I’ve scholarly questions about constitutional election requirements. Hypothetically, could the federal government just separate the presidential election from all the state and local elections? Am I correct in thinking that the president and vice president are the only elected persons who represent the entire nation and do not have a state affiliated with their position?
The federal government sets the date for the election of the president and Congress, but the states run the election activity in their respective states. I can’t see how the feds could forbid the states from holding other elections on the same day.
The Constitution outlines the election process. The Electoral College elects the president, and the states each have processes for selecting those Electors. The Federal Government is bound by the following:
So the States have the ultimate control of how the Electors are chosen. The Federal Government doesn’t really get a choice in how that happens unless it can be shown that the process violates some other aspect of the Constitution such discrimination based on protected classes.
Just as a practical matter, elections are hugely expensive. Not just for the candidates, but for the states. There are over 100,000 polling places in the U.S. Each one needs to have its address sent out to registered voters, be staffed, have the proper voting machines installed, be cleaned and protected, etc.
Holding separate state and federal elections would at least double that cost. (Presidential, congressional, and state triple it.) It would also surely suppress votes since a larger percentage of eligible voters turn out for president than any other contest.
It’s doubtful that the federal election could be held separately without a change to the constitution, but just as doubtful that anyone would try.
Yeah, as I said above I don’t see how the feds have the constitutional authority to forbid the states from holding state elections on the same day as the federal elections. Because that’s what it would take. Individual states could choose to do so, but the feds couldn’t mandate it unless we changed the constitution-- something that the states would not agree to, I’m sure.
It has happened, sort of. In 1970 Congress amended the 1965 Voting Rights Act and Richard Nixon signed, to allow 18-year olds to vote. The state of Oregon (where the voting age was 21) immediately challenged the law on the grounds that only the states had the right to establish voter qualifications.
In the case Oregon vs. Mitchell the Supreme Court held that Congress did have the right to set voting age for a national election (president), but not for state or local elections.
The court’s decision could have forced the states to have a separate voter list and ballot just for the presidential election. That mess was sidestepped when the 26th Amendment was ratified in 1971.
There are a handful of states that hold their state & local elections in odd-numbered years. New Jersey is one of them. IIRC they all still hold general elections in November, but there’s no reason why a state couldn’t hold it’s general election in May (& have officeholders sworn in June or July).
To answer the OP - no but the separate state Legislatures could since they have the sole power to decide how to select the electors.