Trump ruffles feathers on elections

Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Apr 2, 2025

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Nevada Democrats are outraged at an executive order that Donald Trump issued to regulate elections. But while the president’s authority in this area is limited, he’s more aligned with voter sentiment than his critics.

The order promotes proof of citizenship requirements and seeks to ensure all mail ballots are returned by Election Day. It also instructs the Justice Department to prioritize voter fraud and other election crimes. States that don’t comply may be threatened with a loss of federal funding.

Like many of Trump’s initiatives, his election reform plan pushes boundaries and relies on creative legal interpretations of current law. The Constitution gives the states the power to set the “time, places and manner” of their own elections, while allowing Congress to pass election guidelines that override state legislation. The executive branch has little role in setting rules for the conduct of federal elections.

Several state attorneys general said they’ll contest provisions of the executive order, The New York Times reported, and many legal experts expect they are likely to prevail.

The changes would certainly affect Nevada, which has few identification requirements at the polls and allows mail ballots to be counted even if they are received up to three days after Election Day.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager issued a blistering news release on Wednesday calling the executive order “shameful” and “an affront to Nevada’s voters.” Yeager added that lawmakers would not even consider Trump’s proposals because “the president cannot be permitted to blackmail the state into remaking its election laws to suit his personal partisan preferences and his campaign to weaken our democracy.”

His reaction is to be expected, but it’s notable that Yeager didn’t even mention the constitutional issues. And his concern about “remaking” election laws for “partisan” gain is risible, given that’s precisely what state Democrats did by making permanent COVID-era reforms intended to ensure voter participation during a pandemic.

In fact, rather than being an “affront to Nevada voters,” it’s highly likely that state residents would favor some of Trump’s proposals, including voter ID requirements and a more reasonable timetable for the return of mail ballots to ensure the timely tabulation of results. A Gallup poll from late 2024 found that 84 percent of respondents favored requiring photo ID to vote and 83 percent backed laws demanding that those registering to vote provide proof of citizenship. Yet Democrats have become wholly invested in smearing Americans who embrace such common-sense reform as racist Jim Crow sympathizers.

Trump’s executive order faces an uphill legal battle given the explicit language of the Constitution. But the president is more in touch with public opinion on voter ID and mail ballots than Nevada Democrats, who would prefer that neither of those ideas ever make it to the ballot.