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Can the President Cancel an Election? No.

No, the president can’t cancel an election and here’s why…

This year, midterm elections will be held in all states to re-elect or choose new members of congress. All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, plus 35 U.S. Senate seats will be decided upon. Because voters are typically looking for change, midterm elections characteristically result in the President’s party losing ground in the U.S. House of Representative. Presidents are keenly aware of this trend and are often quite nervous about their potential loss of power and new challenges to pass their legislative agendas, whatever they may be. Let’s take a look at the attempts and threats a president might make to counteract this election trend and expand executive power over elections.

One way to try to expand executive power is through legislation. The president may try to push through executive orders that overreach in the area of elections. One example is an executive order that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, along with the return of all mail ballots by close of polls on Election Day. The president, however, has no power to write or rewrite election laws. The Elections Clause of the Constitution bequeaths the authority to write elections laws to Congress. The Elections Clause expressly states,

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

Accordingly, a federal court permanently blocked the 2025 executive order that attempted to change election laws.¹

Proposed New Election Laws

Two “proof of citizenship bills” have been proposed in 2026: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) and the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA Act).

The SAVE Act would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, to show photo ID when casting a ballot, and to provide a copy of their identification when requesting and casting an absentee ballot. ²
The MEGA Act would require voters to show photo ID, limit mail-in ballots to voters who request them, require mail in ballots to be received by the close of polls, necessitate states to verify voters’ citizenship, mandate voter-roll maintenance, require auditable paper ballots, ban ballot harvesting, and prohibit ranked-choice voting.³

Although the president has no power to pass election related orders on his own, he can try to use his influence to push for bills like the SAVE Act and MEGA Act to pass in Congress.

Nationalize Elections?

What if a president wants to “nationalize” elections. What “nationalize” exactly entails is not known, but one can venture to guess it refers to the Executive Branch taking control over the laws and execution of elections. Without an act of Congress, the President has no authority to take an active role in elections. Therefore, without a change in our nation’s laws, the president cannot reassign the authority of elections from Congress to the Executive branch.

The Election Clause in the Constitution empowers the states the right to determine the “times, places, and manner” of holding elections.

Through the states’ Secretary of State and local election officials, states are responsible for enforcing election policy, setting state specific voting rules, maintaining voter registration systems, preserving voting equipment, and certifying election results. They are also responsible for the voter registration process, preparing polling places, training poll workers, producing ballots, and administering the absentee ballot process.⁴ States make elections happen and the president cannot interfere with any of these processes.

Other Ways to Meddle in Elections

Another way the president can try to meddle with elections is through the acquisition of voter information from the states. An example of this is requesting or demanding access to states’ voter rolls. A voter roll is a list of those who have registered to vote in that jurisdiction. Historically, only states have managed their own voter rolls. Beginning in 2025, the federal Depart of Justice (DOJ), at the behest of the president, requested many states to provide their unredacted voter roll data to the DOJ.

Approximately half of the states have been sued for their voter rolls, an unprecedented action. The Department of Homeland Security has compelled states to use a federal immigration verification tool with their voter rolls to scan for non-citizens who have voted illegally. While several states have agreed to provide the DOJ with their records, judges in Michigan, Oregon, and California have ruled that federal law does not require states to hand over their voter rolls.⁵

It is clear that the president has no influence over elections no matter which way he tries to interfere with them.

Back we go to the main question: can the president outright cancel an election?

Can the president cancel the upcoming 2026 midterm election or the 2028 Presidential election? The answer is an unmistakable NO for two reasons.

One, as previously stated, the constitutional power to write election law lies with Congress and not with the President. The President has no constitutional power over elections and therefore cannot cancel, postpone, or change an election.
And two, Congress sets the rules that oversee elections and thousands of local officials manage the elections. These local officials are legally mandated to run the elections based on state and local law. They take this responsibility very seriously and would not sway from the law because the President is requesting they do so.⁶

While a President may try to get involved with elections, the Presidency has little to no power in this arena. The president cannot generate executive orders to govern elections and federal law is not on his side. The power to create, regulate, and oversee elections lies with Congress. The power and responsibility to administer elections lies with the states. No, the president cannot cancel an election.

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