Can American elections be "nationalized"? What does that mean?

votes, sometimes with two bucks, sometimes with booze or sandwich, and people voting, and

then voting again, but in disguise, and there was fraud and corruption and intimidation, and it sounds like it was a real mess, right? It does indeed, Hannah, the 19th century, if you remember it, you weren't there. I'm Hannah McCarthy. I'm Nick Cavity, Jay.

And this is Civic's 101. There are some really juicy stories about the supposed jam that was the 19th century election system. You ever hear the one about Edgar Allan Poe being kidnapped, drugged, and forced to vote by a

“bunch of poll hustlers in an 1849 congressional election, and then dying a few days later?”

And is that true? Maybe. Is it matter? I feel like it probably does, yes. Well my point there, Nick, is that a juicy story is a useful story.

And there were four short, some gnarly things going on in that era of American elections. And election reformers did their best to put a stop to that. There was the rise of the secret ballot for one thing. A.K.A. the Australian ballot, A.K.A. people don't know who you're voting for, and that makes it a lot harder to mess with you.

And it's basically useless to try and buy your vote.

That was the idea, right? That in a bunch of other reforms were passed to clean that system up, and voter turnout went down.

“Because all that vote buying and fraud disappeared?”

Well, that's one way to look at it, and that is the way that a lot of people have looked at it. But it's kind of hard to know what was actually going on, because for one thing, a lot of the people who were crying corruption had skin in the game. I'm talking about opposing parties, perhaps casting some doubt on elections, and anti-party

reformers who wanted to shake the whole system up. Now, vote buying was happening, right? That's not great.

So we're other shenanigans for sure.

But a lot of what we know about it comes from people with a clear motive. So it was happening, but we don't know how bad it really was. What we do know, again, is that this age of voter reform predicated on the claims that bribery and intimidation and corruption were running a muck in the election system. It resulted in fewer people voting.

There were new voter registration requirements, whole taxes, literacy tests. Nevermind to the fact that the secret ballot was itself a literacy test of sorts. You had to be able to read it in order to use it. So this reform resulted in certain eligible voter populations becoming disenfranchised. Non-English speakers, illiterate people, immigrant men, impoverished men, black men.

And if you can disenfranchise whole demographics, you can gain a whole lot of political control. That's right. The Arkansas Democratic Party even had a campaign song about that in 1892. Do you want to hear the lyrics? I really don't, but go ahead.

The Australian ballot works a charm. It makes them think and scratch. And when Amy grow gets a ballot, he certainly has got his match. They go into the booth alone, their ticket to prepare, and as soon as the five minutes are out, they got to get from there.

All right. Well, that was just about as disgusting as I expected. Sure is. And it also points to a clear awareness on the part of political parties that this voting reform would result in people not being able to vote.

And stopping people from voting specifically by targeting certain groups, that is a really effective way to get what you want out of an election. And Nick, I'm not saying that the secret ballot is full stop a bad thing, especially now, of course. In fact, protecting a voter's right to secrecy was part of the reasoning behind a democratic

defeat of a recent voter ID amendment in the Senate. The secret ballot has become a foundation of the American election system. I'm bringing up this little bit of history to point out that there are good reasons to protect elections and protect voters, and good things can come out of reform. But you also have to look at the reality of the voting landscape in which reform is passed.

“And you should ask why the reform is being proposed.”

Is the problem really what people say it is? And what will the proposed solution do to elections and to voters? So, let's ask some questions.

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You're a good guy. You're a good guy. You're a good guy. This seems to lean into some of these repeated fall statements about widespread corruption and fraud in U.S. elections seems to again be an effort to so doubt in the credibility

of our election processes. It also really doesn't seem to be grounded in reality. This is Sarah Cooper. I'm Sarah Cooper, and the Associate Director for Democracy at the Carter Center. I've been in that role for a little bit less than two years, and I sit on top of all of

our work to provide nonpartisan oversight and commentary of elections in the United States. All right. We've talked with the Carter Center before. We have. Jason Carter helped us understand the non-problem of non-citizens voting.

I recommend listening to the episode called "Fixing a Problem that doesn't exist" to understand that whole situation as well as the details of the Save Act.

“The Carter Center is the one that observes elections, right?”

Right. But observing elections in the United States is a new thing for the Carter Center. It used to be that they observed elections in other countries, only recently they decided that the United States may need a little bit of help as well. So as we've pivoted to observing elections in the United States, we take a bit of a full

cycle approach to how that observation has done. We'll have individuals watching the process starting with the testing of election equipment, things that are often happening weeks or months before election day, and all the way through to any post-election audit processes and the certification of results, and it really is kind of a full cycle that's important to watch and not just election day.

This era was super clear. It is not like the Carter Center is going in convinced there are bad actors in the election system.

It's that, as with almost anything, when it comes to elections, there is always room for improvement.

