Facing defeat in mid-terms, Trump sought to ban half of US election voting machines: Report

In a desperate bid to control the outcome of elections, allies of US President Donald Trump sought to ban half of all voting machines used in the country by citing conspiracy theories that have been debunked over the years, according to Reuters.

White House adviser Kurt Olsen floated a plan to have the Department of Commerce designate Dominion Voting Systems as a national security risk.

Such a designation would have barred Dominion’s machines from being used in elections. Currently, 27 states use its machines to count paper ballots.

The plan was based on a debunked theory that Venezuela had hacked Dominion’s machines in the 2020 election to steal the vote from Trump. The claim was disproved in court, and pro-Trump outlet Fox News had to pay Dominion $787 million after being found liable for defamation for repeating the false claim on air.

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But Olsen’s plan was so weak that even the White House and the Department of Commerce were unable to pursue it and it ultimately collapsed.

Reuters reported that even with the entire administration at his disposal, Olsen failed to come up with any basis to ban Dominion.

The proposal formed part of efforts by Trump and his allies to take greater control over the American electoral process. With the Republican Party widely expected to lose this year’s midterm elections, Trump and his allies have resorted to tactics aimed at reshaping the electoral system in their favour. For example, Republican-controlled state legislatures have redrawn electoral maps to create constituencies more favourable to the party.

Additionally, Trump has urged Republicans to nationalise elections. Currently, elections are administered by individual states under their own laws, and rules vary widely across the country. Trump has called on his supporters to dismantle this federal structure and hand control to the federal government.

Trump has also sought to appoint judges who agree with his claim that he —rather than previous President Joe Biden— won the 2020 election. The aim of such appointments, according to critics, is to ensure a judiciary sympathetic to his position should he challenge unfavourable election results in court.