Or did he mean Republicans should lead an effort to federalize them? During a monologue about immigration on a podcast with Dan Bongino, his former deputy FBI director, President Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
By “nationalize,” Trump clearly meant federalize them, as opposed to leaving them a mishmash of different state voting rules and procedures.
Trump has long argued that many elections in the U.S. are rife with fraud and that Democrats are perpetrating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party’s turnout.
Various Democrat-run states did, in fact, massively change voting rules and deadlines in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
Trump said his intent is to prevent voter fraud in the midterm elections, in which Democrats are projected to pick up Senate seats and flip control of the House.
His latest comments come after a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over U.S. elections, such as mid-decade redistricting, a plan to end mail-in ballots, and seizing voting records at the Fulton County election office in Georgia.
However, regarding nationalizing elections, the first article of the Constitution grants state legislatures the authority to determine the “times, places, and manner” of elections, so that elections are governed primarily by state law.
This has led to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country.
Still, the Constitution further grants Congress the authority to change the rules. And that is what Trump is suggesting.
While the legacy media, like The New York Times, framed Trump’s comments as a remarkable call for a political party to seize the mechanisms of voting, Trump likely meant Republicans in Congress should lead the effort to have Congress pass a law to do it.
Regardless of Trump’s intent, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune has rejected Trump’s call.
Thune said that while he strongly supports requiring voters to show identification to prove they are citizens, he does not support the federal government seizing the power to run elections, noting the Constitution gives that power to the states.
“I’m supportive of only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places. I think that makes sense. … But I’m not in favor of federalizing elections, no. I think that’s a constitutional issue,” Thune told reporters.
Trump’s call comes amid a push by Senate and House conservatives to pass the SAVE Act, which would require voters to present documents such as passports and birth certificates to prove their citizenship when registering to vote.
The bill would also require an overhaul of online voter registration systems and require states to conduct regular reviews of voting rolls to purge voters who are associated with faulty data.
Of course, Democrats have said they will vigorously oppose stricter voting rules, crying racism with Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer smearing the SAVE Act as “nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Official Trump Tracker.
