Can Trump delay the 2020 presidential election? Not by himself
President Trump can’t change Election Day without Congress, despite tweeting that mail-in ballot fraud may justify it during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” Trump tweeted Thursday.
But experts were quick to shoot down the idea, pointing out Congress controls the federal election date — set for Nov. 3 — and the Constitution says presidential terms end Jan. 20.
President Abraham Lincoln held an election during the Civil War despite expecting to lose. And when terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers on the morning of Sept. 11, a local primary election was delayed just two weeks with regular citywide and mayoral elections held as scheduled two months later.
Democrats control the House of Representatives, making it extremely unlikely the election date will change. And Republicans who hold the Senate quickly dismissed the idea.
“Never in the history of the country — through wars, depressions and the Civil War — have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time. And we’ll find a way to do that again this Nov. 3,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told a local TV station.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said, “We’ve had elections every November since about 1788, and I expect that will be the case again this year.”
And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also rejected changing the date, but said, “I understand the president’s concern about mail-in voting.”
A 1948 law says states must select presidential electors on “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” and that the Electoral College must meet on “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.”
The 20th Amendment to the Constitution says the president and vice president’s terms end on Jan. 20.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who assisted in Trump’s defense during his Senate impeachment trial, said, “Trump is not claiming that he can unilaterally stop the election in this tweet.”
“That does not make this any more acceptable but both candidates are fueling conspiracy theories with these remarks,” Turley said, a reference also to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden recently speculating that Trump “is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.”
“The law is clear and the election is set,” Turley said.
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who in 2016 vied for the nomination against Trump, also dismissed the idea of moving election day.
“We’re going to have an election, it’s going to be legitimate, it’s going to be credible, it’s going to be the same as it’s always been,” Rubio told reporters.
“I think election fraud is a serious problem,” Cruz said. “But no, we should not delay the election.”
States have some leeway in choosing electors. For example, they don’t need to give citizens a vote, and state legislatures can legally pick presidential electors themselves — but no state has done so since before the Civil War.
“State legislators are up for election this year in about 44 states, and I think any legislator who voted for a bill to get rid of the popular vote for presidential electors would be likely to be defeated,” said Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News.
Scholars for years have mulled the potential fallout, however, if a president were for some reason not selected by Jan. 20 — most likely due to an Electoral College tie that’s thrown to the House to resolve, with each state getting one vote. Newly elected congressmen take office Jan. 3.
There’s debate about the constitutionality of a presidential succession law. Some believe the House speaker — potentially Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — would become temporary president if there was no winner selected by Jan. 20. Others believe it would be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.