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.
Sure seems like getting trained up and in shape would be a good idea. Just in case, ya know.
If that doesnt work it was nice knowing there was an Iran once
Because “blatantly illegal” has been such a stopping force so far.
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.
Calling a thing “unconstitutional” just spurs that orange jackass forward
It’s legal if no one has the balls to shut it down.
Didn’t I see some meme about how things end every 250 years??
Empires don’t fall by themselves. People burn them down.
If everyone in America is waiting for “somebody” to fix everything for them then there’s a good chance America is going to exceed that 250 year mark.
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within” ― Will Durant
They can’t steal and election if we steal it first…Genius.
States run elections
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.
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.
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?
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.
Until people like you are thinking “It’s gonna have to be me” then the situation will not likely improve.
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.
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.
Adolf Schmitler doesn’t have the stomach for bold collective action, who would’a guessed.
A bit off the mark there orioler25, what do you suggest we do?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Enabling Act
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.
Blue states would likely ignore it, but red states would happily accept their marching orders.
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.
Oh, I know. I’m screaming into the wind here. Letting my frustration out at, well, everything.
If Trump successfully fixes this election…
A lot of Americans wouldn’t only tolerate Trump fixing the election, they’d support it. Celebrate it, even.
Much of the rest of America doesn’t fully appreciate the threat. Many are just oblivious, but others are complacently holding on to their faith in our legal and political institutions. They believe in our system, and they believe it will ultimately hold up against the threat of a fascist takeover. I hope they’re right, but I don’t share their conviction. I think our institutions are far more vulnerable than many of them realize. Frankly, I think they’re unwavering devotion borders on hubris.
And my concerns about the integrity of our system are not baseless. I have seen our systems tested multiple times over the past few decades, essentially my entire adult life, and I would say the resiliency of our system has been… mixed, at best.
What do you mean? We have infinite money, don’t you remember that glitch? 1970s crisis, we just printed our way out. 2000 dot-com bubble, printed our way out. 2008 housing crisis, then COVID, … guess what we did both times. We just print our way out of our problems; problem solved.
If Trump destroys us, we’ll just print little Trump Cash cards on the back of freshly synthesized plastic cutouts made from the byproduct of his glorified coal companies running on the blood, sweat, and tears of our children.
that dream has ended
“Anti-voting activists”? You mean Nazis?
The Nazis were elected
Fascists. Not necessarily nazis. Fascists come in many flavors of assholes.
Sparkling authoritarians.
please, we prefer to call ourselves “Anti-democracy Activists” these days
Anti-voting activists<=> fascists/nazis
Young women<=> children
Alternate facts<=> lies
We HAVE to keep calling out media for spreading misinformation.
