THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE MARTIAL LAW
Quick question for you. If an election only counts as rigged when your side loses, what do you call the backup plan? Take the blue pill tonight. It’s the one that shows you the plan.
“There would have to be martial law”
On a Sept. 30 video call for MAGA election activists, streamed on Rumble, Florida attorney Peter Ticktin said “there would have to be martial law in the event... [of] another rigged election,” Axios reported Friday. Ticktin is Donald Trump’s childhood friend. He later told Axios there would “probably need to be commandeering of ballots and election equipment.”
Ticktin also represents Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, election clerk convicted in 2024 of crimes tied to a breach of her county’s election equipment. Peters met with Trump this month, per Axios. Trump had lunch at the White House with Peters and Ticktin in late June, about four weeks after she left prison, according to Votebeat. Peters told Votebeat she has traveled to Washington seven times.
Others on the call had their own wish lists. Gregory Stenstrom, who testified about alleged voting irregularities in Pennsylvania in 2020, said he most wanted the election paused. His fallback: have Trump invoke the National Emergencies Act to force states to change how they run elections.
THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE MARTIAL LAW: not a bumper sticker. A quote from a man who had lunch with the president in June.
President Donald Trump’s official 2025 portrait. Asked in August about declaring a national security emergency to assert more authority over elections, he said, “Stranger things have happened.” Credit: Daniel Torok, The White House, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
What the White House says
A White House spokesperson, Lauren Bis, told Axios that “every legal vote must count” and that Americans “must have complete confidence in the integrity of our elections.” Trump himself was asked in August, on Real America’s Voice, about declaring a national security emergency to get more control over elections. His answer, per Votebeat: “Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK? I’ll leave it at that.”
This crowd isn’t only on Rumble. Heather Honey, best known for denying the 2020 results in Pennsylvania and Arizona, is now the Homeland Security Department’s deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, Axios reports. White House adviser Peter Navarro still promotes his own report of mass fraud in 2020.
And there is no evidence the midterms will be rigged, Axios notes. David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research put the timing plainly: “This election did not sneak up on the administration. They’ve been in office for 21 months.”
A Mesa County, Colorado, panel that included then-clerk Tina Peters at Mike Lindell’s Cyber Symposium, Aug. 10, 2021. Peters was convicted in 2024; she has since met with Trump at the White House. Credit: Douglas W. Jones, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
What the law says
“Emergency powers are not just a blank check for the president to go do whatever they want,” Derek Tisler of the Brennan Center told Axios. Congress sets the date of federal elections, so Trump can’t delay the midterms. States choose their voting systems and how votes are counted, so he can’t order a nationwide hand recount or swap out the machines. And martial law would not give him authority to seize election materials or override federal and state election laws.
Federal courts have already blocked key pieces of two Trump executive orders on elections, Votebeat reports. The Constitution doesn’t have a “stranger things have happened” clause.
We covered the ICE-at-the-polls version in Armed Integrity and the courtroom version in Integrity for Thee, Postage for Me. See who represents your state, and build your own electoral map, on the Money Map.
The red costume: law and order, except on Election Day
The party of law and order is hosting a convicted election-equipment tamperer at the White House. Its president answers a question about emergency powers over elections with a wink. Its activists are openly floating ballot seizures. We watched the “honesty” pitch turn into something else in Cheat Like Hell, and the voter-roll version in Who Decides Who Votes.
You can’t run as the party of the Constitution while your friends draft the martial-law memo.
The blue costume: guardians of democracy, mostly
Democrats warn, correctly, that election denial is dangerous. Now look at who opened the cell door. On May 15, Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, commuted Peters’ nearly nine-year sentence to 4 years and 4.5 months, with parole on June 1, per his clemency announcement. AP reported he did it after pressure from Trump. Polis wrote to Peters that “the crimes you were convicted of are very serious.” Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, called the commutation “an affront to our democracy” that would “validate and embolden the election denial movement.” Weeks later, Peters was at lunch in the White House.
The “rigged” habit isn’t one party’s, either. On Jan. 6, 2017, House Democrats rose again and again to object to Trump’s electoral votes; CNN counted 11 times Vice President Joe Biden was interrupted. No senator joined, and Biden gaveled it closed: “It is over,” per NPR. In 2019, Hillary Clinton told CBS News that Trump “knows he’s an illegitimate president.” Nobody asked for martial law. Different scale. Same instinct: the result is real when you win.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, in January 2026. On May 15 he commuted Tina Peters’ sentence; Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state called it “an affront to our democracy.” Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Both costumes
Here’s the adult version.
One side’s fringe is talking martial law and ballot seizures with a direct line to the president, and the president is leaving the door open. That is not the same as a protest objection gaveled down in 2017. But Democrats who want to own the word “democracy” have a governor who shortened the sentence and a 2016 nominee who called the winner illegitimate.
Own the boring standard: the loser concedes when the states certify, disputes go to court, and nobody in uniform touches a ballot. Both parties, in writing, before Nov. 3.
Ask your reps one question: will they say on the record, now, that they’ll accept the certified results whichever way they go?
Receipts
- Axios (Brittany Gibson), Oct. 16, 2026. Ticktin “martial law” quote and ballot-commandeering comment; Stenstrom; Peters met Trump this month; Heather Honey; Navarro; Brennan Center limits; Becker; White House statement.
- Votebeat (Dion Nissenbaum), Oct. 13, 2026. June White House lunch; Peters’ seven Washington trips; Trump’s “stranger things have happened” answer; courts blocking executive orders.
- Colorado Governor’s Office, May 15, 2026 and Polis letter to Peters. Commutation and parole terms.
- AP, May 15, 2026. Commutation came after pressure from Trump.
- Colorado Secretary of State, May 15, 2026. Griswold statement; Peters’ convictions.
- CNN, Jan. 6, 2017 and NPR, Jan. 6, 2017. House Democrats’ objections; Biden: “It is over.”
- CBS News, Sept. 26, 2019. Clinton: Trump “knows he’s an illegitimate president.”
- Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: Armed Integrity; Integrity for Thee, Postage for Me; Cheat Like Hell; Who Decides Who Votes. Reader tools: Money Map and electoral map; Colorado.
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Originally published on Substack.
