A draft emergency executive order to declare a national emergency to allow President Donald Trump to take unprecedented control over voting is being circulated by anti-voting activists who said they are in coordination with the White House.

Voting rights experts, democracy advocates, and at least one state election chief said Trump doesn’t have the authority to claim such powers — and any attempt would be blatantly unconstitutional.

The draft order — which is said to be based on a conspiracy theory that China interfered with the 2020 election — would allow Trump to unilaterally ban mail-in ballots and voting machines on the basis that they are susceptible to foreign interference.

The order comes from MAGA activists who have been coordinating with the White House. One of the advocates for the order is Peter Ticktin, the attorney for Tina Peters, the former GOP Colorado county clerk who is currently serving a nine-year state prison sentence for her role in a 2021 voting system breach, in an attempt to find voter fraud based on election conspiracies.

The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution explicitly gives states — not the president — sole authority over elections.

  • Jollyllama@lemmy.world
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    Keep an eye out. My prediction is a terrorist attack around election time pinned on Iran, Trump declares a state of emergency and tries to take control of the election.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      as long as there are no checks and balances, as long as no one exists with the will and sense of duty to do their job, there is no distinction between legal and illegal.

    • beejboytyson@lemmy.world
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      You mean the same system that protects us from the corpotocracy that rape and eats out babies? I’m sure they’ll get it eight this time…

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    Makes one wonder how many more people will die before these psychopaths are finally stopped. Again.

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    And who the fuck is going to stop him? He’s been doing shit that’s unconstitutional this whole time. He’s going to rig the election and have a third term, and all our politicians will do is write strongly worded letters.

    • aquovie@lemmy.cafe
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      If it makes you feel any better, an EO like that needs people on the ground to enforce it. Even his thug army, ICE, doesn’t have the man power to control every polling station.

      What will happen is that duly elected representatives and senators will show up and they’ll refuse to seat them. At that point, there’s nothing left of a real government and shit will really pop off.

      • Venia Silente@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        He doesn’t need to control every polling station. He doesn’t even need to control half. He only needs to control enough blues to as to make a point.

        And what will happen next is that either someone in the USA Luigis him, or he will Luigi the USA.

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        Nothing popped off for the time they didn’t swear in Adelita Grijalva. What makes you think it will if that happens for someone else?

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          Because it’s going to be far more than one person. And, if the universe obliges, Dems will be voted to control the Senate.

          Attempting to subvert that will remove any restraint because there’s nothing left that can stop this. Except a military coup, I guess, but that’s a different kind of emergency.

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            Because it’s going to it might be far more than one person.

            Fixed that for you.

            How many? 2? 5? Will that number be over the line in the sand for enough Americans to Do Something™?

            Obviously we’ll probably see shortly, but my suspicion is we’ll mostly hold up some signs in the street or in Congress, complain on social media that nobody is doing anything, and move on with our paycheck-to-paycheck existence.

            We are an inherently selfish people; few of us will risk our necks for others.

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      Until people like you are thinking “It’s gonna have to be me” then the situation will not likely improve.

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        That wasnt very specific. :(

        Do you mean “it’s gonna have to be me” like that guy who tried to sneak into Mara a Lago and was shot by the secret service? Or maybe that guy who missed his shot?

        Or do you mean that me specifically is going to have to rally people in my neighborhood, then my city, my state, and then most of the country to physically resist and arrest our leaders and have them stand trial for their crimes while having the bravery to leave your wife and kids behind to potentially die trying seems a little beyond my scope to be honest.

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          Well, I think you’re saying those are things that you can’t do. And thats fine, but a lot if poeple need to take ownership of what they can do and figure out how to cooperate appropriately to get some things done.

          New leaders need to emerge thats true, but they will need support as well in various ways.

          But all those people will all have to take ownership for making this stop and figure out how to fight back.

          I get safety/security is a concern, but things are in a circumstance now where you will probably get fucked either way.

