Trump Administration Challenges US Election Integrity: Experts Dispel Baseless Claims and Misinterpretations of Constitution
In the face of widespread criticism for undermining the principles and provisions of the U.S. Constitution, President Donald Trump has intensified his verbal assaults on the administration of United States elections.
Over the past nine years, federal and state investments in election security and integrity initiatives have significantly improved the robustness and transparency of the nation’s electoral infrastructure. However, the president has consistently propagated an unsubstantiated narrative that American election systems are outdated and unreliable, advocating for federal intervention.
Trump’s administration has systematically scaled back significant portions of the federal government’s election security efforts and appointed officials within the Department of Homeland Security who question the validity of Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat. Most recently, Heather Honey, a proponent of election conspiracy theories, was named deputy assistant secretary for election integrity within the US Department of Homeland Security in late August.
In a post on Truth Social last month, Trump asserted, “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.”
Nonpartisan election experts underscore that this statement misrepresents the U.S. Constitution and the decentralized, state-controlled election model it outlines. Lawrence Norden, vice president of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center at New York University School of Law, states, “The states run the elections; Congress can add rules, but the president has no role. Trump makes all these pronouncements that he’s going to end mail voting, that voting machines can’t be trusted, but he can’t do that.”
Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to election system integrity, stresses the challenges in discussing the administration’s concerns due to the inappropriate use of the presidency as a platform for dictating election requirements. “It’s really hard to talk about all of this when the context is just wrong,” Smith says. “It’s not up to the White House to say to the Election Assistance Commission, ‘You should change how you do voting machine certification and decertification.’”
Ben Adida, executive director of VotingWorks, a nonprofit organization that develops open-source voting equipment, acknowledges the importance of urging state and local officials to prioritize replacing outdated voting machines. He considers this recommendation a “positive development” from the March executive order; however, he also notes that the suggested timeline in the order is unrealistic.
