No, Trump does not have the legal authority or the practical ability to “nationalize” US elections, for all the same reasons he also didn’t when he issued an executive order a few months ago abolishing mail in voting.

@mattblaze @diasyy11 i don't have to be an elections expert to understand that if a bunch of guys with guns show up and start beating people up and shutting down the polling station or seizing the machines, that nothing in the law can stop that and in a situation like minneapolis where the cops are outnumbered 5:1 by ICE guys with bigger guns, nothing in local law enforcement can stop it either.

@cryptadamist @diasyy11 Again, feel free to freak out about this complete nothingburger if it makes you feel better. No skin off my nose.

@mattblaze @diasyy11 i'm not freaking out about it and i don't think it's particularly likely but at the same time i think completely ruling it out from a guy who sent his followers to their deaths with lies on january 6th just bc he couldn't handle losing power is foolish.

@mattblaze @diasyy11 p.s. the last thing i heard him say wasn't that he needed to nationalize elections, but that he thought they will need to commandeer the election machinery in just 15 places that he deems problematic. that was a few hours ago.

15 places is well within ICE's budget.

@diasyy11 @cryptadamist I’m just a law professor and computer scientist who studies US elections for a living. You can value my perspective or not. Your choice; I’ll be fine either way.

@diasyy11 @cryptadamist I actually know a thing or two about how elections work. I’m not going to apologize for being an actual expert on this subject.

@diasyy11 @cryptadamist I’m fine with the cushy jobs that currently have. I have no political ambitions.

@mattblaze @cryptadamist @diasyy11 You are assuming the law still works as intended, which might not be the case anymore. But after all the Epstein files and a failure to punish attempted coup on previous term (to name just two examples), can we still say that law actually works? I think people here are concerned that the Orange will bypass the law through force, not that he can do it legally. ‍️

@mihamarkic @cryptadamist @diasyy11 you’re the expert.

Scale of US elections:

51 states (and DC), each with its own election laws

Most ballot questions are for state and local offices and initiatives

~ 5000 local election administration jurisdictions (mostly counties and townships), which run election logistics

~ 115,000 local polling places, mostly borrowed for election day

~ 750,000 election day workers

~ 138,000,000 ballots cast in 2016, 82,000,000 of which at local polling places on election day.

@mattblaze

hi, longtime follower of yours, the daisy account joined a day or two ago and is engagement farming (if that is the right word), not even sincerely if annoyingly arguing. "her" handful of interactions are replying to a couple/few big accts including yours

@mattblaze @diasyy11 Save for the fact that that won't necessarily stop him, enough GOP state governments would go along to make it successful, and he'll appeal any TROs or PIs to the Supreme Court with the risk they'll overturn those TROs/PIs on the shadow docket regardless of logic or lack thereof (look at all the otherwise completely non-controversial TROs/PIs they've done that with in the last year).

@mattblaze @dominykas

Before the laws of thermodynamics we had folklore.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle but Trump can decimate it's followers with his threats.

It’s hard to overstate just how huge this system is, or how many moving parts are involved. And almost all of it operates at the local level, governed by state laws and local practices and tied to the structure of local government.

This is not something you can just snap your fingers and take over by fiat or force, not to mention the fact that it’s all deeply embedded in federal and state constitutional structures.

@mattblaze Ok so nationalizing by decree is out. What are the election dangers we/the US people should be worrying about?

@mattblaze I should stop declaring things "non-starters" but Americans like and trust their local elections.

@mattblaze @dominykas Matt - first of kudos for your patience and for your long years of expertise in the topic (and the fact you engage with the public).

As an outside observer (not from the US, so certainly cannot appreciate all the intrinsic issues for the US), I think that the sentiment fueling the fear is based on things people see ICE (or similar schenenigans). The federal gov't seems to operate ICE outside the local law in many places, not adhering to the rule of law >>>

@mattblaze @dominykas He declares himself to be 6'3" and while that doesn't make it so. That's what's recorded in many records and what many choose to believe. If a similar number of people chose to believe that Trumps self appointed authority to nationalize elections was valid, what are the practical limitations there?

@mattblaze
It aeems to me that his "power" across the board (that is, irrespective of which elections & where they occur) appears to be theatrical declarations to the press & on social media — which do affect many people when they hear/read them — and the general ability to create chaos and more intimidation by, for example, putting any sort of "enforcement" agents on streets & around polling places. Those could be ICE, National Guard, regular military, et al., legal or not.

Correct assumption?

@mattblaze @dominykas Top that with the inuerent fragility and unstability of the US elections from outcome perspective (where a voter in Georgia has a much greater impact on the outcome than the voter in California), topped with a bit of history of gerrymandering, voter suppression and all the "goodies" that you are much more qualified than any of us to list, and the collaboration of Trumpists in local/state level, does projects instability >>>