- Draft order alleges Chinese interference in 2020 election.
- Proposal would mandate hand-counted ballots, restrict mail voting.
- White House says no executive order has been signed.
- Legal experts question emergency powers for election control.
A draft executive order written by Trump claimed that the Chinese had rigged the 2020 presidential election and sought to declare a national emergency giving Trump the power to seize key facets of U.S. elections, including hand-counted paper ballots, proof-of-citizenship documents, and extreme limitations on mail-in voting, as well as electronic machines.
In new interviews, Trump classmate and order leader Peter Ticktin, who confirmed the push, said that to me the most important provision is the hand counting. Get rid of the machines. That is what we should do immediately, Ticktin said on February 26-27 to ABC News.
He further claims that he is in some form of coordination with senior administration individuals and he has spoken with Michael Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Patrick Byrne, all of whom played key roles in post-2020 election challenges.The draft is based on the previous announcement on February 13 by Trump on Truth Social: There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, approved or not, by Congress!...
The People of our Country are, too, demanding Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, excepting the Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel. Trump said he had discovered Legal Arguments yet to be articulated that would render any executive order unimpeachable.
Legal Memo Invokes National Emergencies Act and Chinese Meddling Claims
Ticktin in a legal memo to this assertion holds that the President could invoke the National Emergencies Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, citing Trump's first-term Executive Order 13848, to consider the alleged Chinese meddling of the 2020 election as still an ongoing and unusual and extraordinary threat.
No order has been signed and the White House advised ABC News that external policy proposals are regularly being received but termed speculation as simply that, speculation.
Legal Experts and Civil Rights Groups Warn of Constitutional Collision
Brennan Center legal analyst Liza Goitein described the theory as ridiculous, pointing out that IEEPA is an economic sanctions law that will not be able to supercede the Constitution Elections Clause that vests primary power over voting rules to states and the Congress.
There is no real extraordinary and odd foreign threat that exists nowadays, she said. Critics in civil-rights groups and electoral officials perceive the draft as an effort at federalising and re-instituting election processes under the pretext of security, establishing an immediate court struggle that would probably make it to the Supreme Court.
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There has never been any U.S. intelligence assessment that the Chinese interference changed the 2020 result, as midterms approach, the widespread spread of the document (which is still not official, but actively promoted by the main Trump supporters) has fueled the debate about executive power and democratic protections. It is projected to move further "ASAP" as indicated by insiders.
