Donald Trump's call to federalize American elections has triggered a rare bipartisan rebuke from state and local election administrators, who warn that the proposal represents a fundamental threat to the nation's decentralized voting system.
The backlash comes as multiple developments converge to raise alarm among election officials: a federal raid on Fulton County, Georgia's election offices, Steve Bannon's proposal to deploy ICE agents at polling sites, and North Carolina's decision to flag hundreds of thousands of voters for potential removal from rolls.
"The federal government has never run elections in this country, and there's a reason for that," said Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's Democratic Secretary of State, in a statement echoed by officials across party lines. "Local control means accountability to voters, not to Washington."
The President's comments followed the Department of Justice's unannounced inspection of election records in Fulton County, which has been at the center of Trump's unfounded claims about the 2020 election. Federal officials arrived without warrants at county offices, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, prompting immediate legal challenges from Georgia officials.
Bannon's ICE Proposal Adds to Concerns
Separately, Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and conservative media figure, has publicly advocated for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to have a presence at polling locations, ostensibly to verify citizenship. The proposal has no precedent in American election administration and would require new federal legislation.
"What Bannon is describing would have a profound chilling effect on voter participation," said Amber McReynolds, a former election official who now works with the nonpartisan National Vote at Home Institute. "You don't need to actually check IDs if the goal is just to intimidate voters."
The convergence of these proposals with actual federal action in Georgia has created what election experts describe as the most serious threat to electoral independence since the Voting Rights Act era.
North Carolina Flags 320,000 Voters
Adding to the concerns, North Carolina's State Board of Elections—controlled by Republican appointees—voted last week to flag approximately 320,000 registered voters for potential removal, citing questions about their citizenship status. The number represents nearly 5% of the state's electorate.
Election integrity groups immediately challenged the move, noting that the state's methodology appeared to flag naturalized citizens and others with legitimate voting rights. "This is exactly the kind of overreach that happens when election administration becomes politicized," said Allison Riggs, chief counsel for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
Republican election officials have joined Democrats in pushing back against federal intervention, though often focusing on different aspects of the proposals. Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania's Republican Secretary of State, emphasized that states have "successfully administered elections for 250 years" and that federal takeover would create massive logistical problems.
Constitutional Questions
Legal scholars note that while the Constitution gives Congress authority to regulate the "times, places and manner" of federal elections, wholesale federalization would face significant legal obstacles. States have historically maintained control over voter registration, polling place operations, and vote counting—even for federal races.
"The Elections Clause gives Congress some power, but it's never been interpreted to allow complete federal takeover," said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "And the Tenth Amendment reserves powers to states that aren't explicitly federal."
The Trump administration has not released specific legislation or executive orders detailing how federalization would work. White House spokesman Steven Cheung said only that the President believes "we need to ensure election integrity" and that "all options are on the table."
Swing State Implications
The practical implications could be most profound in battleground states, where narrow margins have decided recent presidential elections. In Wisconsin, where President Trump won by fewer than 25,000 votes in 2016 and lost by roughly the same margin in 2020, local clerks expressed concern that federal involvement could overwhelm the state's decentralized system of 1,850 municipal election offices.
"We run elections at the township level here," said Claire Woodall, clerk of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. "How would that work with federal agents showing up? Do they understand our processes? Our voter rolls? The reality is that federalization would create chaos, not clarity."
As Americans like to say, 'all politics is local'—even in the nation's capital. The federalization push may originate in Washington, but its success or failure will likely be determined by how state officials, voters, and courts respond in the months ahead.
