Trump Wants To ‘Nationalize The Voting,’ Giving The Federal Government Power Over How States Conduct Elections

President Donald Trump is, once again, proving that “states’ rights” is only a political narrative Republicans cling to when it’s a convenient way of trivializing civil rights issues and rewriting U.S. history. However, when it comes to issues such as education funding, the federalization of law enforcement, and, of course, elections, MAGA Republicans just keep showing us that they never cared about the sovereignty of individual states, specifically Democratic states, and that’s why Trump is now talking about how he wants to “nationalize the voting,” as he continues to lie about the 2020 presidential race being rigged against him.

According to the Washington Post, Trump said Monday that Republican lawmakers should nationalize voting, despite the U.S. Constitution being explicitly clear that running state and federal elections is a power granted to state authorities.

From the Post:

Speaking to right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, who recently stepped down from his role as the FBI’s deputy director, Trump again falsely alleged that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and he urged Republicans to “take over” elections and nationalize the process.

“We should take over the voting, the voting, in at least 15 places,” Trump told Bongino. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Under the Constitution, the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding elections are determined by each state, not the federal government. Congress has the power to set election rules, but the Constitution does not give the president any role on that subject. Republicans in recent decades have often argued in favor of states’ rights and against a powerful federal government.

Trump’s demand comes less than a week after the FBI executed a search warrant at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, which is at the heart of right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The unusual warrant authorized agents to seize all physical ballots from the 2020 election, voting machine tabulator tapes, images produced during the ballot count and voter rolls from that year. Days before the search, Trump claimed in a speech at the Davos World Economic Forum that the 2020 election was rigged.

As I have written more times than anyone would care to count, Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him “has been denied, debunked and denounced by dozens of judges across lower courts, appellate courts and the Supreme Court, the former head of election cybersecurity — whom Trump fired for refusing to go along with his lie — Trump’s own attorney general, his own vice president, and the Department of Justice.” Meanwhile, virtually every study and investigation done on the subject has shown that voter fraud in the U.S. is extremely rare. Yet Republican legislators across the country are proposing and passing voter suppression laws under the pretext of securing elections that they haven’t proven need to be secured.

Trump doesn’t want to “nationalize the voting” to ensure the integrity of elections; he wants it for the same reason he pushes for the redistricting of voting maps for Republican-led states while opposing the exact same effort in Democrat-led states…

The midterms are coming, and Republican policies are becoming less and less popular by the day.

Over the last five years at least, Trump’s political strategy has been simple: if Republicans can’t win organically, they should cheat and then lie and say it’s the other side that has been cheating.

Donald Trump is the fraud he keeps claiming to be a victim of, and he demonstrates it every single day.

SEE ALSO:

Fulton County Election Records From 2020 Seized By FBI

House Passes SAVE Act Voting Bill That Will Disenfranchise Millions