Since at least April 2025, a group of right-wing figures and Trump allies have called for Trump to issue a national emergency declaration “to make sure that the elections in 2026 are secure,” even proposing and circulating among Trump administration officials a draft executive order that would “declare a national emergency” and “empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference.” Those involved include attorney Peter Ticktin, former Infowars staffer Jerome Corsi, and QAnon influencer Wayne Willot, known online as Juan O. Savin.

During his second term, Trump has issued two executive orders related to elections. As explained by The New York Times, a March 2025 order instructs the Election Assistance Commission “to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information,” and it “seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day.” Multiple federal judges have since blocked that executive order.

On March 31, Trump issued an executive order that directs the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State,” and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to “transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List.” NPR reported that “election experts said the order was unconstitutional.” After Trump signed the executive order, election deniers hailed it as a “win” that will leave Democrats “toast.” On June 25, a federal judge blocked parts of the order.

While Trump reportedly “shrugged off reports that he could consider declaring a national emergency around the midterm elections,” he has repeatedly advocated for the SAVE America Act, which would put restrictions on voting but has struggled to pass in Congress. On June 24, Trump canceled plans to sign bipartisan housing legislation “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”

• Savin, who was involved with the proposed national emergency executive order, claimed that Trump “is going to have to declare a national election emergency that gives him essentially king-like powers within the area of elections.” He added that the proposal is “sitting on his [Trump’s] desk, the 17-page order which my team put together within the coalition.” He’s also claimed that Trump “wants to sign it and [is] having the legal people review it to make sure that we got everything right,” may try to issue the order in “bite-sized pieces,” and that Trump has “tried to break up” the proposed order and it will “ultimately … get sealed in one summary executive order at some point in time, but they’ve taken a couple of pieces out and done them individually.”
• Ticktin, also supposedly involved with the proposed order, said a national “election emergency” would allow Trump to “be able to make the rules.” He also said that it would give Trump “additional forces of some sort” like the National Guard to have “camera observation” of ballots and make “sure the counting is done and done correctly.”
• Corsi, another figure supposedly involved with the proposed order, said that he believed Trump is “very strategically laying out his plans” with multiple executive orders related to elections and “saving his powder for that one last executive order, which will come much closer to the election.” He also claimed that the “nightmare” of Trump’s impeachment and removal by a Democratic-controlled Congress “can be avoided by that kind of an executive order” and Trump’s authority under the national emergency could “extend to utilizing the National Guard to intervene in states that didn’t cooperate.” During another appearance in which he discussed the order, Corsi claimed that “politically, Donald Trump cannot afford to let the 2026 midterm election occur under the current rules because he will most certainly lose. And that’s not going to happen.”
• Former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk Tina Peters said during a stream following her release from prison that she had spoken with the president and she believes “Trump could sign an executive order to get rid of the machines and say that they are — that a vendor cannot have that much influence over our elections.” She also said on a separate podcast that “we need to get rid of the machines” and “mail-in ballots,” and Trump “needs to sign an executive order ... saying it’s unconstitutional that these things are allowed to be done.” Corsi has also claimed that Peters will “play a major role in one of the key factors in Trump ultimately declaring the need for the elections to be supervised by the federal government.”
• Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock CEO who has been a prominent fundraiser for election denial efforts and played a role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, said Trump should announce a national emergency to “run our election this year ... and teach them how to run them in Iraq.” He later added that he hoped the president would declare an emergency “this summer.” Byrne is supposedly involved with the proposed order.
• Savin’s supposed “chief of staff,” Matt Meck, said the proposed national emergency order is “what we think needs to be done.” Meck — a board member of Fight Voter Fraud Inc., an organization which “has been criticized in the past for repeatedly advancing unfounded claims based on its misinterpretation of voter registration information and other data” — is supposedly involved with the proposed order.
• Mark Cook, described by Colorado Newsline as one “of the most influential election deniers in Colorado,” said, “How much more of an emergency do we need to establish here? It's right in our faces, and we have to do something immediately.” Cook is also supposedly involved with the proposed order.
