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.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

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

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      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.

  • CircaV@lemmy.ca
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    8 hours ago

    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.

  • skullve@thelemmy.club
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    10 hours ago

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

  • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    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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      12 hours ago

      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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        8 hours ago

        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.

      • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        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?

        • aquovie@lemmy.cafe
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          10 hours ago

          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.

    • TerdFerguson@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

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

      • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        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.

        • TerdFerguson@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          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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          13 hours ago

          Adolf Schmitler doesn’t have the stomach for bold collective action, who would’a guessed.

            • orioler25@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago
              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.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Every election, it’s the year of “stolen elections” in the upcoming election, even as they argue about the “stolen election” the last election.

    Why do the corporate-owned networks allow such a news story on such a steady basis? Is the election almost stolen every couple years? Is the election never stolen? Do they steal the elections sometimes but at other times have fair elections?

    I don’t think there’s ever any stealing, I think it’s purchased, every time. And THAT is why stolen elections are a constant news story.

  • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    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.

    • orioler25@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      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?

      • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        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.

        • orioler25@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          “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.

      • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        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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          12 hours ago

          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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            12 hours ago

            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.

            • orioler25@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              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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                7 hours ago

                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.

                • orioler25@lemmy.world
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                  6 hours ago

                  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.

    • NewSocialWhoDis@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      Yea, I feel like this has some civil war outcomes possible.

      I don’t know if blue states have steeled themselves enough for it yet, but I don’t think they will take this lying down.

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    22 hours ago

    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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      17 hours ago

      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.