Trump has already disclosed 'harrowing' blueprint for seizing election control: watchdog

A democracy advocate is growing increasingly concerned about President Donald Trump's willingness to violate the Constitution to rig elections.

Writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday, Nick Penniman, who helped found Issue One, a nonprofit group that aims to strengthen American democracy, recalled that the state Election Board is meeting on April 15. The board has an opportunity to step in amid the ongoing battle between Fulton County and the FBI, which took all of the 2020 election ballots and servers in an effort to prove that Trump actually won the election.

"To make matters worse, newly released documents show that the judge who approved the warrant identified flaws in the FBI’s affidavit and, instead of rejecting it, suggested revisions before signing it," wrote Penniman about U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas, citing a report from the Marc Elias law firm Democracy Docket.

The raid and seizure of ballots will make it impossible to prove anything, as there's nothing to compare the ballots to. No copies of the ballots were made before the FBI seized them. So, Trump's team could alter them or even throw out all of the Harris ballots and claim "victory." Until the FBI seized the ballots, both Georgia and local governments had ensured that elections were secure, and the ballots' "chain of custody" had been verified.

Penniman called it an "egregious escalation in the Trump administration’s continued attempts" to make Americans believe that their elections are not only flawed, but also outright corrupt.

The fight against Fulton County isn't new, but what is new is that a judge was willing to take debunked conspiracy theories and turn them into a federal power grab over local and state governments.

At the same time, a "recently-reported public statements from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Harmeet Dhillon indicate that the DOJ used a criminal search warrant to obtain Fulton County ballots while civil litigation was still underway," said Penniman, noting that it might qualify as a misuse of federal authority.

Trump's recent efforts to seize ballots may have been under the guise of protecting elections, "but that is simply not true," said the column. The president's comments make it clear he's fine violating the Constitution if it means he can get what he wants, said Penniman.

"Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution is clear: the states have the right and responsibility to administer elections with limited oversight from Congress," said Penniman. "There is no role for the executive branch. But only weeks after the raid, President Trump called on Republicans to 'nationalize' elections — a patently unconstitutional move that would see the federal government attempting to infringe on states’ rights, giving an unprecedented and dangerous amount of power to the executive branch."

President Trump has fixated on Georgia as a voter fraud “hotbed.” By interfering in the election processes in Georgia and, recently, Arizona, the president is not trying to make America’s elections more secure — he’s trying to insert the executive branch into the process, say critics.

Penniman's concern is that the Republican-controlled State Election Board is willing to cave into Trump's demands and put the board's own hand-picked person to oversee the 2026 vote in Fulton County. That process could begin on April 15 by demanding that there be a "temporary superintendent" who would oversee the election, instead of the county board.

"A GOP-fueled takeover of the Fulton County elections board would be an unprecedented attack on Georgia’s state rights — and a harrowing sign of things to come. It must be resisted," closed Penniman. He urged every state to stand up against the federal government's power grab.