No, this executive order does not authorize President Joe Biden to suspend elections

A recent Facebook post warns of “permanent tyranny” and points to a new directive from President Joe Biden, Executive Order 14122.

“Tyrant may suspend the presidential election IF a new pandemic hits the US!” The April 26 post states that it shares a screenshot of a blog post from the same date that reads, in part: “Biden enacts the Executive Order 14122.” However, the blog post does not suggest that the executive order allows Biden to suspend elections.

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Executive Order 14122, issued April 12, does not authorize Biden to suspend the presidential election.

Rather, the order revokes several executive orders that Biden’s administration deemed “no longer necessary” and transfers “certain roles and responsibilities” established by other executive orders to the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, which Congress created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic -19 pandemic had set up.

The executive orders Biden revoked included one “preventing the hoarding of health and medical resources to respond to the spread of COVID-19” and another “requiring the wearing of masks.”

The order does not mention the suspension of the presidential election. In fact, there is no mention of elections at all.

Under U.S. law, federal elections in even years take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. As the Congressional Research Service notes, changing the date would require the passage of a new law because “neither the Constitution nor Congress gives the President or other federal officials the authority to change this date outside of the regular legislative process of Congress.”

We rate this post as false.