Are the days of electoral free-for-alls behind us?
By | Mar 26, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Articles, Opinion, Politics
One of President Donald Trump’s main focuses since leaving the White House in 2021 has been election integrity. On March 25, he took perhaps a big step toward addressing that concern by signing an executive order that tightens just about all aspects of the electoral process. The gnashing of teeth and wailing from the political left will no doubt be almost deafening, and the lawsuits torrential. The obvious opposing narrative will be that the 47th president is trying to orchestrate a federal takeover of elections. How true is that in reality, and why would such sweeping reform even be necessary?
When Trump,
as the 45th president of the United States, ran for re-election in
2020, he was up against a Democratic challenger who, until that year,
had run for the White House two times – in 1988 and 2008 – withdrawing
on both occasions. That candidate, Joe Biden, abandoned a scandal-ridden
campaign in 1988 after just three months. In 2008, he dropped his bid
after receiving less than one percent of votes in the first contest of
the Democratic nomination race, the Iowa caucuses.
Fast forward to the 2020 election: Having used the COVID pandemic as an excuse to barely campaign at all, Biden went on to receive 81 million votes in an election that appeared to be something of a free-for-all. That was the most votes, by a considerable margin, won by any presidential candidate in history.
Little wonder, then, that Trump, now the 47th president, has an obsession with election integrity. His executive order imposes upon states numerous conditions for receiving federal election dollars. Strict citizenship verification and a voter-verifiable paper ballot record will be required; ballots received after election day will not be counted, and election-related federal funds will be contingent upon states complying with established federal election laws.
No Democracy Without Election Integrity
Legal action will soon be coming – and it will come from multiple directions. For those who are and those who fancy themselves to be constitutional scholars, it will be interesting to watch it all play out. Article 1, section IV of the Constitution confers upon state legislatures the authority to set “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections” but “for Senators and Representatives.” States are not explicitly granted the power to organize presidential elections as they see fit. General elections, then, are an interesting case since ballot sheets list the presidential candidates, along with those for both chambers of Congress. Arguments over states’ rights – real, perceived, and interpreted for political reasons – will abound.
Is this really some nefarious plot to hijack the electoral process?
Reading the text of this executive order cannot lead one to conclude
that it is – unless one believes elections should not be bound by hard
and fast rules. The order seems very much an effort to implement real
election integrity: Only those lawfully eligible to vote should be
allowed to do so; the security, verifiability, and chain of custody of
ballots should be ensured, and Election Day should be a specific date
rather than a period determined by individual states.
There’s a lot of talk in certain circles about threats to democracy. However, if the same cavalier attitude toward election integrity that has been on display since at least 2020 is allowed to become the norm, then the entire concept of democracy becomes nothing more than a mirage.
Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.
No comments:
Post a Comment