2026-02-04T05:04:33.531Z / CNN
华盛顿特区—
众多选举专家表示，唐纳德·特朗普总统呼吁共和党人“将选举‘国家化’”，是其持续试图改变美国选举管理方式的行为中令人担忧且可能危险的升级。
近十几位选举官员、律师和无党派专家告诉CNN，特朗普的言论既含混不清，又可能被字面解读——尤其是考虑到他已试图推翻一次选举，如今正试图行使美国历史上前所未有的权力。
行政部门在选举方面拥有一些权力，例如派遣司法部投票权监督员到投票站，去年他们就曾在加利福尼亚州和新泽西州采取过此类行动。但特朗普周一表示共和党人“应该接管选举”并“将选举国家化”，这将使联邦政府的角色达到美国历史上前所未有的水平，专家们称这篡夺了宪法赋予各州的权力。
“这里有个小问题——宪法禁止将选举联邦化，”科罗拉多州国务卿、民主党人吉娜·格里斯沃尔德告诉CNN，“特朗普继续利用其平台破坏美国选举，这非常令人担忧。这些攻击在很大程度上失败了，但我们需要认真对待这些言论。”
白宫随后试图淡化特朗普的言论，周二声称他只是表达对《维护美国选民权益法案》（SAVE Act）的支持，该法案正在审议中，要求人们在登记投票前证明自己的公民身份。（该法案旨在打击无证移民的非法投票，但研究表明此类投票发生的概率微乎其微。）
特朗普发表上述言论的时机也让选举专业人士感到不安。就在两天前，民主党人赢得了得克萨斯州一个稳固的共和党州参议院席位；五天前，联邦调查局使用搜查令搜查了佐治亚州富尔顿县2020年的选举记录；同时，司法部还在提起多起诉讼，试图获取民主党主导州的选民名单。
“我们所有人都需要非常非常清醒地认识到这一点，”乔治亚大学法学院教授、宪法和选举法专家洛里·林汉德说，“作为一个国家，通过选举过程和平转移权力是我们最重要的事务之一，没有人应该轻易地阻碍这一进程。”
总统在周一接受右翼播客主持人丹·博尼诺采访时，又谈到了他熟悉的话题。博尼诺最近刚刚卸任特朗普的联邦调查局副局长职务。
特朗普声称，他从拜登总统那里继承了一个漏洞百出的边境，拜登允许“数百万”无证移民进入美国，其中包括许多杀人犯、吸毒者和精神病院患者。（这些说法的部分内容存在争议。）
“如果我们不把他们赶出去，共和党人将永远无法再次赢得选举，”特朗普说。
然后他补充了新的说法：“共和党人应该说，‘我们想要接管。’我们应该接管选举，至少在15个地方。共和党人应该将选举国家化。”
特朗普没有详细说明他的具体意思——博尼诺也没有追问。目前尚不清楚总统指的是哪“15个地方”，尽管白宫周二表示，他指的是那些他认为存在“高度”选举欺诈的州。此外，也不清楚总统对这一有争议的提议有多认真，或者在周一之前他对该提议思考了多少。
“这也是问题的一部分，对吧？我们不知道这意味着什么，”林汉德说，“我认为，首先也是最重要的一点，也许不管它意味着什么，这都是国会必须处理的事情。”
周二，白宫还将特朗普的言论与《维护美国选民权益法案》联系起来，但该法案与选举“国家化”无关。周二晚些时候，特朗普敦促国会议员就他的“国家化”想法采取行动，并表示各州在选举中应为联邦政府工作——这一概念与宪法中嵌入的联邦主义原则背道而驰。
“在选举中，州是联邦政府的代理机构，”总统声称，并补充道，“我不知道为什么联邦政府不自己做这些事。”
当被CNN记者凯特兰·柯林斯追问允许各州管理选举的宪法条款时，他说：“他们可以管理选举，但必须公正地进行。”
美国宪法中只有44个词阐述了选举管理的全部规则，其中关键部分是第一条第四款，即“选举条款”。
该条款规定：“参议员和众议员的选举时间、地点和方式，由各州立法机构规定；但国会可随时通过法律制定或修改这些规定，除非涉及参议员选举地点的规定。”
该条款将国会选举的组织方式交由各州立法机构决定，同时也赋予国会监督和规范这些规则的权力。例如，国会利用这一权力设定了统一的选举日。
《联邦党人文集》为了解制宪者制定这一条款的意图提供了线索。法律学者称，亚历山大·汉密尔顿的论述表明，制宪者决心划分选举权力，并且非常担心新的联邦政府获得过多权力。实际上，各州在当时已经具备管理选举的基础设施。
“他们担心的是州或联邦政府任何一方都对选举拥有过多控制权，”天普大学法学院民主党选举律师蒂姆·福特说，“因此，他们试图在这一过程中取得平衡，让双方都能参与其中。”
至关重要的是，宪法并没有赋予总统决定选举管理方式的权力。因此，无论特朗普所说的“选举国家化”具体指什么，都不是他作为行政部门可以单方面决定的事情。
“开国元勋们非常明智地将选举单独列为总统完全无权干预的领域，”无党派选举程序专家、为两党选举官员提供建议的大卫·贝克尔说，“只有州立法机构和国会拥有管理选举的权威，法院也多次支持这一点。”
美国选举体系高度分散——这是其特点而非缺陷。
全国有超过10,000个选举管理机构，不同州对选举的具体规定各不相同。州立法机构制定法律，规定投票站的开放和关闭时间、提前投票的天数、邮寄投票的允许范围、投票箱的数量等。
地方选举机构执行这些规则并运营投票站，同时负责计票，并通常将结果上报给州务卿——大多数州的州务卿是首席选举官。州务卿负责进行审计以核实计票结果，并最终认证选举结果。
