Can The President Postpone The Election?

President Trump suggested that the election this fall may need to be postponed due to the coronavirus. While many have suggested mail-in voting as an answer to the problem, the president decried this option as rife with fraud. Can the president postpone the election? Let’s take a look.

Who Controls The Election

To answer this question, we need to determine who is in charge of elections. The answer is a bit complicated, as control is split between the federal and state governments. The federal government decides when to hold federal elections. However, states actually run the elections.

The date of the presidential election is set by law as the first Tuesday of November following the first Monday of the month. To change this would require a new law passed by Congress. With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, this is highly unlikely. Even the Republican-controlled Senate has declined to endorse a postponement of the election.

The states do not get to choose when to hold federal elections, but they control other aspects of the process. For example, the states will determine if they are going to allow mail-in voting. Some Democratic-controlled states have already opted to do just that. The states can also allow early voting, as some states have done for years. There are many tools at their disposal to make voting safer in the pandemic.

What’s Wrong With Voting By Mail?

President Trump brought up this possibility because he believes voting by mail will result in voter fraud. There is no evidence that this is a significant problem. In fact, the president and many of his aides have voted by mail in the past.

So why is the president concerned with voting by mail? Democrats outnumber Republicans in the US. A Gallup poll in May of this year found 31% of Americans identify as Democrats, while 25% identify as Republicans. Among the 40% who identified as Independent, 50% said they were Democratic-leaning, and 38% leaned towards Republicans.

So Democrats outnumber Republicans. As a result, Republicans push voter suppression as a tactic to win elections. Tactics have included requiring ID to vote, closing polling stations, and limiting early voting. Voters in metropolitan areas of red states often have to wait in line for hours to vote.

The ability to mail in your vote would make it much easier to vote. The president clearly doesn’t have a personal problem with this option as he has used it himself. His usage obviously means he thinks it’s a safe way to vote. His opposition is based on the fact that he thinks it would be detrimental to his electoral chances.

Furthermore, several states already conduct extensive vote by mail operations, including Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. While four of the five are Democratic-controlled states, Utah is a deeply conservative Republican state, proving that the tactic is not exclusive to Democrats.

Conclusion

So, can the president postpone the election? Legally, no. Federal law dictates when the election must be held. Congress would have to pass a new law to move the election. There appears to be no appetite for that on capital hill. While the states control certain aspects of elections, they can not move the date either. The election will be held on time this year, whether the president wants it to or not.

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