While sore loser Trump Republicans are screeching like scalded skunks about the nonexistent problem of “voter fraud,” they’re busily tampering with elections at the local, state and federal levels. One example is a case playing out here in Florida against a disgraced former state GOP official, Frank Artiles, who is accused of rigging a 2018 special state senate election in South Florida.
Senate District 37 is currently represented by Trump-affiliated Republican Ileana Garcia, who was “elected” in a scam featuring a sham candidate who shared a surname with the incumbent Democrat. Artiles bribed the fake candidate, who was experiencing financial difficulties, to run. The fake candidate drew 6,400 votes in an election where the Trump fraud edged the Democrat by 32 votes.
There are other scams being investigated — all perpetrated by and designed to benefit Republicans — but the Artiles scam that benefited Garcia resulted in the most obviously fraudulent “win” given the margin of “victory.” Garcia claims to have been unaware of the scheme and pretends to be a legit state senator. Florida Democrats have called on Garcia to resign and have asked for a special election so voters could choose a state senator, but the Republican-run state is ignoring the situation so far.
Anyhoo, that’s one example of rampant Republican election tampering. ProPublica is out with a new piece today that sheds light on another technique Republicans are using to rig elections: driving out county-level elections officials and replacing them with pro-Trump stooges. If you’ve wondered why Trump and his cultists at the county level are hounding Republicans in states Trump won handily, like Texas and Florida, to conduct “audits,” this explains it.
The article focuses on an election administrator who oversaw the vote without incident for 14 years in a heavily Republican county, including the 2020 election that Trump won by 80% or so there. Trump cultists made administrator Michele Carew “the public face” of a system the cultists “had come to mistrust,” and she eventually submitted her resignation. The problem is widespread, according to experts:
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that seeks to increase voter participation and improve the efficiency of elections administration, said Carew’s departure is the latest example of an ominous trend toward independent election administrators being forced out in favor of partisan officials.
“She is not the first and won’t be the last professional election official to have to leave this profession because of the toll it is taking, the bullies and liars who are slandering these professionals,” said Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who helped oversee voting rights enforcement under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. “We are losing a generation of professional expertise. We are only beginning to feel the effects.”
Though experts say it is difficult to determine how many elections officials have left their positions nationally, states like Pennsylvania and Ohio have seen numerous departures. According to the AP, about a third of Pennsylvania’s county election officials have left in the last year and a half; in Ohio, one in four directors or deputy auditors of elections have left in the southwestern part of the state, according to The New York Times.
I’ve complained in this space before about Florida’s Trump-affiliated governor championing and signing into law new voter suppression measures like changing the rules around vote-by-mail requests to make it less convenient. (This after he bragged that the 2020 election was the most secure in state history.) DeSantis and other Republican governors talk out of both sides of their mouth like this all the time — not just about voting but about everything, including vaccines.
This widespread effort to undermine election officials who won’t promote Trump’s sore loser lies makes me understand my partisan county officials’ response to Trump’s voter fraud bullshit and DeSantis’s voter suppression efforts a little better. Every single elected official in this county is a Republican, including the supervisor of elections.
The woman who supervised the 2020 election in my county, which Trump won overwhelmingly, is a Republican who ran elections here for decades, and she seemed to do her job with integrity and competence (that’s the problem, from the cultists’ point of view). She retired after the 2020 election, overseeing the election in which her successor was chosen — a woman who had also worked in the SoE office for decades.
While Trump was running around the country pre-emptively lying about a stolen election before votes were cast and baselessly demonizing mail-in ballots and drop-off boxes, our county’s retiring election official put out a gingerly worded statement that gently suggested that voting by mail and using drop-off boxes here was safe. At the time, I thought it was an amazingly supine response to a direct attack on the SoE’s integrity, but now I get it.
After the election, when the governor proposed changing the vote-by-mail rules, the newly elected SoE put out a similarly mealy-mouthed statement, affirming that the county had not encountered significant problems with mail-in ballots, which are widely used by Republicans in Florida. (My hope is that his Trump-placating suppression efforts blow up in DeSantis’s face when Republicans find they can’t vote by mail as usual and don’t bother to turn out, but who knows?)
Meanwhile, the current SoE was opposed in the last election by the biggest Trump stooge in the county — a cattle rancher whose antics split the local GOP into two “clubs” a few years ago because he didn’t think the existing county Republican Party was sufficiently worshipful of Trump. Not coincidentally, he’s an egotistical fool who’s made scads of enemies, so he got nowhere in his quest for elected office.
