Washinton Post: Trump Urged to Declare Emergency Powers & Seize Election Powers

[senseandsensibility]

Headline running on CNN. Ryan Goodman, the legal expert, says it is not legal. It's unclear, though, who is doing the "urging".

[Wiz Imp]

1. 100% unconstitutional

[kwolf68]

6. And the issue for them is....

You think this gangster regime cares about the constitution?

[Wiz Imp]

9. He can try what he wants, he won't get away with it

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=21050285

[dalton99a]

2. The human buttplug named Miller

[SheltieLover]

3. Pee wee

[samsingh]

4. States will not allow that

The Constitution reserves election authority to states and Congress

Article I, Section 4 assigns election regulation primarily to state legislatures and Congress. There’s no provision that gives the president direct authority to take over election administration nationwide by executive order alone.

🔹 Emergency powers are limited and untested in this domain

Existing emergency statutes (like the National Emergencies Act) have been used to sanction foreign entities and address genuine foreign threats in other contexts, but they do not explicitly grant a president the authority to override state electoral administration in the way this draft would intend. Legal experts widely characterize the draft’s legal rationale as extremely weak or unconstitutional.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. He will fail

But he succeeded in bumping Epstein out of the headlines, didn’t he?

[roamer65]

7. No elections, no Congress, no Constitution.

The compact between the states will be finished.

Province of Michigan!!!

🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

[dweller]

8. Completion

of the 1/6 Coup

😑




✌🏻

[NeoTrajan]

10. "Urged" ....

They say he was 'urged', but they don't relate WHO did the urging?

Is this how journalism should work?

Whoever urged him ... They are clearly UNfamiliar with modern democracy, and probably aren't fans of free societies

[Sparkly]

11. Miller, probably.

Just my guess.

[highplainsdem]

13. No. See my reply 12.

[highplainsdem]

12. I posted Democracy Docket's news stories on what is really going on, how illegal it is:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221051880


I haven't seen any other major outlet treat this as a serious possibility, following the WaPo story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-executive-order-activists/ .

Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.

“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.

“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”

-snip-

[senseandsensibility]

14. So it appears that "Pro-Trump activists" are doing the urging

Not very specific but thanks for the link.

[highplainsdem]

16. Some of the activists are named.

[Celerity]

15. archive link to the actual article:

https://archive.ph/ixcnj



Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.

“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.

“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.” The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.

snip