U.S. elections are run by state governments, but President Donald Trump, still brooding over his loss in 2020, says he wants to “nationalize” American elections. Democrats and other critics see a looming attempt to rig the voting process.
Trump has long falsely claimed he won the 2020 election, said NBC News, and the loss remains a sore spot. There are swing states “that I won that show I didn’t win,” the president said in a recent podcast interview. His suggested solution is that Republicans “ought to nationalize the voting.” But the U.S. Constitution gives states — not the federal government — authority over the “times, places and manner” of federal elections, said USA Today. Trump’s proposal is “outlandishly illegal,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Senate floor.
An electoral power grab?
Trump’s push to nationalize elections is a “radical power grab,” said Steve Benen at MS Now. Even if the president’s “bonkers conspiracy theories” were true, the Constitution’s requirements make it difficult for Republicans to “simply launch an electoral power-grab at will.” Trump has proven interested in testing legal limits, however, and has even “floated the idea of canceling future U.S. elections.” Americans concerned about voting rights “don’t have the luxury of simply shrugging with indifference at the president’s latest nonsense.”
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Nationalizing elections would be both politically and legally “fraught,” Chris Cillizza said in his So What newsletter. The president “can bluster,” and may even make a serious attempt to take control of this year’s midterm elections. Democrats should take it seriously, but not panic: The constraints on his authority are “too tight.”
Democrats are already making plans, said Lauren Egan at The Bulwark. Party leaders expect that the “worse Trump’s polling gets, the more aggressively he will look for ways to interfere with the elections.” The White House is already demanding rolls from states to build a voter database, and Democrats are countering with lawsuits and other legal efforts to block federal intrusion. America’s founders deliberately put elections in state hands, said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, per the Bulwark. They “placed the people closest to the voters, local and state election officials, in charge of elections” to ward off a tyrannical overreach.
Making elections secure
Elected Republicans may not go along with Trump, said The Washington Examiner. “I’m not in favor of federalizing elections,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to reporters. Some GOP state election officials could also resist, said The New York Times. It is “problematic” to claim that those officials are “not doing our jobs and the federal government has to do it for us,” said Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson at a conference last week.
Others do see a federal role. “Democracy suffers” when voters lose confidence in election fairness, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at The Wall Street Journal. Congress can and should require voters to use a Real ID to cast a ballot. Voting rights and election security should not be “competing values.” A federal Real ID requirement would make elections “safe, secure and worthy of public trust.”