          As long as everyone keeps waiting for someone else to do something real, youre all screwed.

        • orioler25@lemmy.world
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          Adolf Schmitler doesn’t have the stomach for bold collective action, who would’a guessed.

            • orioler25@lemmy.world
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              1. My joke was directed at this account’s name, as it references Adolf Hitler, who was a fascist you see.

              2. Anyone who can read for chuds can see that you purposely constructed action in a discouraging way by positioning only inaction or dependency on the state and complete sacrifice of life and family as the only options.

              Go look up what people who have fought the United States for centuries have done Community action through mutual aid, protest, legal contest, property destruction, and violence have all been applied at different times in different ways to different severities and successes. Stfu about having to get up off your ass and risk anything.

  • skullve@thelemmy.club
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    Yesterday I saw a Hitler/Mussolini Documentary. It’s crazy how much similarity between this administration and the fascist ideas.

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    Americans will have to tear it all down. CNN, SCROTUS, all institutions where he’s installed syncophants-everything he has touched. Anything less will be enabling fascism.

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    This would be the end of a free USA. Real authoritarianism. The end. Fake elections from here on, just like Russia, Venezuela, etc. We are screwed if this happens. The fascists are winning.

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      Is this meant to be in character, or did you seriously only realize the USA was authoritarian when it started being mean to white people?

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        Authoritarianism is a spectrum. We are more authoritarian than ever.

        That doesn’t mean we weren’t authoritarian before.

        I have a feeling you knew all that and just wanted to fight CptOblivius, though.

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          “More authoritarian than ever.” Please, tell me how you argue for a measurable difference in the severity of authoritarianism between current day and early- to mid-nineteenth century US slave states. Is there, perhaps, a particular group effected that makes this more severe? Is it worse because white citizens are victimised now? Wasn’t authoritarian when they used Zyklon B as part of southern-border security in the twentieth century? Is it the technological difference? Do you even know how surveillant the US has been in the past?

          So fucking obnoxious and sneering to suggest you know more about something without clearly ever fucking learning about it. Go on though, explain how the slave-state wasn’t as bad.

          • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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            So you’ve confirmed your goal here is to get into a nasty fight with your (alleged) allies.

            I’ll pass on the offer, but enjoy your day.

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                Me.

                Presumably you’re doing all this shit-stirring because you think the US is on the wrong path (i.e. oppressing people), so people who want to stop the oppression it’s doing are on your side. Even if you only care about certain people it’s oppressing, and they only care about certain people it’s oppressing, you both want to stop the oppression, yes?

                Otherwise I guess you’re just an agitator with no real goal, which would be kinda funny if you’re just openly admitting to out of the blue.

                • orioler25@lemmy.world
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                  jfc, you seriously have not talked to a single activist who isn’t white eh. No, privileged people who think the state is bad now because it effects them are not allies anymore than an incompetent individual in that state is an ally. There are countless examples of privileged people abandoning causes once they get theirs. You’re not an “ally” and your refusal to learn better is the antagonism, not correctly criticizing you for doing so.

                  What an immature and ignorant conception of “allyship.” “Hey pal, I just showed up to the effort and if you say I have any learning to do, you’re a piece of shit and actually detrimental to the work I just learned about.”

                  I won’t be reading any response you send.

      • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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        It wasn’t necessary athoritarian previously. It was really following the will of the people of the time. Essentially white dudes voting in white dudes to protect their shitty interests. That is not where the majority of the population is now. Society has shifted beyond where the government is, that is why they are trying to control the voting process.

        • orioler25@lemmy.world
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          What about that time it used genocide against dozens of indigenous nations to expand, or became a police-slave-state that codified naturalized racism, or restricted voting access along race and gender until forced otherwise, or adopted an organised military to suppress unions, or spent decades intervening and invading countries that elected governments who said mean things about the US, or when it suppressed climate change knowledge for decades, or when it constructed a mass - surveillance apparatus over a century, or when it imprisoned the largest number of people anyone has on the planet to perpetuate forced labour based on that one time it was a police-slave-state? I didn’t even mention the Patriot Act or how they use nukes.