这些流程在州与州之间、县与县之间各不相同。这种分散模式让地方官员能够根据本地需求调整规则。专家表示，这也使得不良分子更难进行系统性欺诈或发动全国性网络攻击。
“总统正在推动颠覆一个本已旨在防止大规模选举干预的系统，任何建议联邦接管的人都没有考虑到这将给选民和选举官员带来的后勤噩梦，”反对《维护美国选民权益法案》的公平选举中心主任丽贝卡·卡拉瑟斯说。
在新冠疫情期间，许多州大幅扩大了邮寄投票的可及性，导致2020年选举投票率创纪录。
特朗普当时错误地声称更多邮寄投票自动帮助民主党（多年来许多研究已驳斥这一说法），后来又谎称自己输掉那次选举是因为选举被操纵。他一直没有放弃这一执念，这也导致许多共和党主导的州削减了许多投票改革措施。
如果特朗普真的想联邦接管选举，他必须通过国会。
宪法的“选举条款”并未赋予总统任何权力。各州在设定选举规则方面处于领先地位，但国会可以规范各州的行为。
法律专家表示，如果国会采纳特朗普的极端主义立场，议员们可能会通过立法对选举进行全面的联邦控制。但几代人以来，议员们一直回避这一做法。最近一次援引该权力的重大法律是2002年《帮助美国投票法案》（Help America Vote Act），该法案是在2000年选举混乱之后通过的。
“如果合理解读，宪法赋予国会相当大的权力来制定联邦选举的全国性规则，”乔治城大学法学院教授、CNN最高法院分析师史蒂夫·弗拉戴克说，“但237年来国会普遍未行使这一权力，这有其原因……这种情况比你想象的要罕见。”
最近，民主党人推动建立联邦选举标准。2020年后，众议院民主党人通过了《为人民法案》（For the People Act），该法案要求各州提供当日选民登记、扩大提前投票并放宽其他限制。参议院共和党人将其斥为“民主党对选举法的接管”和“单方面权力争夺”，并阻挠该法案，使其最终未能成为法律。
现在角色似乎反转了。共和党人正在推动《维护美国选民权益法案》以及一项更激进的法案——上周提出的名为“让选举再次伟大法案”（Make Elections Great Again Act），该法案将把特朗普的选举愿望清单法典化，包括全国性的选民身份证要求。
“即使是普通政客提出的联邦接管，也是个糟糕的主意，”已从共和党转为无党派人士、卡托研究所高级研究员沃尔特·奥尔森说，他补充称，主张对选举进行新的联邦控制的立法“在本任期内极不可能在国会通过”。
特朗普在2020年输给拜登后，曾试图推翻选举结果。他的行为导致特别检察官杰克·史密斯提起的一项现已失效的联邦刑事指控，这为他可能干扰中期选举的行为提供了路线图。
由于美国选举的分散性质，特朗普在2020年的许多努力集中在试图强迫州和地方共和党官员推迟计票、拒绝认证结果，甚至“找到”足够的选票来扭转结果。
他曾考虑过一个重大的联邦干预行动：他考虑签署行政命令，指示五角大楼和国土安全部接管投票机器并追查选民欺诈行为。
CNN此前报道，在椭圆形办公室的激烈争吵后，他退缩了，当时他的许多高级顾问强烈反对支持这些命令的右翼阴谋论者。特朗普上个月告诉《纽约时报》，他后悔2020年没有签署这些行政命令，称“我本应该签的”。
“过去和现在有很大不同，”无党派选举专家贝克尔说，“现在许多阴谋论者在政府中为总统工作，而许多有原则的人被排挤出去，这使我们的选举系统更加脆弱。”
很难确切知道特朗普设想的“国家化”选举将如何运作。但他在重返白宫第一年的行动为其可能试图控制美国选举系统的方式提供了线索。
特朗普去年签署了一项行政命令，专家称其似乎旨在规避防止总统控制选举系统的宪法制衡机制。该行政命令的大部分条款已被法院驳回。
他还发起了一项前所未有的努力，要求共和党主导的州重新划分国会选区，以帮助众议院共和党人（目前他们以微弱优势控制众议院）。但这些努力似乎适得其反：民主党州也重新划分了自己的选区，而其他共和党州则予以抵制，导致这一计划几乎无果而终。
他试图建立一个全国性的选民数据库，其政府已起诉近一半的州以获取他们的选民名单。这些努力遭到了民主党选举官员的强烈反对，甚至一些共和党官员也表示怀疑，担心交出选民的个人数据。司法部的诉讼在法庭上也遭遇挫折，加利福尼亚州和俄勒冈州的案件被驳回。
“本届政府正试图夺取各州的选举权力，”贝克尔说，“幸运的是，法院坚定地拒绝了这些企图，我仍然对我们的选举系统有信心。”
特朗普的言论还加剧了紧张局势。他多次暗示可能竞选宪法不允许的第三任期（后来他退缩了，称“很明显”他不能再次参选）。他还在1月份表示，美国“甚至不应该举行选举”（白宫后来称他是“在开玩笑”）。
整个“国家化”事件反映了美国政治在特朗普时代前后的巨大转变。
2016年俄罗斯干预美国大选期间，奥巴马政府时期的国土安全部曾提出加强对州的网络安全援助，但一些共和党州长予以抵制，指责民主党政府试图颠覆各州在选举中的角色。
“我记得当共和党人相信州权，并且坚决反对联邦政府对许多州政策（尤其是选举）的任何干预，”资深共和党选举律师、现在批评特朗普的本·金斯伯格说，“这种原则似乎已经改变，过去的信念被遗忘了。”
CNN的西尔维娅·基尔希、萨曼莎·沃尔登伯格和DJ·贾德对本文亦有贡献。
Trump wants Republicans to ‘nationalize’ US elections. The Constitution might get in the way