We talk about democracy as a constant work in progress, not a fixed point, and so by having observers make recommendations for ways that the process can improve and come back the next time to check and see where those recommendations implemented, it can contribute to better election administration over time as well.

behind the SAVE Act, voter fraud.

So the justification behind the proposed act really comes from claims about there being a need to tighten who is and is not allowed to vote in the United States, and so it does rest fairly heavily on claims of non-citizen voting. We stop illegal aliens and others who are unpromitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections that cheating is rampant in our elections. It's rampant, it's very simple.

But there have been over the years, a number of attempts by states and by national organizations including groups like the Brennan Center and the Left and the Heritage Foundation on the right, to look at whether non-citizen voting is actually a real concern in the United States.

And what we've found is this is a pretty insignificant problem.

It is a very rare occurrence, and when it does occur, mostly seems to be individuals who were unaware of the law were accidentally allowed to register, but just to give you a couple of examples in March of last year, the Iowa Secretary of State's office did a pretty comprehensive look at their voter rules. They identified 277 potential non-citizen registered voters.

That's roughly 100th of 1% of all of the registered voters in the state. And among these, they found that 35 cast ballots that were counted in the 2024 general election, they referred all of these individuals to the state attorney general for further investigation.

“And honestly, if you're a civics 101 listener or if you just read any fact-based news”

on this, you probably already know that non-citizen voting is not the problem, not even

close to the problem. So Hannah, what is the reason for needing election observers in the United States? That's the same reason the Carter Center has been observing elections in other countries for decades. Part of the reason why election observers have been able to play such a really, really valuable

role is that that's been a little bit part of the game that when political parties and their candidates do well, parties and candidates come forth and say this is the best election ever, and when parties and candidates do poorly, they come forth and say that there was widespread fraud and we can't trust the results. This is an important point here, and I want to make sure we don't miss it.

The Carter Center has observed situations wherein when a party does well, they say the election is great, and when a party does poorly, they say the election was fraudulent and illegitimate. And this is something that has been associated with and observed in other countries. Countries where perhaps corruption and despotism have to be overcome in order for a democratic

system to survive and thrive. But this isn't just the problem of other countries anymore. It's something that's going on here as well. So even though this isn't kind of new globally, it is a bit of a novelty in the US context to see these kind of claims of fraud that have been so widely debunked, really repeated

up the highest levels for so long and it is concerning for the future health of our democracy.

“Hannah, you are familiar with the Heritage Foundation, right?”

Very familiar, a right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C. that very much supports the claims of voter fraud in the United States. So it's interesting that you started this episode by talking about election corruption in the 19th century, because that is exactly how the Heritage Foundation sets up its voter fraud claims as well.

They say it has been a problem for US elections in the United States since the very beginning. Right. And as I mentioned, there was fraud in the 19th century and it was pretty wacky. It was also not nearly as widespread as people said it was then, though to be fair, those juicy stories still tend to win out today over the facts and the numbers when it

comes to fraud and corruption in the 19th century election system. And either way, the problem with the Heritage Foundation's claim is that it kind of ignores the 20th century.

“Is it possible to find instances of voter fraud throughout our history?”

Absolutely. Does it make any sense to compare today's election system to this system that included election day riots, deaths, and the long arm of Tammany Hall? And by the way, if you don't know what Tammany Hall is, look it up or call Nick. And no, it does not make sense.

Well, it does make sense if you want people to doubt election results and the system itself.

And if you want to make big changes, potentially unconstitutional changes, we'll get to that after

a quick break. We're back. We are talking to Sarah Cooper from the Carter Center, a nonpartisan organization that among other things, observe selections around the world in order to uphold democracy. And now they are trying to do it in the United States as well.

“And just before the break, Anna, you said something about big changes?”

All right. Well, I buried the lead a little bit on this episode. My initial reason for speaking with Sarah was to try to understand this phrase that has been everywhere lately, but doesn't seem to have a clear explanation. The reason Trump is now openly calling for the federal government to take over elections

in more than a dozen states.

So, Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting, and at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. Trump says Republicans should nationalize voting in the U.S. He heard him say, Republicans should take over the elections in 15 places without giving

a specific details or naming those locations. And so it's a little bit unclear what's meant by that. Sarah Cooper again there. As you just heard, Donald Trump called on Republicans to quote, "nationalize elections." This is one of those rare times, Nick, wherein I had to call on Miriam Webster.

The dictionary defines nationalization as to invest control or ownership of in the national government. The dictionary needs a dictionary sometimes. You know, Anna, why put it that way?

Basically, nationalization means give the federal government control.

Yes, it right off the bat there, Nick.

“Why might this raise some flags in these United States of America?”