          Again, are you meant to be the actual Cpt. Oblivious, or is it meant to be a dig on me like the joke is unclear. Above is more for the benefit of any chuds who may feel validated by your previous comment.

          • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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            It wasn’t a dig. All those things you mentioned were not straight up authoritarianism, they were in part by the largest group voting group getting their way. That’s what the voters want. It was extremely shitty stuff and I never said it wasn’t. Just because these happened doesn’t mean it was because of authoritarianism. We slowly evolved getting better over time, but now we are regressing. And it will be extremely difficult to vote our way out of it, even when the majority of eligible voters want to. In no time in our Constitutional history has so much power been under one man.

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              Gee, I wonder if there’s a reason you were taught a construction of authoritarianism that applied to enemies of the US but not the brutal violence and control in the US itself. Andrew Jackson ignored the constitution and courts more than once, go find out why.

              You Muppet.

              • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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                Andrew Jackson did not have close to the backing from the supreme Court Trump has. They basically said if the president does it, it can not be wrong. Jackson ignored rulings, Trump doesn’t even have to do that. Trump controls the courts. We progressed to a degree even worse than Jackson.

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                  You clearly haven’t read the thread. Explain how you – clearly not a victim of US genocide up to this point because you wouldn’t be so pompous if you were – would start to measure the “worseness” of genocide at one point or the other. Why was 4 million enslaved people better, why was genocide against dozens of indigenous nations better. Maybe they didn’t target the right people to bad enough? Andrew Jackson did it to allow settlers to murder and disposses The Seminole Nation.

                  You fucking Muppet.

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    The draft order […] would allow Trump to unilaterally ban mail-in ballots and voting machines

    The fucking headline even said it was illegal. It wouldn’t “allow” him to do shit.

    It would be him CLAIMING he has some power that he doesn’t have. And EACH AND EVERY STATE needs to just fucking ignore it, run their elections as they are the sole arbitrators of elections according the the constitution.

    It’s not even a fucking presidential election. IT DOESNT TOUCH THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH, and therefore EXECUTIVE orders are even more absurd.

    • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works
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      You say this like the 100 prior absurd things that have happened shouldn’t have occurred because we have a stable, sane system with checks and balances; but we don’t. So people that are complicit, or scared, or both are complying with demands that are not technically enforceable. I could see this as one of those orders that red states would gladly comply with.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    If Trump successfully fixes this election…

    A lot of Americans wouldn’t only tolerate Trump fixing the election, they’d support it. Celebrate it, even.

    Much of the rest of America doesn’t fully appreciate the threat. Many are just oblivious, but others are complacently holding on to their faith in our legal and political institutions. They believe in our system, and they believe it will ultimately hold up against the threat of a fascist takeover. I hope they’re right, but I don’t share their conviction. I think our institutions are far more vulnerable than many of them realize. Frankly, I think they’re unwavering devotion borders on hubris.

    And my concerns about the integrity of our system are not baseless. I have seen our systems tested multiple times over the past few decades, essentially my entire adult life, and I would say the resiliency of our system has been… mixed, at best.

    • partofthevoice@lemmy.zip
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      What do you mean? We have infinite money, don’t you remember that glitch? 1970s crisis, we just printed our way out. 2000 dot-com bubble, printed our way out. 2008 housing crisis, then COVID, … guess what we did both times. We just print our way out of our problems; problem solved.

      If Trump destroys us, we’ll just print little Trump Cash cards on the back of freshly synthesized plastic cutouts made from the byproduct of his glorified coal companies running on the blood, sweat, and tears of our children.

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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        We just print our way out of our problems; problem solved.

        Emission of currency is a valid tool against crises. The institution that can do it possesses power that needs to be controlled, yes.

