Draft order floats emergency control over how midterm ballots are counted

What happened

The 17-page draft, dated April 2025 and circulated among pro-Trump activists from July 2025, claims China interfered in the 2020 election and would use that as the basis for a national emergency unlocking presidential power over voting — though a 2021 intelligence assessment concluded that China considered influence efforts and did not carry them out. Its measures include hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots, voters re-registering for the 2026 midterms with proof of citizenship, restricting mail ballots to limited circumstances, and roles for the Justice Department, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Social Security Administration and the Postal Service in identifying ineligible voters; it claims authority under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 and the Defense Production Act of 1950. Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer advocating for the draft, said he has had “certain coordination” with White House officials but declined to specify; a White House official said staff are regularly in communication with outside advocates and that speculation about the president's plans is just speculation. Trump said on Feb. 13, 2026 that he would present his legal argument “in the form of an Executive Order,” and the activists expect their draft to figure into it. When the draft was first reported on Feb. 26, 2026, Trump said he was not considering it; Article I of the Constitution assigns the regulation of elections to state legislatures and Congress, and a presidential emergency over elections has never been tested in court.

Why it matters

A drafted plan to run an election by emergency decree—even one publicly disavowed—means the legal argument for federal control of a vote is being written down, not just imagined.

Receipt details

• Phase 5
• Lock in power
• Cancel or indefinitely postpone elections