Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday rejected President Trump’s call for Republicans in Washington to “nationalize” voting in the United States and “take over” the management of elections in 15 states.
Thune said that while he strongly supports requiring voters to show identification to prove they are citizens, he does not support the federal government seizing the power to run elections, noting the Constitution gives that power to the states.
“I’m supportive of only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places. I think that makes sense. … But I’m not in favor of federalizing elections, no. I think that’s a constitutional issue,” Thune told reporters.
“I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one. In my view, at least, that’s always a system that has worked pretty well,” he said of the benefits of empowering states to run federal elections.
Thune made his comments when asked about Trump’s call for Republicans to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states to prevent voter fraud in the midterm elections, in which Democrats are projected to pick up Senate seats and flip control of the House.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump told Dan Bongino, the conservative podcaster and former deputy FBI director.
“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump’s call comes amid a push by Senate and House conservatives to pass the SAVE Act, which would require voters to present documents such as passports and birth certificates to prove their citizenship when registering to vote.
The bill would also require an overhaul of online voter registration systems and require states to conduct regular reviews of voting rolls to purge voters who are associated with faulty data.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats would vigorously oppose implementing stricter voting requirements.
“The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans. Every single Senate Democrat will vote against any bill that contains it,” he said in a statement Monday.
