Trump, other presidents don’t run American elections

Editors at National Review Online assess President Trump’s recent pronouncement about American election rules.

President Trump announced on social media that he intends to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and voting machines. Presidents are entitled to use their bully pulpit to encourage states to improve their election systems, but Trump goes on to say that he will sign an executive order ahead of the midterm elections, and that “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

This is both wrong and misguided on several levels.

First, Trump has said before that states are mere agents of the federal government in conducting federal elections. In fact, the states remain sovereign entities with primary responsibility for conducting elections both to state and federal office, and they need not follow federal orders unless the federal government is acting within an enumerated power to override state law. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution is explicit: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” It goes on to provide that “the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators,” but this is intended as a backstop; it does not convert the states into mere tools of Congress.

As the Supreme Court has reiterated repeatedly since 1890, presidential electors “are no more officers or agents of the United States than are the members of the state legislatures when acting as electors of federal senators, or the people of the states when acting as electors of representatives in Congress.”

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