Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett to alk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
President Trump recently called for the federal government to take control of how elections are run. But in the U.S., states run their own elections and state officials are pushing back, including in New Hampshire.
Civics 101 host Hannah McCarthy joined Julia to explain state and federal roles in elections and what a federal takeover of elections could look like.
Transcript
So, Hannah, states have most of the power of administrating elections. What is the extent of the federal government's role in elections?
Well, if we look to the Constitution, which we should, it tells us how elections work in the United States. And it is very brief. It says, “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.” In other words, the federal government's role is vested in the legislature when it comes to elections.
So what can they do? For one thing, they can ensure that states, when it comes to elections, are abiding by the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment, the ban on racial discrimination in the 15th Amendment, the ban on sex-based discrimination in the 19th Amendment, the ban on poll taxes in the 24th Amendment [and] the voting age of 18 and the 26th Amendment. And in 1974, Congress created the Federal Election Commission to oversee campaign fundraising and spending. Beyond that, Congress has passed laws like the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
So what would it look like if the federal government just took over elections?
Well, the idea that the government could take control, take over elections should be nonsensical given the U.S. Constitution and our history as a democratic nation. That said, constitutional violations do happen.
The United States has this decentralized election system that allows us to evade partisan influence, and it protects us against something like a cyber attack. There is no evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election, for example, despite claims from the president and others that there was foreign interference. And I want to be clear that interference and influence, those are not the same thing. Russia and Iran worked to influence the election via social media and other paths. And the reason I bring this up is because there is currently a draft executive order reportedly being circulated in the White House, and it is predicated on the idea that there was foreign interference in the 2020 election. And the president can declare a national emergency to seize unprecedented control of election systems. This order is not only based on a disproven claim, it uses incorrect legal reasoning and, if implemented, would be blatantly unconstitutional. That said, President Trump has said he has never heard of it.
And why this push for nationalizing elections now?
The likeliest answer to this is because we are approaching a midterm election. So election experts say that the proposed Save America Act would make it harder for people of color, married people who have changed their name, young people and elderly people to vote. And now, this is no guarantee, but restricting election access to certain demographics can significantly impact the outcome of an election.
Even without the Save America Act passing, the repeated claims that our elections are not safe, not secure, and therefore not consistently legitimate, sets the stage for being able to claim that future election outcomes are invalid. Investigations show our elections are safe, secure and valid. Today in this country, we have politicians saying they are not unless, of course, they win.
