I'm sure we will get him this time guys!

I've seen a few people say that the president has a job to ensure that elections are carried out legitimately.

This is false. The administration of elections are explicitly delegated to the states in the constitution. The federal government explicitly has no place in securing the elections of the states unless the states agree to it or it is enshrined explicitly in federal law for a specific constitutional goal, such as ensuring racial discrimination isn't happening.

The president does not have some blanket mandate to ensure voter fraud doesn't happen. We have delegated powers for a reason, and the balance of security is something that is left to the states.

So none of Trump's actions interferring with the states elections (find me votes, there was fraud) can be interpreted as the president carrying out his constitutional duty.


Obama actually tried giving states funding for better election security while he was president. It was rejected. The president, and even the federal government, cannot foist election security on the states.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 15 2024 01:02pm

The president is given the constitutional responsibility to take care laws be faithfully executed and to commission all officers of the united states. This is the nexus from which the federal law enforcement power flows, and the unitary executive is given exclusive power over the execution of law at the federal level. And as courts have repeatedly carved out, federal law does cover state elections, even if the administration and methods of those elections are largely left up to the states. If states had exclusive jurisdiction over their own elections like you suppose, then the voting rights act of 1965 would be unconstitutional. As would the national voter registration act, the americans with disabilities act, the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act, the voting accessibility for the elderly and handicapped act and the help american vote act (thanks for butterfly ballots, florida). Those are all federal laws, upheld as constitutional by the courts, which are the responsibility of the executive branch to yah know, execute. It is the president of the united state's constitutional responsibility to take care that racial discrimination isn't happening, that minimum election administration standards are upheld per the HAVA, that the elderly and disabled and military overseas can all vote fairly.

What you're arguing is basically a bastardized version of what the libertarian kooks have been pushing for decades, trying to say the feds usurped jurisdiction over states to interfere in their elections. Sorry but no, Democrats won't get their poll taxes and grandfather clauses back any time soon.
The president and the federal government have a responsibility to foist election security on the states, and its particularly explicit in the 2002 HAVA which sets out minimum, well-specified standards with enforcement mechanisms and auditing.

Who do you think enforces bilingual election programs forced upon Texas when they fail to accommodate limited-english voters? Who do you think enforces electronic voting standards forced upon New York when they failed to comply with their statewide registration database? Or when Maine violated the requirements for disabled voter access at the polls? I'll give you a hint, its all delegated through officers who serve at the pleasure of one man.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Jan 15 2024 04:12pm

Stopped here, because I can tell what you're going to say and it ignores that "faithfully executing the laws of the united states" requires he not interferre in things that are explicitly delegated to the states.

I have explicitly acknowledged when federal law covers state elections. So your lieing about my position is noted.


Doesn't it ever get old? Just telling blatant lies about things? Like, you can look where I said federal laws can have precedence in state elections. It's right there. It wasn't a long post.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 15 2024 05:37pm

You made the completely incorrectly claim that the presidents authority to enforce laws is somehow constrained to "specific constitutional goals".
I'm going to blow your mind, but there's no constitutional amendment that prohibited butterfly ballots in Florida. There's nothing in the constitution to force states to comply with federal requirements on overseas voting or access for the elderly or bilingual voting. The federal government directly interferes with these things you claimed were delegated to the states, because federal laws were passed to regulate them. Not self-enforcing sections of the constitution, federal laws that expanded the scope of federal powers and were left up to the executive to implement and enforce.

I'm not sure why you struggle with this, its not complicated. You're going down some absurd libertarian rabbit hole trying to justify poll taxes and literacy tests lmao, but I guess that's just going full circle

All of those referenced examples have specific constitutional goals. In Florida the constitutional goal was the orderly tallying of electors. In the terms of elderly and overseas it's the equal protections clause. If you have a right to vote, you have a right to vote regardless of age. Same with the Voting Rights Act.

Those are also the specific results of federal laws. After all, the constitution says



You're shooting yourself in the foot here, because you've just undercut your own argument. Trump does not have a duty or right to call a state and try to get them to "find him 11,000 ballots" as it isn't pursuant to any federal law or constitutional interest. So no, that isn't a defense to anything he did.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jan 15 2024 06:34pm

Oh why did you even bother typing past that point if you're going to use such a boundless catch-all that gives an arbitrary federal power to regulate elections without any specific constitutional goal. "Orderly tallying of electors"? You're just describing the administration of an election in general. The 'taking care the law be faithfully executed'.

The constitution doesnt say the feds get to impose minimum voting integrity requirements on state elections and regulate their electronic voter methods and micromanage their ballots. Congress said that. In a federal law, not a self enforcing constitutional mandate. Whats the point of pretending thats part of the 14th amendment or something silly like that? It came from Bush v Gore

Oh so the president can interfere with the election then?

OKay Joe BIden declares himself president forever and Trump must be hung

Cant do shit about it according to yourself

Don't use logic with them! It hurts their thinker things!

So tell me again which federal law Trump was trying to enforce by asking them to forge 11k ballots?