By Emmanuel Bobby
President Donald Trump said Monday that Republicans should move to nationalize U.S. elections and take control of them from the states, reviving his long-disproven claims of widespread voter fraud.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least — many, 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said during an appearance on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast.
The comments represent a sharp escalation in Trump’s rhetoric on election administration, advancing an idea Democrats have long warned he might pursue as he pushes stricter voting rules and investigations into alleged fraud.
Under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the “times, places, and manner” of congressional elections are set by state legislatures, though Congress may pass federal regulations. The Supreme Court has interpreted this framework to give states primary authority over voter registration, election oversight, fraud prevention and ballot counting.
Asked to clarify how or where Trump would seek to nationalize elections, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson declined to provide specifics.
“President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections — that’s why he’s urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting,” Jackson said in a statement.
Trump’s remarks come as the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against dozens of states seeking access to their voter rolls, moves that have alarmed election officials. They also follow last week’s FBI seizure of hundreds of boxes of election materials from a Fulton County, Georgia, elections office related to the 2020 election, an operation attended by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
During the podcast, Trump alluded to the Georgia search.
“We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes — we have states that I won that show I didn’t win,” Trump said. “Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get, with a court order, the ballots. You’re going to see some interesting things.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud exists in the United States and that he won the 2020 presidential election.
On Capitol Hill, some of Trump’s allies have moved to advance his election agenda. House Republicans recently introduced the MEGA Act, which would impose sweeping changes to voting rules, including banning universal mail voting and ranked-choice voting.
Federal courts have already blocked parts of Trump’s efforts to reshape election law. Last week, a judge halted key provisions of Trump’s March 2025 executive order that sought to mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration and impose other major election changes.
“The Framers of our Constitution recognized that power over election rules could be abused,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her ruling. She said the Constitution assigns that authority to states and, in some cases, Congress — “and assigned no role at all to the President.”
“Put simply,” she added, “our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.”
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