Members of Donald Trump’s inner circle are signaling the new administration could implement a massive election overhaul that would cement protections Republicans have been demanding since 2020.
The biggest change – making Election Day a national holiday where employers are mandated to give their workers paid time off to cast their ballot.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a former 2024 Republican candidate now on the short list for an administration position, said making federal elections on a single day would help restore voter confidence in U.S. elections.
He also claimed that paper ballots over machines and requirements of government issued ID to match the voter file would be a good place to start to overhaul the system.
Meanwhile, podcaster Joe Rogan, who now almost certainly has a direct line to president-elect Trump, also agrees with making it a holiday.
During an episode with fellow podcaster Theo Von released on November 8, Rogan raised questions over how there were so many unexplained ‘anomalies’ in the 2020 election in an apparent effort to cast doubt on whether there was ‘cheating’ that led to Trump’s loss.
He then suggested: ‘How about we have an election – national election holiday. We could do with one more holiday.’
‘Celebrate it, it’s a great day. People can rejoice. It would take a lot of stress off people, too,’ Von agreed.
‘It should be a paid holiday,’ Rogan said. ‘You should expect to have to pay your employees on the day that election comes because everybody should be able to go vote. That’s what it should be. We’ll talk to Trump about it. Make it a nationally mandated holiday.’
‘I don’t have his number,’ Von replied.
Rogan quipped: ‘We could hook it up. I know some people.’
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy’s conversation with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was also released three days after the 2024 presidential election.
He had a few ways that U.S. elections could be improved.
‘What I care about is how are we actually going to fix it in a lasting way,’ Ramaswamy said when discussing how to fix U.S. elections. ‘I think we can do this nationally, where you make election a national holiday, put it on a single day – at least for a federal election.’
‘All 50 states have a bare minimum standard of single-day voting, paper ballots, government issued ID to match the voter file. Period,’ he suggested. ‘And I think more or less we’ve solved the problem of public confidence in elections in the long run.’
‘If you’re against that, I’d love to hear the best argument offered against that. I haven’t really heard that yet.’
The biotech entrepreneur said it’s time to move on from 2020 and go forward into a better future with more trust in the system of U.S. elections.
‘What did we say this time around? This had to be by such a decisive margin that a landslide minus some shenanigans is still going to be a decisive victory. And that’s what we got,’ Ramaswamy said.
‘So my view is – we can – and there’s going to be such a temptation to do this – we actually won, like we actually are in a winning position right now,’ he continued.
‘So like I’m more or less could care less for the Joe Biden or Kamala Harris past. Like it just doesn’t matter,’ he said.
Carlson said: ‘That’s the spirit.’