Oppose Federal Takeover of State Election Administration

I am writing to urge you to publicly oppose any federal takeover of state and local election administration. President Trump stated in an NBC interview on Wednesday that the government should intervene in "some areas" of election administration, specifically targeting Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. On Monday, he told Dan Bongino that "Republicans ought to nationalize the voting" in "at least many, 15 places." These proposals represent an unprecedented and unconstitutional assault on state sovereignty. The Constitution explicitly grants states the authority to administer elections. Federal intervention in the election processes of cities that voted for Biden in 2020 would undermine the foundational principle that elections must be administered impartially, not by the party currently in power. This is not about partisan advantage but about preserving the integrity of our democratic system for all Americans. The situation has escalated beyond rhetoric. The FBI conducted an unannounced search of the Fulton County elections office in Georgia last week, seizing hundreds of boxes of documents from the 2020 election. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at this search and her office oversaw an investigation in May into electronic voting machines in Puerto Rico, which voted overwhelmingly for Biden. No evidence of hacking or interference was found in that investigation, yet these federal intrusions continue. Steve Bannon has publicly called for deploying ICE agents to polling sites in November and suggested Trump invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The presence of federal law enforcement or military personnel at polling places would intimidate voters and fundamentally compromise free and fair elections. I ask that you publicly condemn any federal takeover of state election administration and commit to defending the constitutional authority of states to conduct their own elections. Our democracy depends on elections administered by nonpartisan state and local officials, not by whichever party controls Washington.

First sent on February 6 by Jeffrey Barlow