machines statewide anomalies were founded that were malicious and did not reflect human voting patterns. If you would like to see the charts of graphs of the election data of the state and miscellaneous counties that did audit, go to the YouTube page of the election through alliance or their.org website or their Substack. There’s also some very interesting reading at cheap one on Substack.