But not every county will be so lucky. And maybe mine won’t be next time either. The point is, we need oversight to ensure nonpartisan administration of elections. Our patchwork system may make it harder for foreign entities to hack into systems and change results on a widespread basis, but it’s uniquely vulnerable to the cult fuckery that’s happening now, and that’s a problem for all of us.
Brantl
They’re going to attack voter validity through signatures, anything wrong with your address, etc., if you haven’t voted recently enough to suit them, and by the pre-supposition that your signature is invalid. They are going to disallow voters at the last minute possible, so any appeal of their decisions will be too late, then make it as big a PITA as possible to get your provisional ballot counted. First, holy shit?
The Moar You Know
It’s the trendy thing to do:
cbsnews.com/news/georgias-election-workers-fired-shredding-voter-applications/
Another Scott
There’s too much hinky stuff going on that we’re finally finding out about. IIRC, there have been races where someone with the same first and last name has appeared on the ballot against Democrats. It’s blatant dirty tricks (and is probably especially effective on ballots where the party isn’t explicitly indicated). It’s Putin-esque.
I’m not sure what can be done about it except much more disclosure, and timely disclosure, of who’s funding who, and maybe states and parties changing their ballot access rules.
This stuff has national implications, of course. E.g. Tom Cotton’s 2020 Senate race:
That smelled, and continues to smell, to high heaven.
Follow the money!!
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Rick Hasen has yet another good article exploring all of the ways elections are at risk.
We talked about this one during the (failed) coup but it’s really the scenario that is most likely, IMO:
Omnes Omnibus
Right now, the most important thing we can do is make sure that every one of these scams gets as much publicity as possible. Where possible, the state authorities should prosecute and where that isn’t feasible, the DOJ should step in.
Kay
If it had been just Pennsylvania and if it had been closer this would have happened, and every Republican would have been onboard, including a majority on the Supreme Court.
They would have installed another GOP President. I’d bet my house on it. The only thing I don’t know is whether the public would have gone along with it to the extent they went along with Bush v Gore. I don’t think so. I think it might have actually collapsed.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I agree that’s the most likely vehicle. In that scenario, the work on the ground in states (electing sham candidates, replacing election officials with stooges or undermining local officials, etc.) can help create a groundswell for coup acceptance.
People who dismiss the possibility because Trump failed at the 2020 coup despite having his fingers on the levers of federal power are sleepwalking, IMO. He’s an idiot, but he’s backed by people who aren’t, and they’ve been busy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: This, of course, is why getting the largest margin of victory possible is needed. They really can only cheat at the margins.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: At one point, I read that the FL Dem Party chair was considering calling on the DoJ to investigate the Artiles scam described above, but I don’t know whether that’s happened or not. The South FL case is ongoing, and the sham candidate agreed to flip on Artiles in exchange for probation instead of jail.
JPL
@Kay: trump would have the National Guard patrol the streets to prevent riots. If necessary, he would have called up troops.
It sickens me that he’ll be able to run again.
Cacti
@The Moar You Know: You beat me to it.
If I had to guess, I’d say the applications being shredded were ones with “black” or “Mexican” names.
mrmoshpotato
I would like to go on record as never wanting to be close enough to a scalded skunk that I can hear
its Dustin Diamond impressionit screech.Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Just the number of the experts – the agreement among them- that there’s a real and present danger is pretty extraordinary. You can’t just go along with business as usual and expect to address this. It’s going to take more than what has come before. New thinking. Hasen has made the transition. His advice this time is different than it was in 2008 or 2012 or 2016 because the threat is more severe.
They were wholly unprepared for the last coup attempt, up to and including even protecting their own workplace. They won’t get away with that again.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, God, Omnes, I give up. This isn’t a political problem. It’s not, in fact, “all about turnout”. Hasen is talking about the basic democratic structure of government. He’s saying you should NOT have to rely on the difference between 80k votes and 10k votes in Pennsylvania for your basic civil rights to be protected.
Don’t give them this! Don’t all but AGREE to accept their version of how our government works. We have better and stronger protections and guarantees than “turnout”. You’re accepting this fucking rock bottom interpretation of process? If you are then it’s already gone.
Cameron
@Kay: This sounds like it will be really, really tough to stop. If the Supreme Court goes along with it, who can reverse it and how could they do it?
mrmoshpotato
This shit is so dirty, disgusting, and Republican.
germy
Thread:
Cheryl from Maryland
@Cacti: This. I have every expectation that registrations and mail in ballots with obvious non white names will be shredded, lost and/or challenged.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Omnes if Joe Biden needs both Pennsylvania and Arizona to win a Presidential election even if Pennsylvania alone put him over the top then we are outside the rules and the law.