2026-02-04T05:04:33.531Z / CNN
Washington, DC—
A wide array of election experts say President Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to “nationalize the voting” is an alarming and potentially dangerous escalation of his continued efforts to transform how US elections are administered.
Trump’s remarks were notable both for their ambiguity and for what they could mean if interpreted literally – especially coming from a president who already tried to overturn one election and is now trying to exert powers that are unprecedented in American history, nearly a dozen election officials, lawyers and nonpartisan experts told CNN.
The executive branch has some powers with elections, like sending Justice Department voting-rights monitors to polling places, which it did last year in California and New Jersey. But Trump’s comments Monday that Republicans “should take over the voting” and “nationalize the voting” would bring the federal government’s role to a level never seen before in this country, which experts said usurps powers the Constitution grants to the states.
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“There is one small problem – the Constitution prevents federalizing elections,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, told CNN. “It’s very alarming that Trump continues to use his platform to undermine American elections. These attacks are largely failing, but we need to take these comments seriously.”
The White House has since sought to downplay Trump’s remarks by claiming Tuesday that he was merely expressing support for the SAVE Act, pending legislation that would require people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote. (The bill is meant to combat illegal voting by undocumented immigrants, which studies have found occurs on a microscopic level.)
The timing of Trump’s comments was also jarring to election professionals. They came two days after Democrats flipped a ruby-red Texas state Senate seat; five days after the FBI used a search warrant to seize 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia; and amid multiple Justice Department lawsuits seeking to obtain voter rolls from Democratic states.
