Legal and voting rights experts are sounding the alarm after a Washington Post bombshell report revealed that President Donald Trump — who has been insisting on federalizing voting and has issued an executive order to pressure states to require proof of citizenship for voter registration — is now being urged by activists to sign an executive order declaring a voting “emergency.”

The proposed 17-page order would “unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” the Post reported, noting that the proposal “claims China interfered in the 2020 election” which would be the “basis to declare a national emergency.”

Former Trump national security official Miles Taylor warned that the “biggest electoral crime in American history might be unfolding.”

“The president cannot seize control of state-run elections by declaring a fake ’emergency.’ There’s no statute that permits it,” wrote Fair Fight Action communications director Max Flugrath. “Reviving debunked conspiracy theories to force changes before a major election is what politicians do when they believe they’re going to lose.”

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Flugrath added that the Post’s reporting follows up on an October New York Times investigation which found “that Trump officials discussed a fake ‘national emergency’ to force new election rules on states. A DHS official said it could allow Trump to ‘go around Congress’ and take over elections.”

“What a gift such a clearly unconstitutional executive order would be!” election security expert David Becker told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane. “Though divorced from legal and factual reality, it would enable the courts to invalidate this power grab well in advance of the election, and confirm the clear limits to fed’l interference in elections.”

Prominent elections attorney Marc Elias wrote, “My team and I have been anticipating this for months. It is unconstitutional and illegal. The media should note: Last time he issued an EO about voting, we sued and won. If Trump issues such an order we will sue again and we will win again.”

“Far right voices in Colorado,” journalist Kyle Clark noted, “have long called for this step as a prelude to military tribunals and mass executions.”

U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said, that there is “no national emergency exception” to Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

“States regulate elections unless Congress passes law,” he added, stating that is why Trump “desperately” wants to pass the SAVE Act, “to suppress voting.”

The NAACP called the proposed executive order a “dangerous proposal,” and “a direct assault on our democracy.”

Former WBZ-TV anchor Liam Martin commented, “I tend to think even this SCOTUS would block an attempt to federalize elections. But what Trump and his team are doing is setting the stage to declare the midterms void and refuse to seat the new members. What do we do then?”

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Melania Trump will preside over the United Nations Security Council next week — a decision igniting backlash before it begins.

“First Lady Melania Trump is set to make history at the United Nations, taking the gavel as the United States assumes the Security Council Presidency to emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace,” a press release from the Office of the First Lady reads.

“Mrs. Trump’s leadership will mark the first time a sitting U.S. First Lady presides over the Security Council as members consider education, technology, peace, and security.”

An opinion piece at The New Republic says, “While the first lady has shown an interest in children’s welfare, particularly in Russia’s war on Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine her address as any more than a symbolic gesture that will look good in a social media post.”

READ MORE: ‘Extraordinary Presidential Power’: Trump Is Urged to Declare Emergency Over Voting

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, wrote: We are thrilled to have @Flotus gavel in the US Presidency of the Security Council.”

Critics online are blasting the decision.

“Just when you thought they couldn’t disrespect professional, career U.S. diplomats, American diplomacy or international organizations more- they produce this grotesque theatre of the absurd,” wrote former U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno.

Associate professor of History Thomas Småberg commented, “I’m a social network scholar with a focus on the Middle Ages and Trump’s uses of family, friends and followers is straight out of medieval aristocracy. It’s so interesting to [see] his abuse of presidential power and his disregard for republicans.”

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President Donald Trump, who has insisted on federalizing voting and who issued an executive order last March to pressure states to require proof of citizenship to register voters, is reportedly now being urged to declare an emergency over voting.

“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,” The Washington Post reported in an exclusive.

“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.”

According to Florida lawyer Peter Ticktin, who is advocating for a presidential order on voting, “we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes.”

“That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it,” Ticktin told the Post.

Claiming there is an emergency would allow the president to ban voting by mail and voting machines “as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.”

Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, which critics say could disenfranchise millions of American citizens who do not currently have a passport or access to their birth certificates. It could also disenfranchise people who have married and changed their names but did not do so on all their legal documents.

“Trump has said that if the bill fails, he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms,” the Post reported.

Image via Reuters