I assume I’m like many Americans when I say I can’t always tell when President Donald Trump is serious or when he’s merely floating an idea for effect.
But this much I do know: His latest provocative suggestion that Republicans should take control of federal elections this year in possibly 15 states is a terrible idea.
Thankfully, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly closed the door to such foolishness in the Senate, correctly noting, “That’s a constitutional issue.”
On that score, there shouldn’t be much debate.
Constitution is clear
Article 1, Section 4 gives state legislatures the power to set the “times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives.”
The second part of that constitutional clause says, “but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of chusing senators.” This has been used through the years to regulate how state election systems may operate, especially in regard to racial fairness, but never to usurp several states’ powers completely.
After President Trump made his comments on a podcast with former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, the White House began clarifying that the president actually was referring to the SAVE Act sponsored by Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
That bill would, among other things, require people to supply proof of citizenship when registering to vote. That would not present the constitutional problems inherent in a federal takeover of elections.
However, the president has continued to assert he wants Republicans to nationalize voting in at least 15 states, without mentioning them by name. And so it’s worth explaining why this would be bad idea.
Local control and security
The most important thing to remember in this debate is a number — 3,244. That’s how many counties and county equivalents exist in the United States. Most of them administer a part of the elections that regularly decide members of Congress and the presidency.
They do so separately, independently and in slightly different ways.
That’s as beautiful a working argument for states’ rights and the wisdom of local control as you could find. Washington likes to get its hands on everything the states do, but elections remain complicated, fragmented and downright difficult to manipulate.
Voter fraud has been a part of American elections virtually from the start, but it remains rare and, in a fragmented system, difficult to manipulate into causing broad harm. A successful conspiracy to rig an election would have to involve complicit precinct judges, technicians in charge of tabulating machines and postelection auditors in several key counties. That’s much harder than hacking into an enormous centralized election bureaucracy in Washington.
As Brennan Center officials Jess Brouard and Derek Tisler wrote for the State Court Report last year:
“This decentralization is an important feature of American democracy. Since officials on the local level are empowered to handle the bulk of election operations, they can adjust procedures based on the needs and capacity of their communities. That kind of flexibility ensures fair elections can happen even in difficult circumstances, like if a natural disaster strikes.
“Furthermore, having election officials operate in their own communities creates responsiveness and transparency for voters — the people who serve you at the election office and the polling place are your neighbors who have a real stake in ensuring your community has a chance to be heard.”
Or as Thune put it: “I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one. In my view, at least, that’s always a system that has worked pretty well.”
2020 election was not rigged
Indeed it has, notwithstanding the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that have been echoing for nearly six years.
The U.S. election system is an example of good old-fashioned conservative local control, which is why it’s so hard to hear a Republican president brushing it aside.
Sixty-four lawsuits were filed alleging fraud in the 2020 election. None succeeded.
A panel of former jurists and other notable conservatives thoroughly examined each case as well as election audits in battleground states. A distinguished member of that group, former U.S. Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Thomas B. Griffith, who currently is a fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, wrote of that experience:
“We have reached the unequivocal conclusion that Trump’s claims of election fraud are unsupported by evidence.”
Was the president serious? Was he merely making a plug for the Save Act? I don’t know. But the recent FBI search of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office for records related to 2020 show this 6-year-old drama has yet to play out.