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    As a Constitution Loving QAnon believer who HATES Pedophiles AND Corruption I APPLAUD the President, who Raped Children with Jeffrey Epstein, taking UNCONSTITUTIONAL Control of Elections!

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      It really is anticlimactic.

      We get an honest to god pedo cabal, and a federal powergrab, and the response from factions who dedicated entire lives to warning, as loud as they can shout, about these two exact things is…

      “Meh?”

      Meanwhile, it seems the world is chanting for the Clintons to burn at the stake; the opposite of what they expected?


      I would be so confused if I was QAnon.

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        the world

        I know it may feel that way, but I assure you, the rest of the world is watching the US right now like this:

        wtf.gif

        • Joeffect@lemmy.world
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          This is one of those times I would support another country kidnapping a president just like our government has done…

          Freedom of speech is basically not even a thing any more, the chance that someone shows up to my door for saying this is not 0 like it should be.

          Its crazy, what these people are allowed to get away with and the fact that the democrats are not saying so every day as loud as they can just like these fools have done constantly in the past… says a lot about the whole situation.

          Its frustrating beyond belief and it always seems to be getting worse.

        • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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          Your country probably has almost or exactly as many deranged morons as we do here with MAGA, per capita. The difference is we’ve weaponized voter disenfranchisement and bipartisan hackery (crucially including gerrymandering), largely abandoned ethical journalism standards, and never really properly dealt with the aftermath of our civil war, what with shaming our traitors and educating and rebuilding the nation. We were able to get away with all of that because we toot our own horn so hard for so long about being the bastion of democracy, and the world largely agreed with us.

          So we still have backwoods y’allQaeda training grounds who vote Trump because anyone with a (D) is the (D)evil, and their vote counts more than someone in an educated area due to the electoral college system.

          TL;DR: MAGA isn’t special - other countries have AfD, FdI, etc., which are all rising in popularity despite you turning your nose up at us for us being uniquely ridiculous.

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        Why? If Q was Epstein or Maxwell or Bannon this is about what they were going for. Make a ridiculous conspiracy similar to the real one, if anyone looks into it it’s all dead ends and if anything from the real conspiracy leaks it will sound like the crazy bullshit you made up. Lump it all in with flat earth and lizard people. People will be very hesitant to be fooled again and they can call it all a hoax on the news.

        It’s the UFO playbook.

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
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      Good point. Issue isn’t with him taking over blue states. It’ll be with him doing this in red states preventing representation of for blue districts. We’ll see Atlanta with 0 democrats elected.

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    Certainly THIS illegal act will be the one that makes the justice wake up, and not just another one swept under the rug because “akshually, the president cannot do crime” - as per SCOTUS

    • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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      Certainly THIS illegal act will be the one that makes the justice wake up

      Or the American people.

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        This is my hard limit of taking up arms. IDK about you guys but I think bypassing an election to steal a third or more terms is blatant tyranny and should kick off a revolution.

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          Seriously though, if this doesn’t get a lot of people up in arms, nothing will improve for generations. If people accept tyranny, they will continue to get tyranny. Simple as.

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              Do it up Minnesota style. These organizations don’t come from nowhere. Talk to your neighbors. Express these concerns to them. If they share your concerns, connect them with one another. It doesn’t have to be “organize a paramilitary force” but it does have to start with knowing who is with you in your community

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          Okay, so they have at least 9 more months of free reign and they’re already disappearing citizens to concentration camps. Or considering you’re talking about a third term, maybe 21 months?

          Don’t get me wrong, good that you have some standards, but maybe you want to win? Just a thought.

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              The revolution will not be televised. Sharing identifiable information about insurrectionary activity, especially your own, is dangerous and stupid. If all that is holding you back is that you’re not seeing stuff happening online, please, for all that is holy, physically travel to an anarchist or other activist community near you. See what is happening in places where recording devices are banned.

              Also, I’m not USAmerican.

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          Pedophiles rampant in government, the neo-sturmabteilung roaming the streets, but capturing the election will rouse the masses? Label me skeptical.