WASHINGTON, D.C. — In comments that immediately raised constitutional and democratic concerns, President Donald Trump urged Republicans to “take over” the administration of congressional elections in multiple states, according to UC Davis School of Law Professor Vikram Amar writing in Justia Verdict.
Speaking on the podcast of former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, Trump called on Republicans to assume control of voting in “at least many—15 places,” arguing that elections should be nationalized because, he claimed, “we have states that are so crooked.”
Amar examines three central legal and practical questions raised by the president’s remarks, beginning with whether such a nationalization of congressional elections would survive constitutional scrutiny.
As The New York Times noted, Trump’s statement was “an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters,” adding that he “called for Republican officials to ‘take over’ voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.”
Addressing the first question of whether “such a ‘nationalization’ of congressional elections [would] be struck down by the courts,” Amar wrote in Justia Verdict that it is “quite possibl[e], but not for the facile reason offered by countless media analysts and outlets earlier this week.”
According to Amar, when CNN asked legal affairs analyst Jeffrey Toobin whether “the president’s suggestion that voting be ‘nationalize[d] in democratic states… is remotely constitutional,’” Toobin replied that “the Constitution is vague in certain ways—uses phrases like due process that, you know, are susceptible to many different interpretations. This is not one of those areas… Article I of the Constitution… [says] the states run elections in this country.”
Agreeing with that general point, The New York Times observed that state control of elections produces “a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country,” while noting that Trump “has long been fixated on the false claims that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and that Democrats are perpetrating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party’s turnout.”
Amar noted, however, that Article I of the Constitution also provides that “Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations,” a point Toobin did not address, even as Toobin observed that the “idea that the president is saying, on his own, that the federal government will take that power away from states is simply not allowed in our system.”
Though that limitation is real, Amar wrote that “the president’s Monday remarks referred not to his own power or that of his Administration, but of ‘Republicans,’ who control both houses of Congress and… could propose whatever legislation they want to him for his approval.”
The New York Times reports that the president’s “remarkable call for a political party to seize the mechanisms of voting follows a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections,” including an incident last week in which “F.B.I. agents seized ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election from an election center in Fulton County.”
Amar wrote that courts would likely be hostile to the president’s suggestion because of another core feature of the proposal: applying federal control only to a select group of states deemed untrustworthy by the president.
Amar explainedthat the Supreme Court has recognized a “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” among the states, meaning that differential treatment requires a strong showing that the geographic disparity is closely tied to the specific problem being addressed.
As Amar wrote , such an approach would require “careful and evidence-backed findings by Congress” demonstrating that the roughly 15 targeted states suffer from distinct corruption or voter fraud problems, findings that do not exist and would conflict with numerous court rulings and bipartisan reviews following the 2020 election.
Turning to the second question — whether Congress is likely to act on Trump’s suggestion — Amar wrote that there is no current consensus that elections are unfair and that “much of the American public, including some Republicans and Independents, would be outraged by the attempted implementation of the president’s suggestions.”
Amar also wrote that voters in Republican-led states would likely resist federal takeovers of their own election systems, effectively forcing any such plan to focus only on Democratic-leaning states and thereby deepening the constitutional problems.
The New York Times adds that in March the president signed an executive order attempting to reshape election rules by requiring documentary proof of citizenship and mandating that mail ballots be received by poll closing time, an effort that courts have largely rejected.
Amar posed a third question: If the proposal is unlikely to be enacted or upheld, why is there still cause for concern?
Answering that question, Amar pointed to the recent FBI seizure of ballots and voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, and wrote that ideas like those floated by the president contribute to “an atmosphere of fear and suspicion about how far this Administration might go to avert a Democratic rout this November.”
The New York Times reports that Trump “has made little secret of his interest in expanding the federal government’s role in administering American elections,” including telling the paper last month that he regretted not deploying the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.
Trump also asserted that “if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican,” referring to undocumented immigrants, a claim The New York Times notes is unsupported by evidence.
Citing a 2024 audit by Georgia’s secretary of state, the Times reports that just 20 of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters were noncitizens and that only nine had ever voted.
Amar concluded in Justia Verdict by situating Trump’s comments within what he described as a broader climate of intimidation, noting that “all of this takes place against a backdrop of forceful physical tactics ICE and other federal enforcement officials have displayed in recent months,” adding that threats need not be carried out to have a chilling effect on voter participation.
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