Trump has a plan to steal the midterms — even if the courts try to stop him

President Donald Trump is struggling to keep Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections — and, for that reason, reports indicate he has plans to steal them even if the courts find Democrats prevailed.

"Since Trump returned to office last year, his backers — including Bannon and a lawyer close to Trump — have pressed the president to declare a national emergency that they say would unlock powers for him to rewrite election rules," The Washington Post's Patrick Marley and Laura Meckler reported on Sunday. "The idea resurfaced last month, when Trump appeared on a Real America’s Voice program hosted by Wayne Allyn Root. With election legislation stalled in the Senate, Root pressed Trump to declare an emergency that he said would allow him to limit mail ballots and require people to prove their citizenship to register to vote."

Trump replied to Root, “Let me just say that stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that.”

Even though it is likely courts would not uphold Trump abusing his emergency authority, the concern among legal authorities is that he could act in ways that impair the elections' integrity before the courts have a chance to stop him.

"On legal grounds, the theory that the president can claim power over elections by declaring an emergency is laughable, said Hofstra University law professor James Sample," the Post reported. "But Sample is treating it as deadly serious."

He added, "In the weeks after Trump lost the 2020 election, lawyers backing him came up with another theory Sample viewed as preposterous: that Vice President Mike Pence could reject some states’ electoral votes and let Trump claim victory. Pence refused, but the theory set the stage for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Constitution gives states and Congress authority over elections, not the president. A national emergency declaration triggers greater powers under federal law, Sample said, but none of them affect elections."

The journalists concluded, "The risk, he said, isn’t whether the notion would survive in court. It’s that Trump could use it to take sweeping actions while voting is ongoing and before courts can respond."

As Sample told them, “The idea is simply to do first and say, ‘So what?’ So much of Trump 2.0 is to outrun and outpace the courts.”

Indeed, the Post found that pro-Trump local politicians often make comments that suggest, through their words and actions, that they will toe the president's line on refusing to acknowledge elections unless their side wins.

"In 2022, commissioners in New Mexico’s Otero County listened as an attorney insisted they were obligated to certify that year’s midterm results," the Post reported. "This kind of motion was normally a drama-free event. But the three commissioners didn’t see it that way, and they delivered their votes in rapid succession: 'Nay,' 'Nay,' 'Nay.'"

The Post added, "Among other issues, they cited debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines that had circulated in MAGA circles since Trump refused to accept his 2020 defeat."

When an attorney said they were legally required to certify the results, Commissioner Vickie Marquardt laughed and said, "So then what? They’re going to send us to the pokey?”

Speaking to AlterNet in June, Pooja Chaudhuri, Senior Counsel/Deputy Legal Director at Democracy Defenders Fund who specializes in voting rights, expressed alarm at the possibility of Trump stealing the election through a variety of tactics.

“I think there are two things to consider," Chaudhuri told AlterNet. "One is that the election is made up of voters, and so the outcome depends on people turning out to the polls and voting. The problem is ... the chilling effect on voters.”

Chaudhuri continued, “When voters hear that ICE may be deployed to the polls, that mail-in voting rules are changing close to the election, a lot of voters might say, ‘I'm just not going to go out and vote.’ That could happen in many different ways. There are vulnerable communities — people may come from mixed-status families — they're US citizens, but they might decide, "I'm not going to vote." So one aspect is the chilling effect on voters that all of these actions would have.” In addition to that factor, Chaudhuri worried that both gerrymandering and the FBI's recent seizure of Fulton County, GA, could also keep voters away from the polls.

“We're going to see consequences in terms of voters saying, ‘I don't want the FBI to get my personal ballot in the future,’” Chaudhuri concluded. “So, to sum up, I do agree that putting it all together, it does paint an ominous picture.”