Because of the Constitution. The Constitution vests authority for administering federal elections with states and with local authorities, subject to congressional legislation regulating the manner of elections. This one I do know, Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1. The Times, Places, and Manor of Holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall

be prescribed in each state by the legislature, thereof. The U.S. is actually a little bit of an outlier in terms of democracies. We have a very decentralized election system. We have more than 9,000 unique election jurisdictions. And that's actually one of the real strengths of the system.

Each jurisdiction follows policies and procedures that are adapted to the local context, adapted to the local needs. And they do that within the bounds of national and state law, and that was very much by design. In having this constitutional division of power between states and the federal government

“has been a very important, long-standing check on partisan influence in the election administration”

process. We can also think of it as a little bit of a safeguard against malign influence and cybersecurity threats. It would be hard to mount an attack at scale on our election systems because each jurisdiction is doing things a little bit differently within the bounds, again, of national and state

law. Now like Sarah said, the Constitution does give Congress like the federal Congress. The ability to pass a law to make or change election regulation. There are three main grants of power to Congress that are relevant to elections in our Constitution.

Congress has the power to enforce the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Congress has the power to enforce the ban on racial discrimination in the 15th Amendment, article one section for the election clause, grants, Congress power to regulate congressional, although not state and local elections. And there have been a small but kind of noticeable number of times when federal election

legislation has gone through and has made significant changes to our election process. So in addition to the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendment. Congress has passed the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. We won't go into the details of those here, but suffice it to say they did not directly restrict voting in America.

They were not explicitly designed to make it harder. And neither those constitutional amendments nor those laws constitute taking over or nationalizing elections, as President Trump called on Republicans to do. One thing that does kind of immediately give me pause is kind of that exact framing that Republicans ought to nationalize the voting as we talked about up top, going back to the

founding of the United States and the draft Univar Constitution, our founders were very careful to put kind of checks and balances into the system to ensure that there couldn't be partisan influence over federal elections.

public in should nationalize elections automatically gives me a little bit of pause.

To me that implies having the federal government exercise more direct control over how elections would be administered and would kind of fly in the face of hundreds of years of US election law and precedent.

“So it's a little bit of a question mark, but I think a question mark that gives some”

cause for concern. Okay, now after Trump made this statement, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said that what he meant was that Congress should pass the save act. What does President Trump mean when he says Republicans ought to nationalize voting? What does that look like in practice?

But the president was referring to is the say that, which is a huge common sense piece

of legislation that Republicans have supported that President Trump is committed to signing

into law during his term and he spoke with the speaker directly about that yesterday about the need to get that bill on the board. Did Levitt address the quote, we should take over the voting in at least many 15 places and quote. Is she did not?

“The save act does not specifically target any individual places.”

Nor is it clear how the save act constitutes taking over or nationalization, which if we're just going to go with the dictionary definition does mean giving the federal government control. All right, I need to ask about another thing here, Hannah. Last year, Trump issued an executive order saying that ballots had to be cast and received

on election day and documentary proof of citizenship was required to vote. And the lawsuit's followed and the courts blocked this order for the most part and said that the president cannot bypass Congress and do this. But I have heard there is another potential executive order in the works. Yeah, several activists drafted an executive order that would declare a national emergency

and ban male invoting and voting machines. Now, reports say it's circulating around the White House, but Trump says he's not planning on doing this. There's been reporting that there's an executive order proposed executive order about this.

“Are you looking at that or are you considering that?”

On March 18, Jerome Corris, the conservative commentator in conspiracy theorists known in part for promoting the lie that former president Barack Obama was not a US citizen, claimed that the emergency declaration is, quote, being prepared. So big old grain assault on that one, but I just have to ask, can Donald Trump do that? Can he declare a national emergency and just radically change elections?

Let's start with one basic principle here. To put it very simply, the president has no significant power over election administration in the United States. And that is, by design, and that's a really important check in the system to ensure that we don't see kind of high profile partisan influence over our election process.

Which is not to say that there have not been presidential actions related to voting in the past. So there have been other presidents that have issued executive orders related to election administration.

And that includes President Trump during his first term.

But these orders have been very limited and they've been reflective again of that extremely limited role that the executive branch can play in administering elections. So for example, in 2013, President Obama signed an executive order to establish a presidential commission of election administration, President Trump in 2017 signed an executive order similarly to establish a presidential advisory commission on election integrity.

And then terminated that commission through executive order in 2018. So generally speaking, the executive branch has authority to commission executive agencies to draft reports. They can prioritize particular activities or ask executive agencies to prioritize particular activities.

The short answer to your question is no, the executive branch does not have authority to propose substantive changes to the voting process that would require state or federal legislation. All right, I hear that, but we also know that Trump has declared national emergencies to bypass Congress when it comes to border control and tariffs even in the energy industry.

National emergencies are completely different ballgame. And he used one of those to control elections? Sarah thinks it's pretty unlikely.

