[throw0101a]

> That's not within his power to do.

Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against.

> 1. Do not obey in advance.

> Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

* https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Tyranny

[gruez]

>Trump has the power to do anything that people (especially Congress) does not push back against.

Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots. That said, the fact that elections are run at the state level, and the fact that only a handful of swing states matter means it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the election. eg. if Georgia's governor caved in 2020.

[throw0101a]

> Elections are run at the state level, so it's not like Trump can direct state agencies to stop counting mail-in ballots.

Trump asked Texas to redistrict that they were all for it.

[gruez]

That's mentioned in the second part of my comment:

>it only takes a few pliant election officials to change the outcome of the election. eg. if Georgia's governor caved in 2020.

[dangus]

Not really true. In this case he doesn’t have the power to do it because the federal government doesn’t operate elections. He has no lever to pull.

At most he can convince some friendly state legislatures to ban mail-in voting, but even that may not be an automatic process (e.g., maybe some states have requirements to change the constitutional or put the item up on a ballot measure).

Every Trump policy to this point has involved some kind of lever that the executive branch has had power over: tariffs, national guard deployments, and even in the case of ICE enforcement, Trump had to go to Congress to appropriate additional funding to make that viable long-term.

As an aside, I’m not personally too worried about the mail in voting as a hot button issue. I don’t think Republicans will touch it significantly because they need turnout, too, and they need it from key demographics that use absentee ballots like older voters and military members.

Some research seems to show that mail-in voting doesn’t really benefit a specific party.

https://www.dw.com/en/us-election-mail-in-voting-biden-trump...