What legal steps would Congress need to take to lawfully postpone a presidential election?
Executive summary
Congress is the only federal actor with the constitutional authority to set the date for choosing presidential electors and therefore to change the day of the presidential election; the President alone cannot lawfully cancel or unilaterally postpone it [1] [2]. To postpone the election lawfully, Congress would need to pass clear, specific legislation altering the statutory election date and any linked deadlines (including Electoral College timelines), a process that would invite immediate judicial review and require navigating state law and the Elections Clause limits [3] [4] [5].
1. Constitutional authority: who controls the date and what the text says
Article II and the Elections Clause together grant Congress power over the timing of presidential elector selection and allow Congress to regulate federal elections; that constitutional text means Congress, not the President, controls the national election date [1] [5]. Constitutional commentators and institutional guides uniformly conclude that only Congress and the states have roles here — federal executive officials lack a unilateral power to change the date outside ordinary legislation [1] [6].
2. Existing statutory framework Congress would have to change
Congress long ago set the uniform day for presidential elections (and has done so since 1845), and separate federal statutes govern what happens if a state “fails to make a choice” on that day; these statutes and related Electoral College deadlines (December submission of electors, January counting) are intertwined and would have to be amended in tandem to avoid legal and administrative chaos [2] [3] [4]. CRS and legal scholars note that federal law contains specific provisions for failures or delays and that any postponement would require attention to those statutory contingencies [3].
3. Concrete legislative steps Congress would need to take
Practically, Congress would have to draft, pass, and have signed into law an amendment to the statutes that set Election Day and the timelines for appointment and submission of electors — a bill that should specify the new date, who has authority to set or ratify it, and how state procedures and candidate filing deadlines are to be handled [3] [4]. Legislators could also, as CRS observed, delegate emergency rescheduling authority to the executive by statute, but that itself would be a fresh law changing the current allocation of power and would likely be litigated [3].
4. The indispensable role of the states and the Elections Clause tension
Even if Congress changes federal dates, states retain primary responsibility to administer elections under the Elections Clause, meaning state laws on ballots, candidate filing, and election mechanics must be reconciled with any new federal timetable — Congress can preempt contrary state rules but doing so raises federalism and administrative complexities that courts have historically navigated cautiously [6] [5]. CRS and the Constitution Center stress that Congress can impose uniform rules but traditionally lets states manage logistics, so a postponement would require coordinated federal-state statutory fixes [3] [1].
5. Electoral College and cascading deadlines Congress must address
A lawful postponement cannot stop at Election Day: the Electoral College’s statutory schedule (when electors meet and when Congress counts electoral votes) would also need revision because shifting the popular-vote date without moving those fixed deadlines risks creating a “failure to make a choice” scenario and a constitutional vacuum resolved by contingency rules for congressional selection of a president and vice president [4] [3]. Reporters and legal analysts warn delays would force Congress to adjust multiple interlocking deadlines to avoid default constitutional mechanisms [4].
6. Legal challenges, political reality, and precedents
Any congressional act to postpone would almost certainly be met with immediate lawsuits raising constitutional questions and claims of political motive; courts would weigh the plain text, historical practice (elections held through wars and pandemics), and whether Congress stayed within its constitutional powers — precedent suggests courts defer to clear statutory language but scrutinize attempts to upend core democratic processes [2] [3] [4]. Alternatives exist — limited delegations to the executive or state-by-state rescheduling under narrow circumstances — but each carries legal and political blowback and uncertain judicial outcomes [3] [1].
7. Bottom line: what lawful postponement would look like
A lawful postponement is possible only through deliberate congressional legislation that explicitly amends Election Day and all linked federal deadlines, reconciles or preempts conflicting state laws, and anticipates Electoral College mechanics; absent that statute, neither the President nor ad hoc measures can lawfully stop or delay the presidential election [1] [3] [2]. Reporting and legal analyses converge: the pathway is statutory and fraught — feasible on paper but politically and legally combustible in practice [4] [3].