• Laura Scharr, the founder of South Carolina Safe Elections, said that “it can’t just be an executive order — they’ve blown off the other two executive orders [related to elections] that Trump put out.” She added, “The only way is through a national emergency.” Scharr, who is supposedly involved with the proposed order, concluded that “it must be a national emergency. It has to happen as soon as possible.”
• Wayne Allyn Root — a radio host who has claimed that mail-in ballots were used to “rig and steal the 2020 election” and who the Nevada Current reported is “known for subscribing to conspiracy theories”— has authored multiple columns for The Gateway Pundit advocating for the proposed national emergency. On his show, Root claimed to have texted the president about a national emergency and he said that he would urge Trump to “sign Jerome Corsi’s executive order on election integrity, Mr. President, and do it now.”
• John Goodman, who is part of the “Florida Election Integrity Committee,” said on Stern American's “election integrity call” that “if you like the SAVE Act, you should love the national security emergency even more because it's like the SAVE Act on steroids,“ and that such a declaration “will be the trick, unobstructed.” He has also claimed that the call for “a national security emergency on elections” based on his ideas has been “very well received by Trump's legal team.” Root has said that “John Goodman, my election expert, has been telling me” that a national emergency is “the way to go,” and he claimed that Goodman “sent me all the reasons … as to what I could pass on to President Trump to push the urgency of a executive order to deal with election fraud and election integrity.” Corsi has also claimed to “have been working with” Goodman.
• Linda Szynkowicz, the founder of Fight Voter Fraud Inc., claimed on her podcast that the Constitution “gives the president the power in a state of emergency from foreign intervention in the elections,” for which “we have more than enough proof.” She made this claim in response to Goodman’s call for a “national security emergency.”
• David Clements, a podcaster who has “criss-crossed the country to evangelize about purported election fraud,” said at a local Republican event in Oregon that it would be “very easy” for Trump to “issue an executive order through a national emergency and have the National Guard count those ballots by hand.” During a podcast appearance with Corsi, Clements also claimed that he did not see “any scenario where we can run a clean election without the aid of the National Guard.”
• Douglas Frank said in an appearance alongside Ticktin on the Take Your Power Back Show that “we have people all over the country ready to support the president in case he needs to make some kind of emergency order.” The Los Angeles Times reported that Frank has given speeches across the country as “part of a multi-pronged effort by the election denial movement to make a significant impact on future elections.”
• Tamara Favorito — who reportedly helps run the “election integrity” organization VoterGA with her husband, Garland Favorito — said on a stream that Trump “needs to hurry” to declare a national emergency “because November is not very far away.” After being asked if there was “enough time before the midterms for” Trump to declare “the national security emergency and executive orders that mandate the things that make elections safe,” Favorito responded that “if the election officials in the counties put their mind to it, I believe it can be done, but he [Trump] needs to hurry because November is not very far away.”
• Gregory Stenstrom, a Pennsylvania poll watcher who claimed without evidence that he saw votes for Biden being uploaded to voting machines in 2020, said on Stern American’s “election integrity call” that “Trump is required to take executive action.” Stenstrom said, “In the executive order that is being drafted by Peter Ticktin and Mr. Corsi, they can refer to multiple cases within the courts right now that show that President Trump is required to take executive action because certain secretaries of state and certain county officials in key counties are cheating and not complying with the law.” Stenstrom was also part of a lawsuit that reportedly alleged that there was “negligent and fraudulent misrepresentation related to the 2020 general election,” but which a local district attorney said there was “no merit found to the claims.”

Trump and his right-wing media allies have been pushing claims of election fraud for years. During Trump's second term, election deniers known for promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been given access to the levers of power — feeding already debunked claims to the Department of Justice, taking roles in the administration, and contributing to federal investigations. Some, like Peters, Byrne, and Martin Rodil, claimed they have spoken directly with Trump and administration officials. (The Guardian reported Rodil became a source “for the Trump camp and ultimately for investigators and … promoted two major allegations about Venezuela.”)

As the 2026 midterms approach, right-wing media and the Trump administration appear to have ramped up their efforts to undermine the midterm elections — invoking repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud in the U.S., relying on one-off incidents and hypotheticals that are often exaggerated or misleading, and pushing for Trump policy priorities like the SAVE America Act.

Election deniers have already claimed that primaries for the 2026 midterms have featured election fraud, and Savin himself has claimed that the primary elections have been “laying the groundwork” for Trump to declare a national emergency — language which the president has now repeated.