Esteemed elections lawyer Angelo Genova today in conversation with InsiderNJ constitutionally contextualized President Donald J. Trump's expressed desire to "nationalize" elections in the United States of America.

"It's clear that what he proposed - nationalization of elections - clashes pretty directly with the Constitution, Article 1, Section Four, Clause 1," said Genova:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof

Trump's comment, he added, "collides with the fundamental bedrock of the Constitution's framework governing elections."

But the attorney is willing to dive deeper to treat the more nuanced elements of the possible implications of Trump's remark. While the President may be conflating in his own mind things that Congress can do and perhaps speaking recklessly, Genova acknowledges constitutional principles at stake on both sides of a contentious argument regarding elections.

Republicans typically question the legitimacy of elections wherein states allegedly fail to maintain strong strictures to guarantee the citizenship and proper identification of voters. Moreover, voting during COVID, expanded to provide user-friendly ways for citizens to exercise their rights while socially isolating, precipitated and intensified the debate. At the heart of this was vote-by-mail.

While his statement to nationalize elections is clearly unconstitutional, Trump - his backers can argue - is trying to talk about the federal regulation of the conduct of federal elections as enabled by the second half of Clause 1 in the aforementioned Constitutional Article:

"The Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."

That said, Genova noted that no evidence that he is aware of shows sufficient cause for him to believe that current constitutional conditions enable systemic voter fraud, which is, of course, the President's charge.

While nationalizing elections intrudes directly on states' rights, Trump might be thinking about these things in terms of how Congress can legitimately regulate, such as by means of the SAVE Act.

• The SAVE Act bill not only requires proof of citizenship, but also proof of residence in order to register. This could block even more Americans from voting. Roughly nine percent of the population has moved within a state in the past year, but many will not update their driver’s licenses until they expire.

• The bill would require photo ID to vote, providing a narrow list of acceptable IDs more restrictive than the voter ID laws in every state but Ohio. For example, the bill prohibits the use of student IDs (even those issued by state universities), and accepts tribal IDs only with an expiration date, even though many tribal IDs do not contain them.

That can be debated separately if indeed that is what Trump is trying to say, but here's what he actually said:

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump declared in an interview with Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, on Monday. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Genova reasserted, "My takeaway is that is an abrupt intrusion over the constitutional way we run elections, which is central to democratic governance and the primary mechanism by which voters exercise their rights. The founders recognized that we don't want it driven by the goals of an individual leader.

"What's also happened, however, is a recurring and persistent theme of partisan politics in which one side is concerned about voter fraud and the other side is concerned about voter suppression," Genova added. "Democrats prioritize voting rights laws, with, for example, the John Lewis Protection Act. The flip side is tension emerging on the right for more regulation."

At the heart of the struggle is the desire on one side for maximized legal voter participation versus the greatest regulation within the law to ensure incorruption by fraud.

Part of Trump's problem with gaining traction for his argument is that judges he appointed failed to conclude systemic voter fraud in the 2020 election, which seems to mostly be the President's focus, as he repeatedly falsely denies that he lost to Joe Biden.

There is a critical difference, moreover, between particular instances of voter fraud, like illegal ballot harvesting, for example, and systemic elections fraud, whereby checks and balances break down and fail to ensure the bipartisan constitutional maintenance of elections. Trump, to date, can't prove that dislocation in a forum, which requires, finally, after all, facts to make a case.