What you are describing is a coup. It doesn’t fucking MATTER if the coup is slightly smaller and somehow “less” illegal. You’re either inside the law or you’re not. If it’s “not” then the worst has already happened and there is no telling what happens yet.
The response to it isn’t “okay, we’ll just run up the score thereby accepting the fake rules and follwoing them” WTF? How does this possibly get you where you want to go? This time it’s we need 80k votes in PA because 10k wasn’t enough of a cushion. What do they demand next?
Another Scott
@Kay: You repeating your belief in the dangers without saying what you think can be done about it isn’t helpful.
It seems to me the only thing we here can affect is the politics. Saying “it’s not a political problem” seemingly says that we’re doomed.
One of the problems with Democracy is that newly elected people can break the system. That has always been the case. Always.
If it were so easy for the states to install a dictator, why wasn’t it done before? We’ve had RWNJs on the SCOTUS before – in fact the SCOTUS has been conservative/reactionary for nearly its entire existence. We’ve had reactionary elements in the country before.
It hasn’t happened before because it’s actually really, really hard to throw out all the norms and rules and traditions. Most people take their oaths to the Constitution seriously and will do their jobs to prevent it from being destroyed.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
They’re loud, but we outnumber them.
Just Chuck
But hey at least we kept the filibuster and that’s what’s actually important.
cain
From this very article posted above, they are replacing people who don’t give a shit about any oath to the constitution – they are interested in one party rule.
They are changing the rules so that they can do whatever they want. The danger here is that nutjobs are taking over.
As that crazy lady says, eventually if there is no way to elect an opposition there will only be violent conflict left.
Ksmiami
@Kay: thank you Kay. Institutions that were designed to protect voters are being upended by Republicans because they’re all in on authoritarianism. If we don’t kick their asses Rt now, there will be no recourse and this path will ultimately lead to a violent end.
rikyrah
Uh huh ?
Another Scott
@cain: And yet they had the POTUS, the SCOTUS, the courts, the state governments, the DOJ and the DOD last time and they still lost. How will it be easier next time when they don’t have the POTUS, the DOJ and the DOD?
Last I looked, the Reconstruction Amendments still hold. The 1887 Electoral Count Act still holds.
If it were so easy to throw out the votes, it would have been done before.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m wrong.
What should we do about it? Sell our homes for bitcoin and emigrate to Costa Rica??
If all we can do is say we’re doomed because the all-powerful GQP is going to kill us all in our beds then there isn’t much to talk about, is there?
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
topclimber
@Kay:
Isn’t there a clause in Constitution that says Fed government insures that states have a republican form of government?
Republican means voters elect leaders. To protect this form requires an honest vote. Might this give Biden room for exec order outlawing most voter suppression plots.
Note to self: Find that clause.
ETtheLibrarian
Eventually this will be impacting Republican candidates and then it will be Republican on Republican crime.
Right now Republicans either benefit and/or don’t see that this is something that needs fixing because they think Dems are playing chicken little. It is going to be hard to fix assuming it can be and the more mainstream Republicans are not paying enough attention and pacifying/making excuses for the hard core trumpers so they get the money/vote is a dangerous game to play. Today it is Democrats, tomorrow its their head the trumpers go after.
Ksmiami
@Another Scott: uh no, but asking the leaders of our party to be very clear about this fight could actually help clarify the stakes… ps, I’m so not afraid of a bunch of weekend warrior posers. We just cut off their technology, blow up their vehicles etc. … they think our side won’t fight but they are wrong
cain
@Another Scott:
I’m not implying we are doomed. It’s just going to get really really messy. As someone noted there are a lot more of us than they are of them.
I’m fully confident that we will fuck their shit up if there is no longer a political solution. We will make Republican as repugnant as Nazi for generations to come.
ETA:
Republicans have been going to Costa Rica as a retreat for decades. It’s probably where they’ll scurry after we’ve pummeled them black and blue.
topclimber
@topclimber: Guarantee clause.
Another Scott
@topclimber: Made me look.
Clause 42:
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
I agree there are still barriers, but it looks like a number of state legislatures are being primed to take over the vote if necessary.
GA, PA, AZ, WI
That was not the case in 2020.
satby
@Another Scott: Oh, THANK you. Succinctly put.
Mai Naem mobile
@cain: the problem is that the nutjob teabaggers from ’08-12 era who didn’t know anything about anything have gotten into school boards, state legislatures, county boards, GOP leadership positions etc and they have the loudest voices wherever they are. It’s like explaining to a five year old that xyz doesn’t work that way because they don’t understand the mechanics or the consequences of xyz. A quarter of this country has just lost its way and I don’t know what you do about it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mai Naem mobile:
I’d say it’s about 27%.
