1. United States
2. Utah
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to publicly oppose any attempt to declare a national emergency that would allow federal takeover of the 2026 midterm elections. A recent ProPublica investigation has revealed a coordinated effort by Trump administration officials and election deniers to circumvent the Constitution's clear directive that states run elections. On February 19, high-ranking federal officials including White House lawyer Kurt Olsen and Department of Homeland Security official Heather Honey met with approximately 30 election deniers in a closed-door summit. Attendees included former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Cleta Mitchell, who was on the 2020 call pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State to "find" 11,780 votes. According to activist Will Huff, administration representatives agreed to take the group's "consensus" for a national emergency back to Trump. This is not theoretical planning. The Washington Post has already reported on a draft executive order that could serve as the vehicle for this strategy. Patrick Byrne, former Overstock.com CEO who has funded election denial efforts since 2020, stated that Trump must now do "the muscular thing: declare a national emergency" to ban voting machines and end mail-in ballots. What makes this particularly alarming is that election deniers are now embedded inside the federal government. Before joining DHS, both Heather Honey and CISA's Marci McCarthy were leaders in Cleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network. Weeks after starting at DHS, Honey briefed EIN activists on her work inside the department. Ethics experts say this privileged access for a former employer would have violated prior guardrails. The Constitution assigns election administration to states for good reason. Federal seizure of this authority under false emergency pretenses would represent an unprecedented assault on our democratic system. I urge you to speak out against any such declaration and commit to defending state authority over elections. Our constituents deserve to know where you stand on protecting the integrity of the 2026 midterms.