A group of pro-Trump activists has circulated a 17-page draft executive order requesting President Donald Trump to declare a national emergency on the grounds that China interfered in the 2020 elections.
The stakes: unlocking extraordinary presidential powers over election organization, including banning mail-in voting and voting machines.
According to an analysis published by The Washington Post, the document is circulating in circles close to the administration and could form the basis of an executive order that Trump has promised to issue before the November parliamentary elections.
"The President must intervene"
Attorney Peter Ticktin, a close associate of Trump and supporter of the project, acknowledges that normally the president does not have authority over election organization.
"According to the Constitution, legislatures and states are the ones that control how a state conducts its elections, and the president has no power in this regard," Ticktin said.
However, he argues that the alleged foreign interference creates an exceptional situation. "But here we have a situation where the president is aware that foreign interests are interfering in our electoral processes. This generates a national emergency in which the president must be able to intervene," Ticktin added.
In his view, declaring an emergency would allow for the banning of mail-in voting and voting machines, considered "vectors of foreign interference."
- Trump Opens Battle for Congress. How He Turned the State of the Union Address into an Electoral Test
Reinvestigating the 2020 elections
The initiative comes amid renewed efforts by the Trump administration to reexamine the 2020 election, which the president has never acknowledged as lost, although no widespread evidence of fraud has been found.
The head of the National Intelligence Services, Tulsi Gabbard, is coordinating an analysis of election security, which - according to officials - targets possible external influences.
A 2021 intelligence report concluded that China considered the possibility of influencing the elections but did not implement such a plan.
Pressure on Congress
Meanwhile, Trump is pushing for the adoption of a law requiring proof of citizenship when registering voters and presenting identification at the polls. The project, called the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act), passed the House of Representatives but faces obstacles in the Senate.
The White House states that the goal is to "ensure full confidence of Americans in the administration of elections."
"President Trump is determined to ensure that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, which includes completely accurate and up-to-date voter rolls, without errors and without non-citizen voters illegally registered," said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.
Trump warned that if the legislative project fails, he will act unilaterally through an executive order.
Major Constitutional Obstacle
Article I, Section 4 of the US Constitution assigns the power to regulate elections to state legislatures and Congress, with no role for the president.
A potential presidential emergency regarding elections has never been tested in court. Courts have already partially blocked an executive order signed by Trump last year, which required proof of citizenship for registration and tied federal funding to compliance with rules on mail-in voting.
As a precedent, supporters cite an executive order from 2018, which declared a state of emergency to allow the sanctioning of foreign entities targeting electoral infrastructure. It was later extended by the Biden administration and used to sanction entities from Russia and Iran.
What's Next
So far, the White House has not confirmed the existence of a draft executive order declaring an electoral emergency. An official stated that the administration frequently discusses with external supporters, but any information about an imminent order remains "speculation."
"I have thoroughly explored legal arguments that have not yet been formulated or verified on this subject and will present an irrefutable one in the very near future. I will present them soon in the form of an Executive Order," Trump wrote on social media on February 13.
G.P.