Donald Trump called for Republicans to "take over the voting" in at least 15 places across the country during a radio interview on The Dan Bongino Show, raising immediate concerns among election law experts about the constitutional implications of federalizing state-run elections.
The former president's February 1st comments come as federal agents raided election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing 2020 ballots and election materials. Trump explicitly defended the raid during the interview, linking it to his broader call for Republican control of voting systems in swing states.
"We should take over the voting," Trump said. "Republicans ought to nationalize the voting in at least 15 places."
The statement represents one of the most direct calls yet for federal intervention in state election systems, according to Democracy Docket, which first reported the comments. Under the U.S. Constitution, election administration has traditionally been a state function, with the federal government playing a limited oversight role through laws like the Voting Rights Act.
During the interview, Trump repeated his false claim that he won the 2020 election "by a large margin" and asserted without evidence that undocumented immigrants are "brought to our country to vote...illegally." Election security experts have repeatedly debunked this conspiracy theory, noting that non-citizen voting is extremely rare and already illegal under federal law.
The former president also defended Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk currently serving a prison sentence for compromising election security systems. Trump claimed she was jailed for "challenging" ballot irregularities, though court records show she was convicted of illegally accessing and copying voting machine data.
Election officials in targeted swing states responded cautiously to Trump's comments. Several secretaries of state—both Republican and Democratic—have previously stated they would resist any federal takeover of state election systems, viewing such moves as unconstitutional overreach.
The White House recently dismissed Trump's earlier suggestion to cancel the 2026 midterm elections as a joke, though the president has not clarified which of his election-related statements should be taken seriously.
As Americans like to say, "all politics is local"—and nowhere is that more true than in election administration, where county clerks and state officials have historically guarded their independence from federal interference. Trump's latest comments suggest a fundamental shift in that relationship, one that constitutional scholars say would require either congressional legislation or court approval to implement.
The Department of Justice has not commented on whether federal authority exists to "nationalize" voting in specific jurisdictions outside of existing civil rights enforcement mechanisms.