Kay
@Another Scott:
I’ve posted Hasen’s legislative suggestions over and over. If your response in 2002 was “turnout” and your response in 2016 was “turnout” and your response now is “turnout” then you’re not adjusting the response to the severity of the threat.
You’re also operating under a political belief that I don’t buy. I don’t actually believe talking about this threat “drives down turnout”. I think that’s close to a superstition and has no basis in fact. It maybe drives down turnout but to persuade me you’re going to have to do more than tell me it does.
So telling me we can’t talk about this because it drives down turnout is a non starter for me. I wil absolutely accept that you don’t want to talk about it, so if that’s what it is just say that. You can’t call on your invisible army of disillusioned D voters to back you up. This is a blog for opinions- if that’s yoiur opinion, fine, but that has nothing to do with “turnout”.
Kay
@Another Scott:
Also, this actual post is ABOUT the threat to elections. If we can’t talk about in this thread then there’s no where we can talk about it. That’s what the post topic is- threat to elections.
Kay
@Another Scott:
Your first two paragraphs minimize the threat and then you ask me if I know Biden sees the threat.
What’s the threat?
Also, I said nothing about “installing dictators”. I posted a reasoned legal analysis from an election law expert of what a court could use to justify throwing out 10k ballots in Pennsylvania. No one said anything about “installing dictators”. You won’t engage with the actual hypothetical. Instead you create a different outlandish hypothetical and engage with that. Why would I do that?
Another Scott
@Kay: In my quick looking around, I see Hasen saying that Democrats should pass the Manchin-supported Klobuchar-sponsored Freedom to Vote Act. Yay. I agree.
But he also says that’s not enough to combat all the damage from the state actors.
And he notes that unless there’s a filibuster-carveout that it is not going to get 60 votes in the Senate. Because of the politics.
So, I guess we’re still doomed. :-/
Unless, maybe, we’re really not doomed. Maybe we need do what we can to win every seat in Virginia in 3 weeks and nationally next November so that we do get the votes we need to pass the legislation that will make things better.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Another Scott:
I would go even further. I think talking about the threat is at least as likely to drive UP turnout among the Democratic base as it to drive DOWN turnout, but we’re both just guessing. It could have absolutely no effect on “turnout” too.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Here’s the leader of a powerful senate committee recognizing the danger and proposing a solution just the other day:
Cacti
@catclub: Agree.
Since January 6, 2021, we’ve reached a turning point with the GOP.
They’re now overtly anti-democracy and aren’t even attempting to hide it anymore.
Cameron
@Kay: Would you mind posting a link to Hasen’s suggestions addressing this new assault on representative government? Because it really doesn’t sound like there are any good options. Thanks.
gvg
@Kay:
turnout is something we can do. Legislative fixes maybe our representatives can and will do or maybe not, but turnout is something WE/US right here can do because we have done it before.
IF our reps do manage to pass all these proposed fixes, we still need to work on turnout and always will. Forgetting that in for instance midterms has caused a LOT of our problems leading up to now. Better is doing both.
counting on turnout alone may be risky, but it does have to happen, it doesn’t have to be the only plan.
Not everyone really is where you are and many aren’t comfortable with whatever you want us to do. They are going to be more comfortable and willing to help with turnout and yelling at them would probably just cause them to stay home.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I like her. She’s further to the Right than me but on the big stuff she comes thru.
That IS a political issue for Democrats, in my view, because it’s an issue of great important to the AA part of the D base, and they were promised action on it. Not getting that done might actually drive down turnout :)
Kay
@gvg:
I don’t really follow that discussion of this makes people “stay home”. If it doesn’t make you stay home why do you think it makes other voters stay home? Seems kind of presumptious.
Betty Cracker
I’m seeing a false dichotomy in some of these comments on how we here can address the ongoing putsch: 1) focus on turnout, or 2) address the attempts to rig and suppress the vote. We’re going to have to walk and chew gum, IMO.
Kay
@gvg:
Loosely attached D voters aren’t going to hear anything about it. They’ll stay home or not depending on other factors. They don’t really follow politics. Our base on the other hand may feel an increased sense of urgency under the threat, although that’s just guessing.
Kay
@gvg:
Loosely attached D voters aren’t going to hear anything about it. They’ll stay home or not depending on other factors. They don’t really follow politics. Our base on the other hand may feel an increased sense of urgency under the threat, although that’s just guessing.
gvg
I have learned that making sausage takes forever almost. It looks terrible when you watch because you always see things you really want being tossed overboard, but at the same time it seems like nothing is happening. Then, sometimes you get what you need, suddenly like a flower in a muck farm. So I try to be patient and tell newer political watching citizens to be patient……..however I think that it is really hard to remain upbeat when it goes on and on with no…real news. No indictments for instance, no enforced subpoenas for instance, justice department not doing much we can see, no OSHA rules on vaccines, etc. It erodes us.We simple folk need a little more action.
