AHC/WI: US Department of Elections

What would be the necessary point of departure, for any date after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, for the United States to establish a federal Department of Elections whose job would be to establish consistent, clear processes for elections, registration, ensuring the security of ballots and protecting citizens' right to vote? What impact would this have on US politics and history if there's a single, uniform and consistent set of rules for voting, ballot access and all other functions that are usually handled at the state level by the Secretaries of State?
 
Problem is, what actual elections are handled at the federal level? Every U.S. Election is done statewide. Even the U.S. President and V Pres is a statewide election for electors, not for President itself.

An no state would ratify an amendment that would take away their powers to regulate an election.
 
Problem is, what actual elections are handled at the federal level? Every U.S. Election is done statewide. Even the U.S. President and V Pres is a statewide election for electors, not for President itself.

An no state would ratify an amendment that would take away their powers to regulate an election.

The argument could be made that the department would focus, at least initially, on matters related to House elections. From there as the processes for how Senators are elected and electoral votes are allocated change you get justification for adding Senate and President to that list.
 
The argument could be made that the department would focus, at least initially, on matters related to House elections. From there as the processes for how Senators are elected and electoral votes are allocated change you get justification for adding Senate and President to that list.

They could get such a power indirectly, if the Constitution were amended to provide that one Presidential Elector should be chosen from each congressional district. The CONUS already gave Congress the power to overrule State regulations where Congressional elections were concerned.

Such an Amendment had narrowly failed in 1820, but afaik wasn't seriously discussed post-1865.
 
The place that would make the most sense, Constitutionally speaking, for such a change to happen would be if someone tacks it on to the 15th Amendment as a way of ensuring the freedmen can vote, get to the polls and help keep the GOP in the majority in Congress. As a Constitutionally-mandated office it can't be abolished though if Reconstruction still fails as OTL it would be cut back or rendered toothless though still in existence and an option for people to use in the future.
 
In other federal systems, elections are handled by a nonpartisan office at the federal level. Here are some examples I found in about five minutes of internet searching:

http://www.elections.ca/home.aspx

http://www.aec.gov.au/

http://www.tse.jus.br/

In Germany elections are handled by the federal Ministry of the Interior. Actually I'm pretty sure the American electoral system is unique in both the degree of localization and the degree of partisan involvement.
 
The question isn’t whether such a department is legal or not, but whether the Supreme Court will interpret the 15th Amendment as the authors intended. I don’t know much about the Court following the War, but from my perspective there wasn’t much support for the federal government to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments.

What would have to happen is for a VRA to pass along the lines of the 1964 version, and then have the Court rule that the Congress was acting within the confines of both the 14th and 15th.
 

Anderman

Donor
In other federal systems, elections are handled by a nonpartisan office at the federal level. Here are some examples I found in about five minutes of internet searching:

http://www.elections.ca/home.aspx

http://www.aec.gov.au/

http://www.tse.jus.br/

In Germany elections are handled by the federal Ministry of the Interior. Actually I'm pretty sure the American electoral system is unique in both the degree of localization and the degree of partisan involvement.

In the case of Germany it is not that easy the the Federal Returning Officer is appointed by the federal minister of the Interior but most of the work is done state organisations.
 

samcster94

Banned
They could get such a power indirectly, if the Constitution were amended to provide that one Presidential Elector should be chosen from each congressional district. The CONUS already gave Congress the power to overrule State regulations where Congressional elections were concerned.

Such an Amendment had narrowly failed in 1820, but afaik wasn't seriously discussed post-1865.
1876 had a contested election and that kind of EC change seems very plausible in that era.
 
The question isn’t whether such a department is legal or not, but whether the Supreme Court will interpret the 15th Amendment as the authors intended. I don’t know much about the Court following the War, but from my perspective there wasn’t much support for the federal government to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments.

What would have to happen is for a VRA to pass along the lines of the 1964 version, and then have the Court rule that the Congress was acting within the confines of both the 14th and 15th.

If you've got a clause in the 15th Amendment explicitly stating all federal elections are to be handled by a nonpartisan federal department that would be kind of hard for the Supreme Court to talk it's way around or nullify. It could end up falling into disuse as Reconstruction (thanks to not utterly breaking the planter class) but it would still be there in some form and probably see reinvigoration come the Progressive period.
 
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