The president has no constitutional authority over federal election administration. Rather, state and local officials are charged with administering elections, serving voters, and counting ballots to determine who the people chose to represent them. Still, the Trump administration has unlawfully sought to assert control over certain aspects of election administration. For example, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that purported to mandate new rules governing voter registration and voting systems, among other changes.
The U.S. Constitution and state constitutions guarantee the regular occurrence of elections and protect the right of all eligible citizens to participate. While the president has some limited power to influence the level of support that the federal government provides for election administration — by making cybersecurity expertise and resources available to states to utilize if they choose, for example — it is state and local governments who primarily set rules for how elections are run and state and local officials who register voters, manage polling places, and count ballots. And despite challenges in recent years, including a pandemic, threats of violence, and extraordinary political pressure, state and local election officials across party lines have run secure elections with accurate vote counts.
