President Trump’s call to nationalize elections is a desperate attempt to retain power in the face ofgrowing unpopularity. Such a move would destroy the very essence of the United States. Ours is perhaps the only country whose name describes what our founders intended: a collection of sovereign states united under a constitution. 

It’s important to remember that the states created the federal government, not the other way around. In ratifying the Constitution, the 13 original states delegated some, but not all, powers to the federal government. The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 

The Constitution does not detail how to organize elections. But it gives states the right to choose members of the Electoral College, to elect their representatives to the Senate and House, and provides a means for deciding how many seats in Congress each may have. 

If the states are deprived of their sovereign right to run elections, the government created by the founders — and set forth in the Constitution — would cease to exist. States’ most fundamental rights would be trumped by an all-powerful central government; they would cease to be proper “states.” Instead, they’d become “provinces” — simple administrative divisions with little to no power to make decisions. Worst of all, “The United States” would become a misnomer, and our very identity as a nation would be lost.

Xavier Comas
Alna