It has become commonplace to repeat the quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: that we had created a republic “if you can keep it.” The prospect of keeping our republic has never seemed more at risk, at least in my lifetime, than it does today. The fundamental problem is that one of our two major parties—the Republican Party—has become one in which the majority of its members are only prepared to accept the results of elections as valid when their candidates are successful. That toxic perspective is a product of Trump’s Big Lie and the zealous disciples it has spawned in elections across the country. It is a perspective that has been seen often in autocratic rulers, around the world, past and present. It is, however, unprecedented in America.
An important step in preserving democracy and our republic was taken with passage by the House on September 21 of a bill to reform the murky provisions of the Electoral Count Act. That is the law through which Donald Trump attempted—and only narrowly failed—to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Most notably, the reform bill, sponsored by Representatives Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgre, passed the House over the opposition of all but nine Republicans.
As summarized in the New York Times, the Cheney-Lofgren bill would, among other things:
- Clarify the role of the Vice President as involving only ministerial duties.
- Substantially raise the threshold required for Congress to consider an objection to a state’s electoral votes.
- Require states to choose their electors under laws passed prior to the election.
- Permit candidates to sue state officials who certified electors who did not conform to election results.
It is noteworthy, and perhaps significant, that despite the almost monolithic opposition of House Republicans, the reform bill earned a strong endorsement from the conservative voice of the Wall Street Journal. The House bill will have to be reconciled with a bipartisan bill pending in the Senate but not yet passed. The Senate version has similar objectives but differs in some significant particulars.
While the pending reforms of the Electoral Count Act are important, they will provide no guarantee against mischief at the state level that could result in chaos to be sorted out by courts or Congress. A conspicuous red flag is the number of “election deniers” running for Secretary of State, an office from which they would be in a position to influence or control vote tabulation in 2024. These races will be decided in the Midterm elections that are now only a few weeks away.
The Washington Post provided a useful map showing the states where there are key races involving election deniers:
And the Daily Mail UK provided this Sept. 15th map of federal and state races:
The danger of vote subversion is most acute in states where both the Secretary of State and the Governor are election deniers. As explained in a Reuters article, this combination may be crucial in three key states:
This November Trump-backed Kari Lake and Mark Finchem are running for governor and secretary of state in Arizona; Michigan features the duo of Tudor Dixon and Kristina Karamo, and in Pennsylvania the Republican gubernatorial candidate and election denier Doug Mastriano gets to appoint the secretary of state if he wins the governor’s mansion.
The Poster Boy for election denier candidates may be Mastriano, who is described in a devastating column by George Will:
But what makes Mastriano more than an especially exotic political exhibit is his vow to appoint a secretary of state “who’s delegated from me the power to make the corrections to elections, the voting logs and everything. And I can decertify every [voting] machine in the state.” In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Pennsylvania was decided by 0.7 and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. In 2024, the state probably will again be closely contested, and its electoral votes could determine the national winner. So, imagine Mastriano, who has neither evidence nor doubts that Trump won the 2020 election, decreeing “corrections” to the election. His motives are frightening because they are pure: He has the scary sincerity of the unhinged whose delusions armor them against evidence.
The good news is that Democrats have, somewhat belatedly, taken the problem very seriously. As reported by Blake Hounshell, in a New York Times newsletter for subscribers only:
Democrats are pouring millions of dollars into races for secretary of state, buoyed by the nature of their Republican opponents and the stakes for American democracy.
According to an analysis by my colleague Alyce McFadden, Democrats in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada have outraised their Republican opponents as of the most recent campaign finance reports. And overall, Democratic-aligned groups working on secretary of state races in those four states have outspent Republicans by nearly $18 million in this election cycle, according to the ad analytics firm AdImpact, with more spending on the way.
However, the potential for vote subversion lies not only with secretaries of state, but extends to lower levels as well. As Hounshell also reported:
Republican county officials in New Mexico, upstate New York and rural Pennsylvania have said they will refuse to certify votes from digital machines, and election officials across the country have faced death threats.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that the 2022 Midterms, as a prelude to 2024, may well be a hinge point in American history. I would urge all readers not only to vote but to pay more than ordinary attention to the conduct of elections in your own state and county.
The fundamental problem may be that a sociopath was elected POTUS in 2016. He made insanity acceptable, enabling thousands of crazy people to run for office and millions of borderline crazy people to vote for them. But, perhaps (and this may be wishful thinking) the Republican Party establishment has gone too far by encouraging the nomination of election deniers, saboteurs and hate-mongers.
Our friend Gail Collins wrote about some of the GOP hopefuls (Herschel Walker – GA, Don Bolduc – NH, and Blake Masters – AZ) in yesterday’s New York Times. See “Republicans on the March” (NY Times, p. A21, 10/6/22). Gail concludes,
“Hey, you don’t need to go to a movie theater to be horrified. Just
think what the Senate would be like if these guys win.”
If being a sociopath is the new normal for America’s political class, anything goes, and “if you don’t like it, you can pack your bags.”
Happy Halloween. With a special shot-out to the Party of Trump.
Thank you again, Doug, for your voice of sanity. My question would be, how, as a blue state liberal, can I help get the ‘moderate’ Republicans in states such as Arizona, New Mexico and Pennsylvania to give voice to their fellow citizens? They are the ones we need to support and help to be heard.
It’s probably too late, but I think the DNC could have crafted a message from, blue state Democrats to Moderate Republicans that said something like this: “We may disagree on lots of issues, say taxes or this or that government program, but the fundamental issue in this election is bigger than any of those issues or all of them put together. It is whether we and you will join hands to defeat the “election deniers,” those who believe that Joe Biden was not elected President and who will do anything in their power to manipulate the voting process in 2024, to defeat Biden–or any other Democrat. That is the kind of cause which any fair-minded American–Republican or Democrat–must not only reject, but work to defeat.”
Thanks, Doug for this clarion call to state-level action. I would add this note: that all your readers enlist with Postcards for Progressives to blanket the states running 2020 deniers with messages to deny these same persons their dreamed-of victory.
My husband (Michael Smith) suggests that election-denying candidates not only be asked whether they (if they lose) wd challenge the “legitimacy” of the election, but whether their opponents shd do the same if the deniers win.
Thank you for sharing this “homework”.
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