FelonyGovt
Boy, and we thought the Republicans were up to dirty tricks during Nixon’s administration.
Kay
@Cameron:
Sure. It’s a draft paper so you have to download it to read it for free. I don’t think you’ll find it “doomy” unless “doomy” means “all actual analysis other than ‘turnout’
You’ll know more about the threat, and my general rule is you’re better off knowing than not knowing.
What you do with it or feel about it is not something I control. I hope it doesn’t make anyone feel bad but I don’t make anyone take it like that.
germy
Mai Naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: yeah, but what do President Manchin and VP Sinema think about that?
Kay
@Another Scott:
One of Hasen’s aricles starts with how the extent of the threat is NEW. That’s the real dividing line- between people who think it’s the ordinary threat of Republicans and people who think this is more severe.
That’s a difference of opinion, and you and I won’t be able to agree on it, which is fine.
It’s been true for all of Trumpism, this difference. There were a group of Democrats who thought he was just an ordinary threat and those who thought he was extraordinarily bad for the country in a way that can’t be addressed using the old tools. I am now and have always been in the second group.
catclub
@Cacti: I find it interesting that the states going anti-democracy, and encouraging the GOP legislature to fix any elections that Democrats win,
are still not going for assigning electoral votes based on congressional district results. Do that only in Democratic majority (barely) states and you get more GOP electoral votes.
So GA, WI, AZ are candidates for that. NC might also consider it. Not sure if the PA legislature is still GOP.
germy
@Kay:
I saw HRC a few days ago on The View, and she agrees with your assessment. This is new.
catclub
@germy:
You would think one would not even be allowed to tell what is the highest classification level – thats classified.
germy
@catclub:
She’s being transparent.
cain
@Mai Naem mobile:
Yes, exactly – they are taking over at every level and I think all of us in every state need to start looking at the local level and stop them – especially at the school board, judges level – that’s where things can really go south.
gvg
@Kay: Well they did stay home in a lot of midterms in the last 20 years and I saw it. They may have assume Hillary had it in 2020, some of them, not sure on that one. They don’t usually vote in specials or off year elections, we have vote totals that prove that, it’s not my opinion, it’s fact. Turnout is always important. It’s not the only thing but it IS important.
What else do you suggest? I don’t think dissing turnout is helpful.
Dan B
@Kay: Your points are good. It seems like we are trying to thread a needle here. We need legislation like a robust voting rights act and we need vigorous enforcement and…. a media that communicates how the legislation and the enforcement are to prevent a small minority from taking away rights from the majority.
More specifically we have two Senators captured by big business – big pharma and big coal. Neither senator or business seems to care about the rights of AA’s. They are water carriers for systemic racism.
We also have rapidly accelerating threats to poor, and most middle class people from climate catastrophe, domestic terrorism, economic collapse, and a lingering pandemic. These crises are all intertwined. Everyone feels them and majorities are feeling the stress. We each have opinions about next steps / strategy. We each have capacity to act in different ways. There is room for all of us where we can be most effective. At the moment it is confusing and the outcome uncertain. Clearheaded thinking is essential. As is a readiness to spin on a dime.
cain
@Kay:
In fact, the more we talk – the more malaise sets in. It becomes just buzz for most people. Start making actions that gets noticed – a lot of times we talk about the sausage making and progress being made behind closed doors. But spoken rhetoric isn’t going to be effective without making actions that provokes a response.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, we have to do both, and there is no reason for either fight to detract from the other.
The problem of election subversion is way more serious than it ever was. Republican radicalism is taking us into uncharted waters. At least the next election will just be the midterm. I think the 2024 election will be winner take all. If the Republicans can’t steal it, they will be in the minority the rest of this decade or longer.
Spanky
@germy: They’re following the No Nothing party line pretty closely. Only time will tell if their party goes the same way.
Edited for a typo, but I was tempted not to.
Brant
@Omnes Omnibus: Not really, they just have to sell it as being marginal, as “corrections”.
Geminid
@Spanky: The American, or “Know Nothing” Party dissolved in 1860, and the bulk of its members aligned with the new Republican Party. So this cultural strain has always been present in the GOP, and now has become dominant.
The Moar You Know
@germy: Just for everyone’s reference, if you ever get into this with these psychos, it’s not true.
