Aug.09

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Fu** Democracy, Part II: Of Aliens and Vote Certifications

Yesterday, Joe Biden sat for his first interview since dropping out of the presidential race. Among other things, he said that he is "not confident at all" that Donald Trump will accept the election results if they produce a Harris victory.

This is a very reasonable conclusion, given not only what happened in 2020, but also what is happening now. As we note above, Trumpers are doing what they can to muck around in election laws, ideally making changes close enough to Election Day to have them implemented, but without enough time to hash things out in court. There are also plenty of Trumpy election officials threatening to refuse certification of the election results, with the idea of throwing the whole system into chaos. This could well include Trumpy election officials in counties where Trump will win. Even if the votes would help Trump, withholding the tallies will interfere with states trying to certify statewide results (and with them, the winner of the state's electoral votes).

At the same time, Trump and his acolytes are laying the groundwork for their pseudo-theory of the election, which will be used to justify withholding certification. It's exactly what you think: the claim that in many states, millions of non-citizens are being allowed to vote. Trump made this claim at his press conference yesterday, and the MyPillow guy has been all over those cable channels that will still have him, beating the same drum. The GOP is squeezing much mileage, in particular, out of a story from that noted bastion of quality journalism that is Breitbart, claiming that ONE green-card-holding resident of Minnesota received a vote-by-mail ballot during Tim Walz' tenure as governor. Because Breitbart does not show its math, it's a little hard to figure out how this happened (perhaps the person had a very generic name?) and, in any case, everyone agrees the ballot was not actually cast. Plus, as we understand it, ONE ballot is not MILLIONS of ballots.

And as long as we're on this unpleasant subject, we'll also pass along that it's not just Georgia where Republicans are trying to recruit "poll watchers" (see above). The grifty organization True the Vote has recruited several county sheriffs to assist with their "monitoring" operations. Specifically, head grifter Catherine Engelbrecht said she is working with "three very influential sheriffs," though she neglected to specify exactly what that means. Since her focus was on Wisconsin during that interview, it is very likely that one of them is former Milwaukee County sheriff and fellow grifter David Clarke, who doesn't have any actual power anymore.

And finally, let us also note this op-ed from Lawrence Lessig and Matthew A. Seligman. They write that they have looked carefully at the electoral system, with particular attention to chinks in the armor. And they conclude that the thing that worries them the most is the possibility that a state legislature will decide, after the election, to ignore the vote tally and to direct its electors to vote for Donald Trump. The legality of such a maneuver would be left to the Supreme Court to determine and, well, those aren't the best hands in which to be putting the fate of democracy these days.

That is a pretty comprehensive round-up of the bad news. We wish we could tell you it's much ado about nothing, and that the sky is not falling. Unfortunately, we cannot do that. What we can do, however, is observe that there remain quite a few roadblocks to stealing the election. To wit:

1. Oxygen: To a greater or lesser extent, most of these tricks rely on the perpetrators flying under the radar. The more attention they get before the election, the less effective they will be.
   
   
2. Delayed Certification: If red counties delay certification of the results, that will certainly create chaos. It's actually much harder to see how it could change the outcome of the election. Remember what happened back in 2020 when whack job Couy Griffin and two of his fellow Republicans tried the trick. They got hauled into court, and his two co-conspirators backed down, so as to avoid going to prison. It won't be so easy to drag things out for 10 weeks, and even if the Trumpers can do it, the likeliest end result is that there is no legally elected president and VP, and the Speaker of the House assumes the presidency. In an election where Kamala Harris wins, it is likely that Speaker will be... Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). That is not exactly an upgrade from the vantage point of a Trumper.
   
   
3. Poll Watching: Poll watching, which is really just a nice name for voter intimidation, was pretty effective in the 1960s. It is likely to be less so today, given the potential to vote via mail, not to mention people who are forewarned that such trickery is coming, and show up to vote as an act of defiance.
   
   
4. Geographically Limited: A lot of the scheming that is outlined here will only work in limited circumstances. For example, the shenanigans in Georgia (see above item) will still be subject to the supervision of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), who showed himself to be a person of integrity back in 2020. The "three sheriffs" that True the Vote is working with may be out of office, or may well be serving in ruby-red states where the outcome is not in doubt. And for Lessig and Seligman's fears to come to pass, you would need a swing state where Republicans nonetheless have the trifecta (since the legislature would have to vote to put aside the electoral vote tally, while the governor would have to sign the certificate of attainment). There are, at most, two swing states with a Republican trifecta. One of those is Georgia, which we have already discussed. The other is... New Hampshire. Among the remaining swing states, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have a divided government, while Minnesota and Michigan have a Democratic trifecta.
   
   
5. SCOTUS: It is true that the Supreme Court has issued some very Trump-friendly rulings in the last year. It is also true that in 2020, they were completely unwilling to tote his water when it came to election chicanery. In particular, if the Supremes agree that states can choose to ignore the popular vote after the fact, they would de facto be blowing up democracy. We suspect at least two of the six conservatives would not be willing to go there.

So, is there reason to be worried? You betcha. But there are also guardrails still in place, and a very good chance they will hold. (Z)