In a constitutionally alarming development, the President of the United States, fresh from a summit with the autocratic leader of Russia, is now citing that leader’s “advice” as the basis for a new campaign to overhaul the American election system.
Citing Vladimir Putin, President Trump is now vowing to lead a movement to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines, potentially through a direct executive order.
This is not a good-faith effort to improve election integrity. It is a direct assault on the constitutional structure of our elections, based on a series of demonstrably false claims. This moment forces us to conduct a sober, fact-based defense of our decentralized, state-run election system against an attack from the head of the federal executive branch.
Discussion
Putin's advice? Really? Our voting laws should be based on our Constitution, not foreign autocrats!
How can we trust changes to voting laws when these ideas come from a leader notorious for undermining democracy in his own country? Shouldn't we be cautious about taking advice from regimes that don't share our values of freedom and fairness?
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A Constitutional Fact-Check: Who Runs Our Elections?
The President has claimed that states are “merely an ‘agent’” of the federal government and “must do” what he tells them to do regarding elections. This is not a matter of legal interpretation; it is a direct contradiction of the plain text of the U.S. Constitution.
Article I, Section 4 – the Elections Clause – is explicit:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof…”
The clause grants a secondary role to Congress to “make or alter such Regulations,” but it gives zero role to the President. The framers deliberately gave the power to administer elections to the states to prevent a single, powerful executive from controlling the process by which he and his allies are chosen.
A presidential executive order attempting to ban mail-in voting or dictate the type of ballots states must use would be a brazenly unconstitutional act with no legal force.
A Fact-Check of the Claims
The President’s push is based on a narrative of a fraudulent and broken system. This narrative, however, collapses under factual scrutiny.
The Claim on Mail-in Voting: President Trump, echoing Putin, claims that “no country has mail-in voting” and that it is impossible for it to be honest.
- The Fact: This is false. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, at least 34 countries, including Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, use mail-in voting. Decades of data in the U.S. show that while fraud can occur, it is exceedingly rare.
The Claim on Voting Machines: The President claims machines are “Highly ‘Inaccurate’” and expensive.
- The Fact: All U.S. voting machines must pass rigorous federal testing to ensure accuracy. Independent studies have consistently shown that hand-counting ballots, the President’s preferred alternative, is far slower, more expensive, and significantly less accurate than machine tabulation. Furthermore, the vast majority of Americans already cast their vote on a paper ballot or use a machine that produces a voter-verified paper trail.
The Real Threat to Election Integrity
This brings us to the core of the issue. The greatest threat to the integrity of our elections is not the use of secure voting machines or the option to vote by mail. The greatest threat is the systematic and deliberate erosion of public faith in the process itself.
A healthy constitutional republic requires its leaders to build trust in its democratic institutions, not to tear them down with baseless accusations.
For a sitting American President to use the “advice” of a foreign dictator – whose own elections are widely condemned as illegitimate and undemocratic – as a pretext to attack his own country’s voting system is a profound and dangerous breach of his duty.
The system is not perfect. There are always improvements to be made, from updating voter rolls to ensuring all machines have a paper trail. But these are challenges to be met through the deliberative, constitutional process of state and federal legislation, not by an unconstitutional executive decree based on the word of a foreign adversary.
If Trump is taking advice from a strong leader like Putin, then maybe it's time we clear out the corruption in our voting system. Mail-in voting and those sketchy machines have been begging for fraud. Returning to the basics is exactly what we need to ensure fair elections. Keep fighting, Mr. President!