Trump eyeing mail-in ballot, voting machine ban ahead of midterms?  

Here’s the headline: Pro-Trump activists, who say they’re coordinating with the White House, are circulating a draft executive order urging President Trump to declare a national emergency over the 2020 election, based on the claim that China interfered, and use that emergency to take sweeping control over how Americans vote in the midterms.  

Let’s slow that down.  

The draft would empower a president to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines, arguing they’re vulnerable to foreign interference. But U.S. intelligence reviews in 2021 concluded that while China considered influence efforts, it did not carry them out. There is no credible evidence that foreign interference altered the 2020 outcome. At all.  

And here’s the constitutional reality: The Elections Clause explicitly gives states — not the president — authority over how elections are run. Article I, Section 4 is clear. States set the rules. Congress can step in. The president has no role.  

As Michael McNulty, policy director for the pro-democracy group Issue One, put it: “The Constitution is absolutely clear. The president does not have legal authority to unilaterally change election........

© The Hill