And just to be clear, the justification behind this potential declaration of a national

emergency to control elections, it's rooted in something that, at this point, feels like it happened six lifetimes ago. China's interference in the 2020 election. And that justification has a fundamental flaw to it. There was this 2021 intelligence review that took place and concluded that China did

not go through with efforts to influence the 2020 election. So, hand of this really brings me back to what Sarah was saying earlier that these false claims at the highest level, a road trust in the system.

“And recently, Trump said that the only way Democrats could win in an upcoming election”

is if they cheat.

"They want a cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way

they can get elected is to cheat." I mean, imagine if a teacher said, "Look, I know that half of this class cannot pass the test without stealing the answers. So, if anyone in this half of the class gets an A, you know they cheated." Right?

Well, that teacher would probably be fired because that is patently absurd. But we are not talking about a teacher we are talking about the president of the United States of America, who says that the election system, one of the fundamental bedrocks of a functioning American democracy, the thing that allows us to hire and fire the people who are in charge, doesn't work, and the people in charge need to take it over.

Even though the Constitution says the states, not the people in Washington, are the ones

who are by and large in charge. A.K.A. the citizens are in charge. So what do the citizens do? It doesn't really make sense to ignore the people who you hired, right?

“You did hire them, you should definitely pay attention to them, and then you, the person”

who hired them, should check their work. If the chicken says the sky is falling, well, that is a really big deal. You should absolutely go outside, look up, and see if it's true. And the Carter Center has a proposal, when it comes to what citizens can and perhaps should do when they have concerns.

When the Carter Center observed selections or when we talk about domestic election observers or nonpartisan election observation, it really is an individual who's looking out for all voters, they are providing oversight of whether elections are conducted in accordance with the rule of law, in accordance with internationally established standards to ensure that elections are transparent, to ensure that they have these mechanisms for effective redress like we

talked about, so that if something does go wrong in the process, there's a way to address that and correct that, making sure that elections are competitive, and they provide regular

“public commentary about the quality of the process to really help shape public perspective”

of how the elections are run. Is that the same thing as being a poll worker? No, election observers are a special thing. I should say poll workers, the people who sign up to as the name suggests work the polls on election day, their job often includes making sure that everyone is following the law

at the polls, but an election observer is monitoring the whole process. They're kind of off in the corner, not attracting attention, it's a little bit like watching paint, right? They said in a tabulation center, or they sit in the facility where machines are being tested, or they sit in a voting location and use a structured checklist that they've received, and that's being used kind of all across the jurisdiction where we're

observing, to take off the things that they see, and that way we have a sense of how the election is being conducted at scope and scale. It's kind of like a health inspector for the election process. And like Sarah said, not all states have a process for this, but in some of those states that do, the Carter Center is rolling these programs out, and because we do have a decentralized

election system, observers need different training depending on the state. So before the Carter Center, mobilizes observers or works with partners to mobilize observers, they're required to go through a pretty detailed training about the stage at the election process that they're supposed to watch, and that can be anywhere from four to eight hours. Again, for them to be familiar with all of the different types of election equipment,

they might see the different types of election workers they might encounter, what those safeguards that they should expect to see in the process are. And then one of the ways that we ensure, and that I see is kind of a real value add to this methodology, we're asking observers not just to report when they see problems, but again, to kind of tick off and it's a very long laundry list of questions, typically about

And so by taking that very rigorous structure to approach, asking observers to report

positive things as well as negative things, that really does give us kind of the database to validate when elections are well administered. And you know, Sarah explained that that is what these observers are seeing in this country. From states where we had these pilot projects in 2024, and again, for local elections in 2025,

“overall, that's what the observers saw that there may have been kind of isolated instances of human”

error, but at scope and scale and across the wide range of procedures that they were watching,

election administrators were really doing their jobs well, and we could have a lot of trust in the election process. So now I guess the question is, what we decide to do? Do we trust the people in charge who are saying it's all messed up or do we trust each other? The regular people who are doing this and saying it's okay. I think there is an additional option too. You don't actually have to take anyone's word for it

if you're feeling unsure about our election system. You can take action. You can do something about it.

This is a democracy, and you are allowed to play a role.

“I think the major thought I would want to leave listeners with is that whatever your kind of”

questions concerns fear around the election process, there is a role for you. It's really important, kind of vitally important for you to get involved. We do have a lot of safeguards in our process. States rights are really kind of important backstop this election cycle. States do have ultimate authority under the constitution for how elections are run, and we just encourage folks again to take advantage of some of those great ways that they

can get involved. It'll be a really rewarding experience.

“That does it for this episode. It was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capeteche,”

and Marina Hanky, who is our producer. Rebecca Levois, our executive producer. Music in this episode is from Epidemic Sound. Lots of stuff came up in this episode that we did not get into the details of, but fortunately, we have a ton of details on our website in the form of hundreds of episodes of Civics 101. And that website is civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

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