“We all need to be very, very sober about this,” said Lori Ringhand, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law who teaches constitutional and election law. “There are few things we do as a country as important as peacefully transferring power through the electoral process, and nobody should be kneecapping that lightly.”
The president started off on a familiar tangent in an interview that aired Monday with right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, who until recently was serving as Trump’s FBI deputy director.
Trump said he inherited a porous border from former President Joe Biden, who allowed “millions” of undocumented immigrants into the country, including many murderers, drug addicts and people from mental institutions. (Aspects of these claims are disputed.)
“If we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election,” Trump said.
Then he added the new part: “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over.’ We should take over the voting, in at least, many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump provided no details about what he meant – and Bongino did not ask. It’s not clear which “15 places” the president wants to look at, though the White House said Tuesday he was referring to states where he believes there is a “high degree” of election fraud. It was also not clear how serious the president was being, or how much thought he had given to his controversial proposal before Monday.
“That’s part of the challenge, right? We don’t know what it means,” Ringhand said. “And I think the first, and most important, thing, perhaps, is that whatever it might mean, it’s something Congress has to do.”
The White House on Tuesday also linked Trump’s remarks to the SAVE Act, but that bill has nothing to do with nationalizing elections. Later Tuesday, Trump urged lawmakers to take action on his “nationalization” idea, and said states worked for the federal government in elections – a concept that runs contrary to the principles of federalism embedded in the Constitution.
“A state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” the president claimed, adding, “I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”
Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on the constitutional provisions that let states run elections, he said, “They can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly.”
A measly 44 words in the US Constitution tell the entire story. The key part dealing with how elections are administered is Article I, Section IV, known as the “Elections Clause.”
It says: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
That clause tasks individual state legislatures with determining how congressional elections are to be held. It does give Congress leeway to oversee and regulate those rules. For example, Congress has used this ability to set one standard Election Day.
The Federalist Papers provide insights into how the framers developed this provision. Legal scholars say writings from Alexander Hamilton describe an intense determination to divide powers over elections, and a real fear of giving the new federal government too much power. And practically, states already had the infrastructure to run elections.
“They were worried about either the states or the federal government having too much control over elections,” said Tim Ford, a Democratic election lawyer who teaches at Temple University’s law school. “So, they tried to strike a balance. They both get a voice in that process.”
Crucially, the Constitution provides no avenue for a president to decide how elections are run. So regardless of what Trump means by nationalizing the elections, it is not something that he has the power to order on behalf of the executive branch alone.
“The founders were very wise in singling out elections as a place where the president has literally no power,” said David Becker, a nonpartisan expert on voting procedures who advises election officials from both parties. “Only state legislatures and Congress have the authority to regulate elections, and courts have upheld this many times.”
The US election system is highly decentralized – and that’s a feature, not a bug.
There are more than 10,000 election administration jurisdictions across the country, and different states have different rules for how elections are run. State legislatures pass laws governing when polling places open and close, how many days of early voting are permitted, who can vote by mail, how many drop boxes are allowed and more.
Local jurisdictions implement these rules and operate the polling places. They’re also responsible for tallying results and often report that data up the secretary of state, who is the chief election officer in most states. Secretaries of state conduct audits to verify the numbers and later certify the final election results.
These procedures vary from state to state, and from county to county. The decentralized model lets local officials tailor their rules to support local needs. It also makes it far more difficult for bad actors to commit systemic fraud or to launch nationwide cyberattacks, experts say.
“‘The president is pushing to upend a system that is already built to prevent widespread election interference, and anyone suggesting a federal takeover hasn’t reckoned with the logistical nightmare it would unleash on voters and election officials,” said Rebekah Caruthers, who runs the Fair Elections Center, which opposes the SAVE Act.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many states significantly expanded access to mail-in voting – leading to record turnout in the 2020 election.
Trump inaccurately claimed at the time that more mail-in-voting automatically helps Democrats (which has been debunked by many studies over the years), and he later falsely claimed he only lost that election because it was rigged. He hasn’t let go of that fixation, which has led many Republican-run states to curtail many of those voting reforms.
If Trump really wants a federal takeover of elections, he’d have to go through Congress.
The Constitution’s “Elections Clause” doesn’t give any powers to the president. States take the lead by setting election rules, but Congress can regulate what the states do.
