Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar says Nevada would challenge a reported executive order by President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency to overhaul U.S. elections over alleged foreign interference.

The Trump administration would use the declaration to prevent most Americans from using mail-in ballots and mandate voter identification in the fall midterm elections, according to a draft executive order reported Thursday by The Washington Post.

The draft was created by “pro-Trump activists” who “expect” their language “will figure into” the president’s order, The Post reported. Trump has denied knowledge of such a plan.

“It’s a further attempt by the federal government to take over our elections,” Aguilar, a Democrat, said. “It’s another opportunity for the administration to try to intimidate election officials into compliance. It’s another attempt to create confusion and chaos among the voting electorate.”

The pro-Trump Republican activists behind the draft executive order acknowledge that the Constitution gives states the power to oversee elections. However, they argue that China’s alleged interference in the 2020 election warrants giving the president emergency powers.

A 2021 U.S. intelligence community report on the 2020 election said it had “high confidence” that China considered interfering but ultimately decided against it. In 2025, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R‑Iowa, accused the FBI of improperly shutting down investigations into allegations of Chinese interference.

Those claims have not previously been used to support a national emergency, though Aguilar noted that Trump has been discussing a potential executive order for months. Attorneys for the state are looking into such an executive order’s legality and will “enter into litigation faster than the F1 race,” Aguilar said.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office would be in charge of any legal challenge by Nevada to a potential election executive order. Ford, a Democrat like Aguilar, wrote on social media that he would “use the full weight of the law” to prevent federal overreach.

Ford, who’s running for governor, said he would also use that office’s powers to “ensure our elections remain secure, fair and lawfully run by the state of Nevada” if elected.

“The president does not have the unilateral authority to seize control of a state’s elections by executive order. Any attempt to do so would be an unprecedented abuse of power,” Ford wrote. “Silence from Republican state leaders in the face of this kind of overreach isn’t leadership. It’s cowardice.”

Even now, six years after his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Trump continues to claim widespread fraud cost him his would-be reelection. Those claims have been proven false in more than 60 court challenges nationwide, and his own attorney general, William Barr, publicly said he had seen no evidence of widespread voting fraud in the 2020 election. Noncitizen voting, which the president is citing to push voter ID, is also exceedingly rare, according to NPR.

On Feb. 13, Trump posted on Truth Social that his plan to ban mail-in ballots while mandating that voter ID would be in place for the November elections “whether approved by Congress or not.”

Democratic opposition “is very simple — They want to continue to cheat in Elections,” Trump wrote. “I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future.”

More than half of Nevada’s voters prefer using mail ballots, with Nye and Douglas counties having the highest adoption rates, Aguilar said. Trump won Douglas by 33 points in the 2024 presidential election; he defeated his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in Nye by 42 points.

“It’s about making sure that our rural communities have access to the ballot box. Nevada is a very diverse state in many ways,” Aguilar said. “We are a 24/7 economy, and if you take away the opportunity for somebody to have a voice or a say in the future of this country, that’s detrimental.”

Aguilar said the president has a “deranged obsession” with the 2020 election, adding that election deniers consistently lost at the ballot box in 2022 races for secretary of state. The public has moved on, he said.

“It’s the overall mission and goal of the administration to commandeer the midterm election for the benefit of the presidential election in 2028,” Aguilar said. That has “a huge impact on Nevada. Because Nevada is a battleground state, we will determine who the next president of the United States is.”

Sondra Cosgrove, co-chair of the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement’s board of directors, doesn’t see Trump’s potential ban on mail-in ballots and mandatory voter ID surviving the courts.

Cosgrove said the administration would have to provide concrete evidence of China meddling in the 2020 election, that it would happen again in the future and that it poses a security risk justifying “extraordinary action.”

She said it would also run into the “Purcell principle,” a doctrine stating that courts shouldn’t change election rules in the run-up to them. Cosgrove, also the executive director of civic engagement group Vote Nevada, noted it’s commonly invoked to prevent redistricting efforts.

“I would think all these attorneys general would cite the Purcell principle and say, ‘We’ve already got things being printed and software being calibrated, and people are filing. We’re too close to an election for you to change things,’ ” she said.

“I don’t see that any court would accept it,” Cosgrove said.

And while an executive order would also face constitutional challenges, Cosgrove said courts would likely tell the Trump administration it would have to go through Congress to enact its proposal.

Trump has been trying to do that with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, but it’s hit a snag in the Senate: Republicans need a handful of Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill, and Democratic leadership has railed against the current form of the legislation. The act would require Americans to produce documented proof of United States citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, before they can register to vote in federal elections — a measure critics say is thinly disguised voter suppression that could disenfranchise millions ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Democrats’ concerns aside, voter ID is popular with Nevada Republicans and the electorate.

A state ballot measure in support of the policy passed with 73% of the vote in 2024, but Nevadans will have to approve it again this year to amend the state constitution.

Trump and the GOP’s push for election reform comes amid deteriorating polling numbers for the president and Republicans heading into the midterm elections — where the sitting president’s party has historically struggled to retain seats in Congress.

Trump’s job disapproval rating has climbed 14 points to 55% since he returned to the White House in January 2025, according to polling from Emerson College. The same poll found that Democrats’ lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot is now eight points.

Aguilar senses Trump’s intentions, and he isn’t alone in his concern.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold also decried the reported draft executive order, calling the president “one of the greatest threats to American elections.”

“Every American — regardless of party or ideology — should be extremely concerned by Trump’s continued use of lies and conspiracy to justify attempts to seize the reins of election administration and hold on to power,” Griswold told Democracy Docket in a statement. “That is not democracy, it is attempted authoritarianism.”

Cosgrove was less worried, believing that Democrats are hyping concerns about threats to the 2026 and 2028 elections. Along with doubting the SAVE Act’s chances, she is firm in her belief that “the courts will handle it.”

“They’re just trying to make sure that their side wins. That, to me, is the bigger problem,” Cosgrove said. “Nobody’s going to trust voting. Everybody’s going to be paranoid all the time … as opposed to having discussions about what policies we would like to see implemented.”