Trump seeks prime-time spotlight for election claims, raising concerns
WASHINGTON— President Trump appeared ready to question the security of U.S. elections in a prime-time speech scheduled for Thursday night, raising fears from Democrats and voting rights advocates that he is planning another play for federal control of voting in the November midterm elections.
The exact reason for the conversation was not disclosed by the White House; Trump told reporters this week that it was merely “really, really big news.” He confirmed it would be about “free and fair elections”.
Washington Post reportedAccording to the news, based on sources, Trump planned to claim that there were security vulnerabilities in the country’s election infrastructure and that China had accessed US voter data. The White House declined to confirm such details on Wednesday.
Publicity of the speech raised concerns among the president’s political opponents, as well as election experts and voting rights advocates, that Trump could renew claims that the nation’s voting system is vulnerable to domestic fraud and foreign attacks.
He has previously said Republicans should “nationalize” election administration, a job that falls to states under the Constitution, and has pressed his party to tighten federal voting rules.
“We know nothing about what he might say as president regarding elections or what he might try to do with his very limited powers,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “I expect we will hear many allegations restated and debunked.”
The President could potentially use the new allegations to argue that the country faces an emergency that requires greater federal intervention in voting in the upcoming election, Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee that oversees elections, said in an interview with The Times.
“This will be justification for declaring a national emergency,” Morelle said. “It’s very clear that it created the emergency, and it completely exposes the evidence that suggests there was an emergency.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections, told The Times on Wednesday that Trump was using a known playbook.[sow] “There is doubt about the outcome before a single vote has been taken.”
“All signs indicate that tomorrow’s speech will be the same: debunked conspiracy theories put forward not because they are true, but because the only cards he has left are chaos and doubt,” Padilla said.
Trump’s speech, which he announced on social media on Monday, came four months before midterm elections that will determine whether his party retains legislative control in Washington.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed reports of what Trump might say in his 6 p.m. PDT speech as speculation, saying, “Nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say.”
The address also comes as Trump calls for a ceasefire with Iran broke uprenewed expectations for rising gas prices, and his approval rating for the economy gradually fell. The following was also made public on Tuesday: Trump paid $5.6 million to writer E. Jean Carroll in 2023, upon jury instructions. found Trump responsible for sexually abusing and slandering him.
“What we’ll talk about on Thursday is that it’s not going to escalate any further,” Trump told reporters who asked about the conversation on Tuesday. “Because you don’t have a country without free and fair elections.”
Trump has spread baseless claims of widespread election fraud for years. But it has become particularly clear in recent days that he is prioritizing his claims about the voting system, even though much of the country’s attention has been focused on cost-of-living issues.
He aggressively lobbied reluctant Republican senators to pass voter ID legislation. refuse to sign a bipartisan housing bill on top of that; HE expelled all remaining members from the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission; and the Justice Department said it would send election observers to six states.
Since the midterm primaries began, Trump has also cast doubt on election security, especially in California, by claiming Democrats rigged or attempted to rig the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral primaries.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, whose state has often been at the center of Trump’s corruption allegations in 2020, said the president’s speech posed a threat to voting rights.
“I expect him to use everything he laid out on Thursday as a pretext for attempting to use federal power unconstitutionally to interfere with the election,” Ossoff said. He said on MS Now on Tuesday“or to provide his surrogates and loyalists in state and local jurisdictions with a safeguard against anything they might attempt or to lay the groundwork for contesting the outcome.”
Chapman University law professor Nahal Kazemi said efforts to federalize or take over elections would face serious legal hurdles. Although Congress can pass laws regarding election administration, such as the Voting Rights Act, the executive branch does not play a role in the conduct of elections.
“You run into a brick wall that is essentially the Constitution, which makes it clear that the states hold elections,” Kazemi said.
When it comes to concerns about foreign interference, experts say there is little evidence that other countries tried to hack systems or change votes. Instead, foreign actors operated largely through disinformation campaigns; As the USA found, 2016 And 2020 elections.
“Based on the information we have now, there is no point in panicking about the possibility of a foreign adversary taking over election systems,” said Kazemi, who has researched foreign election interference.
He said one of the things that helps make American elections generally secure is that they are decentralized and run by thousands of counties. He said it would be extraordinarily difficult for a foreign rival to infiltrate so many voting systems.
Jenny Farrell, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, said California “takes election security extremely seriously” and has one of the most secure systems in the country, subject to stringent voter verification measures and intense chain-of-custody and audit procedures.
Democrats have taken the initiative with election experts in recent months. to assure the public That US elections are safe and secure. They also sought to counter Trump’s claims that mail ballots and voting machines are unreliable.
Multiple election reviews in 2020, including from Trump’s first administration, have concluded that Trump lost and Biden won. Election experts say there is no evidence that widespread fraud determined the election outcome.
A judge also found false allegations made by Trump and his lawyers that Dominion Voting Systems manipulated votes in favor of Biden through its machines.