A “Q” clearance merely means you’ve been cleared to be around nuclear weapons. It is by no means remotely close to being “the highest level of security in the federal government”. Guys who who are mopping the decks on aircraft carriers all have “Q” clearances. So do the cooks. You get the idea.
Cameron
@Kay: Thanks. I’m neither optimist nor pessimist on this, since I’m not nearly as engaged as many of the folks here (where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise and all that) but I do want some idea of what’s going on.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: I don’t think there is any “highest classification level”–anything that’s sufficiently secret is compartmentalized. You are only allowed to know it if you specifically need to know. Nobody gets cleared to know it all.
I think the sitting President does exist outside of the entire system, as an exceptional case. But that’s not a security clearance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I agree that we shouldn’t have to rely on it, but shit is sort of broken. Large turnout makes it harder to cheat. So let’s do that. I am not saying that it is the only thing to do, but it is something that everyone can be a part of.
schrodingers_cat
We are kidding ourselves that continuously berating elected Ds for not being perfect. And repeating over and over that we are fucked and Ds are to blame, echoing Republicans does not depress turnout. It happened in 2010 in Obama’s first term over the ACA.
People tend to give up when they are told that there is no hope.
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: What you said.
In liberal Seattle there isn’t much I can do about policy or enforcement in places it’s sorely needed but I can rally friends around the hypocrisy of the GOP propaganda our “liberal” local paper and MSM. 30% liberal is not liberal.
I can also model what living green is like. I’m pushing high quality LED’s on friends much to the horror of my partner. He dreads every new package but I love it when the artists get it. When they love these lights there are ripples.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Turnout in WI in 2022 means Evers stays as governor and vetos anti-democratic legislation. It also means a Democratic Senator instead of Ron Johnson. This means god legislation at the federal level is more feasible. Don’t tell me that turnout isn’t a part of the solution.
Kay
@cain:
I don’t know why this is always proposed in such global terms. I’m not The Democratic Party. My views on election law are not somehow telegraphed to the Democratic base, thereby affeecting their entire world view.
Again- the title of this post is the threat to elections. If we’re not going to talk about the threat to elections then why bother having comments at all? If the answer to every question is “turnout” then we can just have really short front page posts that say “reconciliation bill? Turnout. Threats to elections? Turnout, Manchin and Sinema? Turnout”, but there isn’t then much to talk about.
Is talking about the threat to elections actually so dispiriting to voters that it drives down turnout? No one knows, no one even pretends to know or presents a shred of evidence, but it’s an article of faith on this blog so I better fall in line?
I’m fine with someone saying they don’t want to talk about the threat to elections but I’m not clear on why I should extend that to 250 million voters and then decide that not only do they not want to know about it, but knowing about it will actually cause them not to vote.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s just become this all purpose way to shut down any discussion. We can’t discuss the reconciliation bill, we can’t discuss the threat to elections, we can’t discuss anything because the response to everything is “turnout” and anything else is “doomongering”.
I got it. We want Democrats to turn out. But this ridiculous idea that my posting election law papers so dispirits 250 million people that it must be strictly policed lest the turnout fairy not come is fucking nonsense. It’s superstitious nonsense, like I’m calling forth the demon by uttering its name.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Shout at me all you want, but I did not do any of what you suggested. I said that in the broken system we have, it is harder to steal an election if the margin of victory is large. Am I wrong?
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Another factor that hurt Democrats in 2010 was that the American economy was just picking itself off of the ground. Even though Republicans ran it into the ground, some people blamed the party in power at election time, and others were disaffected enough to stay home. And McConnell and company did their best to choke President Obama’s administration with austerity, and largely succeeded.
That likely will not be the case next year. The success of Warnock and Ossoff in the Georgia Senate runoffs enabled a $1.9 trillion Covid recovery act, and additional economic stimulus from the bipartisan physical infrastructure bill and even a scaled back “Human Infrastructure” bill should make 2022 a year of rising income for most Americans. The reason Republicans have dug in so hard against this spending is that they know it will work for a stronger economy, and put wind in Democratic sails because of this.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: You have commented in this thread many times and people are responding to you. Some are in agreement with your POV some are not. How exactly are you being silenced?
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
I would say that, last time, they were pretty much leaving it all up to Trump. And the legal arguments the Trump legal crew made were so pathetic that even partisan judges couldn’t buy them.
This time, they’re ready, they’re organized, they’re going with a multi-level approach at the state level in the swing states, with likely backing from the Bogus Scotus.
