Rhode Island’s top election official is not mincing words. Secretary of State Gregg M. Amore is warning that President Trump’s call for Republicans to "nationalize" elections is both unconstitutional and a direct hit on public trust in the ballot box. His broadside comes as fights over federal voter-data demands and new proof-of-citizenship rules heat up ahead of the 2026 midterms.
What the president said
On a conservative podcast last week, Mr. Trump urged Republicans to "take over" voting in "at least many, 15 places" and said the GOP should "nationalize the voting" in key states. The comments instantly raised alarms among election officials and legal experts who actually have to run the system. As CBS News reported, his remarks landed in the middle of renewed Republican pushes for tougher ID rules and other election-law changes.
Amore’s rebuttal
Amore, a Democrat from East Providence, told the Rhode Island Report podcast that any presidential push to nationalize elections is "tremendously irresponsible" and flatly at odds with the Constitution. He said the framers intentionally kept the executive branch away from running elections and warned that loose talk about a federal takeover risks undercutting confidence in state-run systems.
According to The Boston Globe, Amore stressed that the United States does not actually hold one single national presidential contest. Instead, there are 50 separate state-run elections and thousands of local contests layered underneath, a patchwork he argued makes any large-scale manipulation highly unlikely.
"Because it is so decentralized, it’s impossible to manipulate," Amore said. He added that the sudden focus on "nationalizing" voting appears closely tied to a separate congressional effort to tighten voter-registration rules. As The Boston Globe reported, he warned that the SAVE America Act’s proof-of-citizenship requirements could effectively block some eligible voters, especially women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates, from casting ballots.
What the SAVE America Act would do
Voting-rights groups say the SAVE proposals would require documentary proof of citizenship, such as passports or birth certificates, to register and would make many common registration methods far harder to use. The Brennan Center for Justice has warned that the bill, as written, could deny or delay registration for millions of eligible Americans and saddle voters with new, sometimes costly hurdles.
The Brennan Center argues the measure would restrict mail and online registration options and would land hardest on people who do not have easy access to birth records or passports, despite being citizens entitled to vote.
Fulton County search added fuel
Mr. Trump’s comments also came on the heels of an FBI search of a Fulton County elections facility on Jan. 28, where agents removed boxes of ballots and related election material. The move has been seized on by election deniers and has also worried some officials who fear investigations could be weaponized politically.
Georgia Public Broadcasting reported on the Jan. 28 operation, detailing the seizure and subsequent legal filings over the materials.
States pushing back on federal data requests
Amore has been here before. Rhode Island’s elections office previously refused a Trump-administration request for detailed, nonpublic voter information and publicly defended voters’ privacy in the process. Local coverage in Ocean State Media described his office’s decision not to release personally identifiable data without a specific legal order, as well as a mailing campaign to communicate directly with voters.
At the same time, the Justice Department has sued a slate of states seeking access to detailed voter lists. State officials and voting-rights experts say the federal push threatens both privacy and day-to-day election administration. Coverage summarized by GBH notes dozens of lawsuits and documents how multiple states have objected to turning over unredacted personal data.
Constitutional questions lawmakers face
Legal scholars frequently point to the Constitution’s Elections Clause, which assigns the "times, places and manner" of federal elections primarily to the states, with only limited authority reserved for Congress. That clause is often cited as the central constitutional barrier to any federal takeover of election administration. Texts and explanations of the clause and related amendments are available from Law.Cornell.edu, which compiles primary constitutional materials.
Critics of the SAVE America approach also argue that forcing voters to secure and present documents that cost money could raise serious equal-protection and poll-tax concerns under the 24th Amendment. The 24th Amendment and its enforcement clause are summarized at Law.Cornell.edu.
Whatever happens in the courts, Amore says Rhode Island will continue to shield both its voters and their personal data, even as the tug-of-war between national rules and state control takes center stage heading into November.
That fight is unfolding alongside a major budget push at the State House. The current plan includes a proposed $45 million bond to build a State History Center that officials say would house Rhode Island’s founding documents, part of a broader slate of bond proposals in Governor Dan McKee’s FY2027 budget. Full details are laid out in the governor’s budget release from the Governor's Office.