Legal experts said if Congress embraced Trump’s maximalist approach, lawmakers could pass legislation imposing sweeping federal control over elections. But for generations, lawmakers have steered clear of this. The most recent major law invoking this authority was the Help America Vote Act in 2002, after the 2000 election debacle.
“If fairly read, the Constitution gives Congress a fair amount of power to create national rules for federal election,” said CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck, who is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “But there’s a reason why, for 237 years, Congress has not generally exercised that power … it’s rarer than you’d think.”
Recently, it was Democrats who championed establishing federal election standards. After 2020, House Democrats passed the For the People Act, which would’ve forced states to offer same-day voter registration, expand early voting and loosen other restrictions. Senate Republicans derided it as a “Democrat takeover of election laws” and a “one-sided power grab.” They filibustered the bill, and it never became law.
The roles now appear to be reversed. Republicans are promoting the SAVE Act and a more aggressive bill, proposed last week, called the “Make Elections Great Again Act,” which would codify Trump’s wish list for elections, including nationwide voter ID requirements.
“Even coming from an ordinary politician, this federal takeover would be a terrible idea,” said Walter Olson, a Republican-turned-independent who is senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, who added that legislation to assert new federal control over elections would be “exceedingly unlikely to pass Congress this term.”
Trump famously tried to overturn the election results in 2020 after he lost to Biden. His actions – which led to a now-defunct federal criminal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith – provide a roadmap of what he could do to disrupt the midterms.
Because of the decentralized nature of US elections, many of Trump’s efforts in 2020 centered on attempts to strong-arm state and local Republican officials to delay the vote tally, refuse to certify the results, or to even “find” enough ballots to flip the outcome.
There was one major federal intrusion into the 2020 election that Trump contemplated: He considered signing executive orders that would’ve directed the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines and hunt for voter fraud.
He backed down after an Oval Office screaming match, where many of his top advisers intensely pushed back against the right-wing conspiracy theorists who supported the orders, CNN previously reported. Trump told The New York Times last month that he regretted his decision in 2020 and that “I should have” signed the executive orders.
“There’s a big difference between then and now,” said Becker, the nonpartisan elections expert. “A lot of conspiracy theorists are now in the administration, working for the president. And a lot of the people with principles have been purged. That makes us much more vulnerable.”
It is difficult to ascertain how exactly Trump envisions these “nationalized” elections would be run. But Trump’s actions throughout his first year back in the White House provide clues about the power he could seek to wield over America’s electoral system.
Trump last year signed an executive order that, experts said, seemed designed to circumvent the constitutional checks that prevent a president from taking control over the election system. Most of the provisions of that executive order have been blocked by the courts.
He’s also launched an unprecedented effort to get GOP-run states to redraw their congressional maps to help House Republicans, who have a razor-thin majority. But those efforts have seemingly backfired: Democratic states have now redrawn some of their own maps, while other GOP states balked, turning the endeavor into a near-wash.
He has sought to build a national voter database, and his administration has sued nearly half of all states for their own voter rolls. These efforts have been met with staunch opposition from Democratic election officials and even apparent skepticism from some GOP officials who seem wary of turning over their constituents’ private data. The DOJ’s lawsuits have faced setbacks in court, with cases dismissed in California in Oregon.
“This administration has made concerted efforts to seize election authority from the states,” said Becker. “Thankfully, the courts have stood firm and rejected these attempts. And I’m still confident in our system.”
Trump’s rhetoric is also raising tensions. He frequently flirts with running for a constitutionally prohibited third term (he has backed away from that idea, saying it’s “pretty clear” that he can’t run again). And he said in January that the US “shouldn’t even have an election” (the White House later said he was “being facetious”).
The entire “nationalization” saga is an about-face from the pre-Trump era of US politics.
While Russia was interfering in the 2016 election, the Obama-era DHS offered to beef up its cyber assistance to the states. Some Republican governors balked, accusing the Democratic administration of trying to subvert the state’s role in running elections.
“I remember when Republicans believed in states’ rights and were firmly against any federal encroachment into many state policies, and elections above all,” said Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election lawyer who is now a Trump critic. “The doctrine sure seems to have changed, and principles seems to have been forgotten.”
CNN’s Sylvia Kirsch, Samantha Waldenberg and DJ Judd contributed to this report.