Outside the Beltway

Approaching a Major Red Line on Elections

A potential Executive Order on elections.

Steven L. Taylor · Friday, February 27, 2026 · 4 comments

ABC News reports: Pro-Trump attorneys push executive order that would give Trump sweeping power over elections: Sources.

A group of pro-Trump attorneys and supporters is circulating a draft of a presidential executive order that uses alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election — of which there is no evidence — to justify a national emergency declaration that they claim would give President Donald Trump sweeping power over voting, multiple sources told ABC News.

The 17-page draft order, which sources say Trump has reviewed, would mandate the use of voter ID and hand-counted ballots, and ban mail-in ballots ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.

The attorneys pushing the draft order said they anticipate it would be incorporated into a planned executive order, which they expect to be issued soon.

All of this, of course, is illegal and unconstitutional. But if this EO is issued and is legally challenged or just ignored, it will be a blatant attempt at election interference and will cause disruptions in the middle of an already started 2026 cycle.

And this is just absurd:

Ticktin, who also represents former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who was imprisoned for breaking into voting equipment, said the emergency declaration would empower Trump to ban electronic voting machines and mail-in ballots because they could be tools used for foreign interference.

“The most important provision, if you ask me, is the hand counting,” Ticktin said. “Get rid of the machines. That’s what we need to do right away.”

Let me note, as someone who has studied elections professionally for decades, that hand-counting is less accurate than machine counting. This should be obvious, but I figured I would note it anyway. This is just conspiracy land, not to mention that these people also don’t like waiting for the results (which they then use as yet another reason to doubt outcomes). Do I have to note that hand-counting takes longer?

And yes, hand-counting increases the opportunities for chicanery.

More from Democracy Docket: Anti-voting activists co-ordinating with White House on blatantly illegal draft emergency order to take control of elections.

in an email to Democracy Docket, Ticktin said that Trump “may invoke emergency powers in response to an election emergency involving foreign interference, provided certain statutory and procedural requirements are met.” 

Ticktin said those requirements derive from the National Emergencies Act (NEA) and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEA).

“These powers are subject to procedural safeguards and judicial review to ensure compliance with constitutional and statutory limits,” Ticktin added.

For what it is worth, I don’t see how such an EO would pass judicial scrutiny, or even have any kind of enforcement mechanism. Nonetheless, even an attempt would be an attack on the election process.

I would prefer no attempts to take place, but I partially agree with the following, insofar as a blatant and obvious attempt to corrupt the process up front would help clarify, for some, the anti-democratic nature of this administration and might make post-election attempts at interference harder to launch because of how transparently corrupt they would be.

“What a gift such a clearly unconstitutional executive order would be!,” David Becker, the executive director of Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney, noted on social media. “Though divorced from legal and factual reality, it would enable the courts to invalidate this power grab well in advance of the election, and confirm the clear limits to [federal] interference in elections.”

I also agree that such an EO would not take judicial action to ignore.

Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former DOJ voting official, told Democracy Docket the draft order is not just illegal, but “there is literally no authority here that any local official would have to listen to.”

 “It doesn’t require anybody to file anything in court to stop the impact,” Levitt added. “It just requires… not listening. Which is both easier and quicker.”

Still, should it be issued, it does need to be challenged in every way possible.

Let me conclude with a few thoughts on “red lines.” I noted this notion in a post about Greenland.

I am not talking here about a red line that, when crossed, would lead to a public response. I am talking about an analytical red line wherein the depths of authoritarianism (and long-term damage) would be at a new level. It would represent a new low for a regime that I already assess as being proto-fascist.

Maybe “red line” is the wrong metaphor, but I am thinking here about markers along the path to deeper authoritarianism.

I think we have already crossed two such red lines and averted two others.

The first was January 6th itself. This was the first time we did not have a peaceful transition of power in the United States. And while it is true that the attempt to thwart the constitutional process of certifying the election failed, we had a president who clearly was in support of the actions of the insurrectionists. We know this because of how he acted before, during, and after the event. Remember: he called it a “day of love” and pardoned/commuted the sentences of all the participants, even those who committed violence directly against law enforcement.

The second red line that was crossed was the immunity decision from SCOTUS. That ruling removed almost all capacity for there to be any accountability for what a president does in office.

We averted a red line with Greenland, and then again with the tariff ruling by SCOTUS.

But we are on the brink of a truly serious problem with the growing evidence that Trump is going to try, in some way, to disrupt the coming elections.

I remain guardedly optimistic that he will ultimately fail in the attempt, owing to the clear constitutional parameters on this subject and the decentralized nature of the electoral process. Still, I find any suggestions of executive action on this topic concerning. And, moreover, even if he fails to fully cross the line, the damage (like with Greenland and NATO) will be real, as he has successfully convinced far too many Americans that the electoral process can’t be trusted.

Trump continues to be a cancer on the body politic.