Trump-linked lawyers push fake “national emergency” plot to hand Trump control of elections nationally

Trump has said Republicans need to seize control of elections nationally. We need to take this statement very seriously.

The Washington Post and other major news outlets are reporting that a group of pro-Trump attorneys are circulating a 17-page draft presidential executive order (pdf) that would give convicted felon/sexual abuser/President Donald Trump a path to seize unprecedented control over elections nationally by claiming falsely that China interfered in the 2020 elections. Based on this unsupported, conspiracy-based claim, Trump would then declare yet another fake national emergency that would allow him to put in place a long list of rash steps in order to “mitigate” the threat to elections.

One of the attorneys spearheading the effort t convince Trump the implement the plan is former Trump military boarding school roommate and Tina Peters’ current attorney Peter Ticktin. The group says they are pitching the idea to Trump and are coordinating with the White House to implement it.

The draft executive order is an updated version of one that emerged last April. (pdf)

Such an executive order would be flagrantly unconstitutional.

Some of the provisions in the draft executive order dated April 12, 2025, include:

–All voters would have to re-register in person “at a county satellite office” for the 2026 U.S. election and voters would have to re-verify their registration prior to all future U.S. elections;

— States would only be permitted to use paper ballots marked by hand with a writing instrument (no voting machines);

— Ballots would be required to be printed on “security grade paper” and use “micro-printing, watermarks, holograms and other security features” that would increase the cost, labor and amount of time involved in creating ballots;

— Ballots could only be printed in English, reducing the number of people able to cast ballots;

— Once cast, no curing processes would be permitted for ballots;

— Difficult-to-comply-with voter ID requirements would be mandated in order to vote. For example, voters would have to present “a color photo containing the uncovered face and head of the individual and full legal name for the voter, a full address, a full date of birth, and proof of U.S. citizenship that exactly match the information on the county’s voter registration”;

–Uniformed members of the military stationed overseas would be required to provide updated confirmation of U.S. citizenship AND state eligibility to request an absentee ballot;

At a Gateway Pundit conference in August, 2025, Ticktin said he, “wouldn’t be very surprised if there’s an emergency called” before the next election because such a step would “be necessary.”

Brendan Fischer, a director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization, said

“[T]he same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election have only grown better organized and are now embedded in the machinery of government. This creates substantial risk that the administration is laying the groundwork to improperly reshape elections ahead of the midterms or even go against the will of the voters.”