Can Trump ‘Nationalize’ Elections?

President Trump’s call to Republicans to “nationalize” elections comes as the 2026 vote is fast approaching. Mr. Trump told the podcaster Dan Bongino that “Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.” Those views come a week after the FBI searched an elections office at Fulton County, Georgia. Mr. Trump’s bluster, though, could shine new light on constitutional bedrock. The Elections Clause ordains that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.” That means that in the first instance each state establishes how it elects representatives. Congress, though, retains a role. And a potentially expansive one at that, signalled by the word “any.” The Legal Information Institute explains that “By providing Congress power to preempt state election procedures, the Framers sought to prevent states from thwarting the federal government’s operation.” Something similar holds in the Supremacy Clause, which mandates that when state law and federal law conflict, the latter — part of the “supreme law of the land” — prevails.The Supreme Court has called the grant of authority to the states a “default provision; it invests the States with responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections but only so far as Congress declines to pre-empt.” In another case the court explained that the “States’ role in regulating congressional elections — while weighty and worthy of respect — has always existed subject to the express qualification that ‘it terminates according to federal law.’” The Senate majority leader, John Thune, on Tuesday said that “I’m not in favor of federalizing elections. That’s a constitutional issue.” He adds that he is “a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. It’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one. So it, in my view, at least, that’s always a system that’s worked pretty well.” Mr. Trump, who has contested the vote count in 2020 — and was charged for doing so — is likely less sanguine.Speaker Mike Johnson struck a cautious tone, reckoning that “it’s always been the responsibility of the states to administer elections and it’s a system that works well, so long as the states make it a priority to ensure the integrity of our elections.” He added a dig at Democratic states, venturing that he has “real concerns about some of the blue states, frankly, that have not been doing that well.” Fulton County has sued the administration for seizing records.Far be it from us to question the vast power given to the federales to preempt state election law. Yet a plain reading suggests that the Framers meant the states to shape elections in their territory absent extraordinary circumstances — and we grasp that Mr. Trump is alleging such circumstances, though he has not laid them out to the public — we agree with Mr. Thune that the system envisioned at the Constitutional Convention has worked “pretty well.”

Can Trump ‘Nationalize’ Elections?

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