President Donald Trump, who has insisted on federalizing voting and who issued an executive order last March to pressure states to require proof of citizenship to register voters, is reportedly now being urged to declare an emergency over voting.
“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,” The Washington Post reported in an exclusive.
“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.”
According to Florida lawyer Peter Ticktin, who is advocating for a presidential order on voting, “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes.”
“That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it,” Ticktin told the Post.
Claiming there is an emergency would allow the president to ban voting by mail and voting machines “as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.”
Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, which critics say could disenfranchise millions of American citizens who do not currently have a passport or access to their birth certificates. It could also disenfranchise people who have married and changed their names but did not do so on all their legal documents.
“Trump has said that if the bill fails, he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms,” the Post reported.