1 of 4 | President Donald Trump says U.S. elections should be nationalized, shifting away from the model of state control that has lasted nearly 250 years. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Feb. 6 (UPI) — President Donald Trump says U.S. elections should be nationalized, shifting away from the model of state control that has lasted nearly 250 years.
Trump shared his idea on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast earlier this week, continuing his longstanding position that widespread fraud is a problem for U.S. elections. That claim was repeatedly found to be lacking evidence when he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,'” Trump said of nationalizing elections. “‘We should take over the voting in at least maybe 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize voting.'”
Why Trump wants to ‘nationalize’ elections
Trump’s proposal conflicts with the longstanding manner by which elections are governed and the constitutional limits on the powers of the president.
What Trump means by nationalizing elections is not immediately clear since he did not go into detail. There is also no legal definition for the term but Trump has made clear that he wants greater authority over the election process. He has taken steps such as issuing executive orders to call for proof-of-citizenship requirements and restrictions to mail-in voting.
Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director of Verified Voting, told UPI that Trump’s distrust of the election process is the backdrop to the entire idea.
“The context in which to hear all of this is that Donald Trump has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was stolen,” Lindeman said.
In 2022, Trump said that all rules and regulations, including the Constitution, could be terminated in response to election fraud.
“A massive fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote on social media in December 2022. “Our great founders did not want and would not condone false and fraudulent elections.”
Can the president change elections?
Regardless of the president’s desires, he does not have the authority to make any changes to the administration of elections. The Constitution outlines no role for the president when it comes to elections in Article 1, Section 4 of the Tenth Amendment, the Elections Clause.
“In our Constitution, a president cannot federalize elections,” Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, told UPI. “The president, him or herself, cannot just dictate election changes.”
Federal judges have already blocked portions of Trump’s executi