One level is that they’re putting partisans in charge of the county-level election apparatus. Another is that they’re finding additional ways to make it harder to register (or stay registered) and vote. Another is that Georgia, at least, has given the state legislature the authority to overrule county-level results it doesn’t like. (We’ll see if any other states go this route.)
And another is something they don’t even need to do in advance: just have the state legislature declare the GOP candidate to be the winner, based on an overly literal interpretation of the second paragraph of Article II, Section 1.
The question is, what happens if the state legislatures of Arizona and Georgia and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, disregarding the popular votes in their states, declare the GOP candidate the winner?
Sure, the Biden campaign will challenge that in the courts, but that’s where the Bogus Scotus comes in. They may not have been ready to move on this legal theory last time, when they’d only just attained their current majority, but this time they might.
And if they are, what good is POTUS/DOJ/DOD? At that point, really, the only tools left in the kit are (a) for Biden to ask the equivalent of “how many divisions does the Supreme Court have?” or (b) take to the streets.
I don’t think the first is likely (and probably wouldn’t work anyway), and I’m not sure how the second would be able to save the day either.
What we need is for Manchinema to get a clue and join the rest of the Dem caucus in carving an exception to the filibuster for the For The People Act. And the sooner the better, before states gerrymander their Congressional districts using the 2020 Census data.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: I would say that electing more Dems in 2022 would also help with this, but I don’t want to shut down the discussion.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
FWIW, I’m not arguing against this. The larger the margins of victory in the swing states, the more nervous the state GOP legislators will likely be about arbitrarily overturning them: not all of them will be so devoted to Trumpism that they’ll sign on to anything, no matter how crazy.
I agree with Betty C., we have to both walk and chew gum here.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Where did the notion that discussing election rigging and voter suppression depresses turnout come from? I’ve seen anecdotes suggesting Trump’s lies about the general election in Georgia depressed turnout in the special election. Maybe it did, but it’s a stretch to extrapolate that out nationwide.
FWIW, I think it’s important to talk about ongoing Republican attempts to rig elections and undermine democracy, which is why I post about it fairly frequently. I don’t think it detracts from turnout, and I believe individual voters can make a difference beyond turnout efforts by, for example, making others aware of what’s going on and pressuring those with power to address it.
But even if that wasn’t the case, the primary purpose of this blog isn’t party fundraising or GOTV efforts, though we occasionally do both. We discuss politics, among other things, and Republican election rigging is a relevant topic. I’m surprised that even needs to be said.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Getting a Federal anti-gerrymandering law in place either this year or first thing after New Year’s will be key. While they can’t gerrymander the Senate (more than it inherently is), our House majority is slim, and can be undone by Congressional gerrymandering in the larger GOP-controlled states. And if they can do that, we can’t pass jack shit, even if we pick up Senate seats and make Manchinema irrelevant again.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: I have never argued that turnout solves everything. It helps. So will legislation and court battles. I don’t particularly like the view that has been assigned to me, especially as it’s not what I have ever said.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid:
Not just McConnell et al. I enjoy seeing NFLTG Claire McCaskill on TV, but I’ll also never forget how she bragged about shrinking the ARRA/Stimulus. If memory serves she specifically claimed credit for killing a plan to buy hybrid vehicles for the federal agencies.
Dan B
@lowtechcyclist: Well put. I believe the problem at its root is unaccountable capitalism has allowed big pharma to capture one Dem senator and big (death throes) coal to capture another. Robustly enforced voting rights will not budge them from their worship of money and power. The MSM and social media propaganda streams will not change. We have evidence that hundreds of thousands of media consumers and millions more severely and perhaps permanently ill has awakened the conscience of big media.
We have allowed the standards of doing business to be eroded. Politics reflects that. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act would address one obvious symptom but not the disease. But setting clear boundaries for legal behavior is a start. Do we organize citizens lawsuits against quasi-legal voters suppression. Will this lead to reforms years after the GOP has ripped Democracy from much of the US?
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey, I was agreeing with you. Sorry if I was unclear.
Ksmiami
@Kay: me too. The GOP knows authoritarianism/fascism is the only way to seize power because their platform is horrific. My preference is obliteration
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: I know. Sorry. Just a little annoyed at the thread.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: The ‘depressing turnout’ is in response to my comments. I think it’s self-evident that if we mostly talk about problems and how bad things are and how nothing is getting done when Democrats have the leadership, then turnout on our side will be reduced.
It’s why the GQP and their enablers do it.
There was a pithy tweet that I found a week or few ago and put in a comment here. Of course, now I can’t find it. Basically, doom-and-gloom has been weaponized against us.
To be clearer – I’m not trying to be the tone police. I’m not demanding everyone sing kumbaya. I’m not saying that we will lose in 2022 if we argue/have spirited discussions and disagreements here.
