#wayne willott

Alex Kaplan at MMFA:

After President Donald Trump issued an executive order at the end of March aimed at stopping supposed fraud with mail-in ballots, election deniers have urged Trump to declare a national emergency to allow a federal takeover of election processes. On June 24, Trump echoed those calls and suggested that passing a bill to supposedly combat election fraud is a “national emergency.” Media figures who have pushed claims of widespread election fraud — some of whom say they have been involved with drafting such an order that is “sitting on his [Trump’s] desk” — have urged Trump to give himself “king-like powers” by implementing the proposal, as it would supposedly empower Trump to “be able to make the rules” and use the National Guard to oversee midterm elections. Others claim that they have asked Trump directly to invoke the proposed order, saying it would be “very easy” for the president to “issue an executive order through a national emergency and have the National Guard count those ballots by hand.”

Election deniers drafted executive order declaring a national emergency to implement election policies and Trump issued an executive order on mail-in ballots

Since at least April 2025, a group of right-wing figures and Trump allies have called for Trump to issue a national emergency declaration “to make sure that the elections in 2026 are secure,” even proposing and circulating among Trump administration officials a draft executive order that would “declare a national emergency” and “empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference.” Those involved include attorney Peter Ticktin, former Infowars staffer Jerome Corsi, and QAnon influencer Wayne Willot, known online as Juan O. Savin.

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Trump and his right-wing media allies have been pushing claims of election fraud for years. During Trump's second term, election deniers known for promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been given access to the levers of power — feeding already debunked claims to the Department of Justice, taking roles in the administration, and contributing to federal investigations. Some, like Peters, Byrne, and Martin Rodil, claimed they have spoken directly with Trump and administration officials. (The Guardian reported Rodil became a source “for the Trump camp and ultimately for investigators and … promoted two major allegations about Venezuela.”)

Alex Kaplan at MMFA: 

Last December, while discussing supposed “election integrity” efforts, Gregg Phillips, a leader of the election denial organization True the Vote, told an attorney for former President Donald Trump that “people want to come in and help,” and “that’s what this Anon movement is about.”

And “help” it has. Five years after “Q” began a movement based on a conspiracy theory that Trump would crush his supposed enemies and a cabal of pedophiles with mass arrests, QAnon had evolved into an online anti-reality network that has shifted much of its focus to boosting other conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine misinformation and, increasingly, election denial. It is now an online distribution system that the election denial movement and other conspiracy theorists can exploit to spread their false claims and gain attention for their organizations.

QAnon was born out of far-right message boards and grew as supporters repeatedly helped spread misinformation online during years of inaction from social media platforms. The movement became so much of a threat that multiple government agencies issued internal warnings on its supporters, who have committed multiple acts of violence, including the January 6 insurrection.

During the 2022 election cycle, the QAnon community saw a closer level of association with the election denial movement — including Trump and his associates — providing a broad extremist network for denialists to easily promote themselves and spread their conspiracy theories to people primed to support them.

QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin’s election-denial candidates coalition

Leading up to the midterm elections, QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin (whose real name is Wayne Willott) and Nevada secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant recruited election denial candidates for positions where they would be in charge of election administration. Savin boasted of his involvement, claiming that every week he would “have a call to all my candidates from around the country,” including discussing fundraising.

Savin also said he had created the “largest election integrity presentation groups in the country" -- events where denialists, sometimes including coalition members, discussed supposed evidence of voter fraud -- and that he was working “behind the scenes” and hiring QAnon sympathizer Lara Logan to “host” them.

Following the midterm elections, Savin moved to another election denial effort, teaming up with a pair of brothers to promote a long-shot challenge to the 2020 election, which the Supreme Court declined to hear.

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Wayne Willott is known in the QAnon community as “Juan O. Savin.” He has achieved some notoriety in QAnon circles because he’s been able to get the ear of “celebrities” like actor Jim Caviezel. He is also one of the architects of an actual conspiracy to control our country’s election system. While Willott has a semi-guru status among QAnon conmen, he has appeared in public for rarely, but just enough so that he has become one of two possible QAnon candidates for being the secretly alive John F. Kennedy Jr. Does that not make much sense to you? No worries, we’ll get to it.

Willott and the QAnon world are running QAnon-friendly candidates across the country in key swing state races, as part of a bid for control of our elections system. A former private investigator for companies trying to get out of paying insurance claims, Willott is credited with cultivating the “slate of candidates running to control elections in battleground states in 2024.” The America First Secretary of State Coalition, the brainchild of Willott and former Republican state representative Jim Marchant, began its work in the hopes of overturning the 2020 election, but has quickly moved toward gaining control of the offices that can be used to overturn future elections. But besides probably not being the resurrected body of John F. Kennedy Jr., not a ton is known about Willott.

The Daily Beast reports that Willott seems to have grown up in the Seattle area, where he also seems to still reside. It appears that the 65-year-old Willott spent from the 1970s up until about 10 years ago working as a private investigator, as well as working on insurance claims in Alaska. “Court records show Willott videotaping potential worker’s compensation claimants to see if they were really injured, checking if they were genuinely too injured to perform yard work.”