Donald Trump set off alarm bells earlier this week with comments that his administration should “take over the voting” in some states in the run-up to the 2026 midterms, which followed an unprecedented FBI raid on an election office in Georgia. Although election experts say it’s clear the president doesn’t have authority over elections, they warn the president’s corrosive rhetoric leaves little doubt about his intent.

For months, the Trump administration has stoked doubts about the integrity of American elections largely through lawsuits designed to create the impression states aren’t doing enough to keep ineligible voters off the rolls. That effort escalated significantly last week when the FBI raided the election office in Fulton county, Georgia and seized ballots, along with other materials, related to the 2020 election. Shortly after the raid, Trump escalated his attack even further, saying the federal government should take over elections.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said during a recent interview with Dan Bongino, the former deputy FBI director who has returned to hosting a podcast. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many – 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Democracy experts believe there is no longer any doubt about Trump’s desire to interfere with this fall’s elections.

“We should not be waiting for the next shoe to drop,” said Wendy Weiser, vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There is a full-blown effort to seize control of some of the mechanisms of our elections and to lay the foundation for interfering in upcoming elections.”

The president has no power over federal elections, and the US constitution is not ambiguous on the matter. Article I, section 4 of the document gives states the power to run elections. Congress, the constitution says, can pass nationwide rules for federal elections.

Nonetheless, Trump and his allies have suggested the president may still be able to wield some kind of emergency power to take control of the electoral process.

“The president’s authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States – as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have,” Cleta Mitchell, a conservative lawyer and Trump ally said on a podcast interview last year. “Then, I think maybe the president is thinking he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward.”

Declaring a national emergency unlocks about 150 statutory powers for the president, including things like shutting down radio stations, suspending certain military regulations, and to sanction foreign countries.

But none of those powers “even come close to giving the president any authority over elections”, Weiser said. “The president has zero emergency powers over elections.”

The concern about the president using emergency powers has only been amplified by the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, at the Fulton county raid. Gabbard, whose presence as an intelligence official on a domestic matter has caused widespread outrage, is said to be investigating voting equipment and foreign interference.

Among others, Gabbard is briefing Mitchell and Kurt Olsen, another lawyer who was involved in Trump’s effort to overturn the election, on her investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mitchell declined to comment on those briefings, but said she understood Trump’s comments to be more about the need to change federal voting laws.

“All of the election statutes need significant revision, updating, and reform. And many of us are working on that,” Mitchell said in an email. “Clearly there are far too many election officials nationwide who treat the law as optional suggestions. And have instituted procedures that are contrary to law. That happened in spades in 2020 and is all too common every election. Sloppy, poor administration and intentional disregard of basic statutory requirements. We see it everywhere.”

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020 or in any other election.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has framed Trump’s comments similarly. Trump subsequently undercut those efforts to downplay his comments, criticizing Democratic cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta, saying: “If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Beyond unspecified actions to take control of state election processes, there are other pathways for Trump to try to interfere in the election process.

Steve Bannon, the influential conservative personality and former Trump strategist, has called for Trump to deploy ICE agents at the polls. Such an effort would violate a federal law that prohibits federal troops from being at the polls “unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States”.

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again,” Bannon said on his podcast on Tuesday. “And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

The Trump administration has already shown its willingness to use emergency powers to try to expand the president’s authority. Last spring, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law that allows the government to deport immigrants without full due process. The United States, the government argued, was subject to an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Federal judges have since blocked that order and expressed skepticism it is a legitimate invasion. Trump has also claimed he has emergency powers to impose tariffs, though the supreme court appears poised to reject that argument.

Part of the reason Trump is talking about nationalizing elections now may be to try to get the public to accept an idea that is obviously illegal.

“He is trying to socialize an idea that has nothing to do with what our actual system is and that is actually against the law, to change public expectations about what’s actually valid and allowed,” she said. “That’s why the public needs to know about this. Because they need to know in advance that if that happens, that’s a trick, that’s a plot, that’s actually deception to get you to accept the unacceptable.”