Peter Ticktin, an 80-year-old Florida lawyer and childhood friend of President Trump from the New York Military Academy, is pushing the president to declare a national emergency and seize control of the 2026 midterm elections, according to CNN reporting published just hours ago. The effort, which has circulated among Trump allies for months, hinges on unsubstantiated claims of foreign interference in voting systems.
Ticktin has become a prominent figure in election denial circles, representing Tina Peters—the former Colorado clerk released from prison last month after Trump pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor for her commutation—as well as other leading figures in the movement. In a wide-ranging CNN interview, Ticktin insisted that evidence proving foreign interference would surface soon, asserting that Venezuela, China, Iran and others are involved. “With the evidence that we’ve got, and with the evidence that would be forthcoming, that there’ll be no question about it,” he said. “It’s a surreptitious overtaking of a country.”
The draft executive order Ticktin has been promoting is a 17-page working document that would grant the president extraordinary power over the 2026 midterms by declaring a national emergency based on alleged foreign interference through electronic voting machines. According to PBS News, which reviewed the full proposal, the order would allow Trump to require hand-counting of ballots, impose voter identification at the polls, and restrict mail-in voting. Ticktin told PBS in February that he had communicated directly with Trump about the issue and had spoken with White House and Justice Department officials, though he declined to identify them.
Trump, however, has publicly distanced himself from the plan. On February 27, when asked about the proposal, he told reporters: “Who told you that? No, I’ve never heard about it.” A White House official later told CNN that while Ticktin is well-meaning, he seems to overstate his current relationship with Trump and does not influence the White House’s policies toward elections and voting.
Legal experts have swiftly rejected the constitutional basis for Ticktin’s theory. Liza Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice and leading expert on presidential emergency powers, identified “four immediately obvious problems” with Ticktin’s legal memo. She noted that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Ticktin cites as authority, applies only to economic sanctions and property in which foreign countries have an actual interest—voting machines owned by states do not qualify. “The IEEPA is mostly focused on economic sanctions,” Goitein wrote. “Nothing in that would allow for the seizure of voting machines owned and operated by state or local election authorities.”
The U.S. Constitution grants states and Congress—not the president—authority over elections. A 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment found that while multiple countries attempted to influence the 2020 election, no country “attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.” Despite this, Ticktin points to the Trump administration’s charges against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in May as evidence that will vindicate his claims. Justice Department officials, however, have pushed back, stating that the charges against Maduro relate to international drug trafficking, not election interference.
Trump has instead pursued election changes through other means, signing an executive order in March 2025 requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and directing the attorney general to target states that count mail-in ballots received after Election Day. That order has faced multiple lawsuits. Trump has also pressed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose strict voter ID requirements, telling lawmakers at the State of the Union: “Congress should unite and enact this commonsense, country-saving legislation right now.”
Sources
- CNN — Peter Ticktin’s recent push for national emergency order, his background, and Trump’s response
- PBS NewsHour — Details of the 17-page draft executive order and Trump’s February denial
- The Hill — Trump’s public dismissal of the national emergency proposal on February 27
- Democracy Docket — Legal analysis by Liza Goitein on the constitutional and statutory problems with the proposal