I’m just remembering what happened with the PPACA, how riled up many of us got about various aspects of it, and how what was a great victory – something that no other president since FDR had accomplished – was accomplished in spite of all the obstacles. We were browbeaten by the GQP and those who refused to accept incremental progress and lots important momentum was lost.
Pelosi and Schumer were in the building on January 6. Team D knows what happened and how dangerous it was. They’re not stupid. They’re working on legislation. Legislation and DOJ investigations are slow. Paving the way to vote more of the monsters out in 2022 will make things better in the 2024 elections and that’s something each of us here can help in our own ways (including calling our elected people and telling them to get it done soon!).
I don’t find talking about ways to increase turnout to be pie-in-the-sky head-in-the-sand about the dangers. I have confidence that many/most of these voter suppression attempts will be found unconstitutional. Even under Roberts’ reign. But even if they’re not, we can still swamp their attempts to steal close elections.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
We were in the middle of the biggest recession since the Great Depression, the Obama stimulus was way too small and ran out too soon (unemployment went back up through most of 2010), and most of the ACA wouldn’t take effect until 2014. No wonder less involved Dem voters stayed home.
I’m going with David Dayen on this one:
And I agree with him that getting skittish about how you deliver is a mistake. Sure, if you can pass it through Congress, do so. But Biden should use any relevant Executive powers he’s got, too.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
But the post at the top of the page isn’t about “turnout mechanisms”. It’s about election process. That’s what I was commenting on.
There IS a real discussion to be had about dispirited voters and turnout, but for that you’re going to have to bring me something that shows a discussion in the comments at Balloon Juice has anything to do with that.
This is a story about why Biden’s AA poll numbers have dropped:
If we’re actually worried about turnout shouldn’t we first find out why voters are dispirited and address that? I’m happy with Biden. They poll me they’re getting a good poll. I’m not their problem.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: All the Republican talk about election fraud in Georgia probably did suppress Republican turnout. Looney lawyer Lin Wood even told Republicans not to participate in a corrupted process. But Stacey Abrams and company kept the dropoff in Democratic votes to only 100,000, whereas Republican turnout dropped 200,000 and that made the difference.
I listened to WSB AM out of Atlanta that night. Their reporting indicated a close election that was hours away from being “called.” But I remember one of their reporters describing his conversations with Republican officials in various rural counties. He described them as “chagrined” at low turnout, and that gave me some optimism as I went to sleep.
The conventional wisdom after the November election was that Republicans had the runoffs in the bag because of the typical dropoff in Democratic votes in Georgia runoffs. But not this time.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: My impression is that you are on both sides of this issue. We need to be working away on GOTV, but that somethimg really distrurbing has been going on electorally and that they are changing the rules on us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I wasn’t talking about turnout mechanisms. I made two comments on this thread before you got fed up with me. One was on the need for criminal investigations and the other on the fact that turnout is a way of fighting election fraud. Were either of those comments so far from the topic as you define it that I should have said nothing?
sab
@Kay: Your hair has been on fire about this for at least five years. We need to screaming about this so that we aren’t blinsided in 2024.
I am watching Ohio’s redistricting, where we passed a constitutional amendment to fix gerrymandering and the Republicams in office just merrily proceed as usual, completely disregarding the new rules.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
This. Very much this.
One cannot effectively devise tactics to neuter these ruthless Republican tactics without thoroughly understanding them, and also understanding/characterizing the whole class of such Republican tactics, not just reactively understand what they’re actively trying.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: I agree that with you and Kay that the “idea that [her] posting election law papers so dispirits 250 million people that it must be strictly policed lest the turnout fairy not come is fucking nonsense.” The thing is, no one said that.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m sorry Omnes but is seems to me that every substantive discussion now turns into how we have to elect more Democrats. This is a genuinely difficult problem- no one knows the solution- I certainly don’t. As long as I’ve been here I’ve read and posted about election process, because I always knew it was fragile and more dependent on norms than laws- we’re in a different place now- we don’t have the norms anymore. My view is will take an entirely different mindset to even describe the problem, let alone get to “solutions”. The norms can’t really be replaced by laws- they don’t lend themselves to codification, which is probably why they were norms and not laws in the first place.
When I took international law (one course, an elective) I burst out laughing because the very blunt woman sitting next to me said “oh, great, more NORMS, as if they’re worth anything”. I now know what she meant. Norms are great as long as everyone keeps observing them. Not so great if you need to enforce one. They’re going to be hard as nails to put into a federal law, not because no one wants to do it, but because I’m not sure it can be done.