Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, has opposed the United States’ President Donald Trump’s idea to nationalize elections. The senator described the idea as “unconstitutional,” emphasizing that it is a state matter and not a federal one.
Rand Paul says Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections is unconstitutional
During an interview with MS Now’s Stephanie Ruhle earlier this week, Sen. Rand Paul expressed his thoughts on Donald Trump’s call to nationalize elections.
“That’s not what the Constitution says about elections,” Paul said. “There is some dispute that has gone to the Supreme Court about whether federal elections are different than state elections.”
“The Supreme Court did rule that, for example, Washington state can’t set term limits on federal officials if Georgia doesn’t. It has to be a uniform election law,” the Republican continued. “But, as far as the time, place, and manner of elections, that, under the Constitution, is a state activity. So, I’m not for nationalizing it,” he emphasized.
Paul also said he opposed Nancy Pelosi’s bill, which would have also nationalized elections. He added that, similar to that bill, he opposes Trump’s latest proposal, and any other bill from the current administration regarding nationalizing elections.
His comments came days after Donald Trump did an interview on The Dan Bongino Show podcast, where he said that the Republicans should “nationalize the voting”. He said, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many as 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” Trump went on to claim that he won the election in several states, but that those victories were “not shown” in the final results.
In a later press interview, Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, defended Trump’s statement. “The president was referring to specific states in which we have seen a high degree of fraud,” She explained (via The Hill).
Leavitt claimed that in states like California and New York City, non-citizens have the right to vote in the elections. She argued that any electoral system allowing these results is “fraud.” She highlighted, saying, “The SAVE Act is the solution to doing it.”
