The Washington Post reported that “pro-Trump activists” Peter Ticktin and Jerome Corsi have been involved with a 17-page draft executive order for President Donald Trump to “declare a national emergency” for “power over voting” and “say they are in coordination with the White House.”
Media Matters, which previously reported on the draft order, has found that other election deniers have claimed to be involved and are advocating for a national emergency.
According to the Post:
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.
…
A White House official said the staff is regularly in communication with a variety of outside advocates who want to share their policy ideas with the president, but any speculation about his actions or announcements is just speculation.
“I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future,” Trump said on social media Feb. 13. “I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order,” he added the same day.
As Media Matters reported last year, Ticktin and Corsi have discussed the proposed document during multiple podcast appearances, with Corsi saying that he and Ticktin had been involved with a “17-page draft of an executive order” that would “declare a national security emergency” and include “steps the states will be required to take in order to make sure the elections are secure.”
Ticktin said at a conference in August of 2025 that he “wouldn’t be very surprised” if there’s “an emergency called” before the next election and that “a number of people are urging it because it's necessary.” He has also claimed that Corsi has “been very involved” with the proposed document, and Corsi said the executive order would be “based on our research.”
The Post's reporting provides more insight into the draft:
“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.
…
The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.
…
Ticktin said he’s had “certain coordination” with White House officials but declined to specify, citing safety concerns.
…
“The stage is largely being set by the revelations coming out of foreign powers being involved in influencing the 2020 election,” said Jerome Corsi, who circulated the draft executive order in July.
…
“If there was a provable foreign intrusion, that would be a national security emergency and the order could be issued under his powers as commander in chief,” Corsi added.
Media Matters has found that other election deniers have been discussing a draft executive order. A figure known as Juan O. Savin who is tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory — and who previously recruited election denial candidates for positions where they would be in charge of election administration around the country — said that his “team … wrote up” a “17-page document” on elections which it “provided to the president last spring” and said that Trump is “going to use … 80, 85, 90%” of it.
Another election denier, Mark Cook, also suggested on a podcast that he “co-authored” the proposed executive order Savin said he was involved with, adding that “a lot of brains got together and put that together to offer our president and the Trump administration, you know, a path to solve the problem.”
Election deniers have also been advocating for a national emergency, saying they were “encouraging the president to declare a national emergency right now on this issue” and urged Trump to “execute his National Emergency Act powers” to supposedly protect elections because executive orders “are permissible in states of national and foreign emergencies.” Other election deniers advocating for a national emergency include former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who alongside attorney Sidney Powell attended a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where Trump was urged to seize voting machines.
