From the Bulwark. Yeah, I know. Still worth reading.
h/t Jackie for the article.
1. Trump’s Not Taking the L. . .
The last two weeks—the unveiling of the Harris-Walz ticket, and Kamala Harris’s surge in the polls—feels like some surreal dream state. Everything has changed. Have you noticed Harris has pushed Donald Trump right out of the comfy lead he’s held for an entire year? He’s noticed. From FiveThirtyEight to RealClearPolitics—pick your polling average—they all now show Harris out in front after only two and a half weeks.
Trump is no longer on track to win the election—which he has been for more than six straight months. Instead, the momentum, money, voter registration, volunteering, grassroots organizing, polling, and online engagement all favor the Democrats and it looks now like Trump could easily lose.
But that won’t happen, because Trump doesn’t lose. He beat Joe Biden in 2020—remember? So if he’s not the rightful victor on November 5, an entire army of Republicans is ready to block certification of the election at the local level.
No need to worry about mayhem on January 6, 2025 when Congress meets in joint session; the election deniers plan to stop a result right away if it looks like Harris is winning. Their goal: Refuse to certify anywhere—even a county that Trump won—and prevent certification in that state, which prevents certification of the presidential election.
A Harris victory could become a nightmare.
An investigation by Rolling Stone identified “in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania . . . at least 70 pro-Trump election conspiracists currently working as county election officials who have questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.” Of those 70, 22 of them already have “refused or delayed certification” in recent past elections. Nationwide, Republicans have refused to certify results at least 25 times since 2020, in eight states—the most in Georgia.
The article describes social media posts from the zealots who have infiltrated election administration as showing “unapologetic belief in Trump’s election lies, support for political violence, themes of Christian nationalism, and controversial race-based views.”
There are more than enough such individuals in these key posts to bring us to a constitutional crisis.
“I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election” in November, Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. “Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared.”
Sit with that.
Then there is this. Trump’s self-destructive attacks on Georgia’s popular governor made the headlines from his Atlanta rally last Saturday, but he also singled out for praise three little-known Georgians—Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King—calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”
Who are Johnston, Jeffares, and King? They are three of the five members of Georgia’s State Election Board. Three days after Trump’s speech, this past Tuesday, those three Republicans approved a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” prior to election certification that—while vague and undefined—could be exploited to delay certification and threaten the statewide election certification deadline of November 22.
2. How Is This Happening All Over Again? (read at the link)
3. Who Can Stop It? (read at the link)
Final Note
As Elias told an interviewer, there are things we can do, as citizens willing to invest some time, to take action.
This isn’t a threat from abroad. This year—and likely for years to come—we will all have to continue to fight against what our fellow Americans are doing to subvert elections. Because without free elections—and facts and truth—we cannot be a free country.
We are forewarned.
Read the whole thing here: Get Ready Now: Republicans Will Refuse to Certify a Harris Win
At first blush, President Biden’s remarks in his interview, stating lack of confidence that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, seems kind of in line with the premise here I will be interesting in hearing what everyone thinks.
Lapassionara
This is why we need a massive win. Overwhelming.
Baud
@Lapassionara:
And vote for a blue Congress that will have the final say on certification.
Remember, Kamala will be presiding over the Congressional certification process.
Rathskeller
What about donations to https://democracyforward.org/?
Trivia Man
I have taken election day as a day of vacation, I will be observing at some polling place in wisconsin. My presence won’t be enough to sway a state rat fuck… but me x500 might.
rikyrah
Not surprising in the least
Jackie
Thanks for posting this, WaterGirl. It’s chilling, and we Americans who value valid elections have to fight like hell this election to keep MAGAs attempts to steal the election to a minimum.
JiveTurkin
Part of me thinks a clear Harris win and an obvious attempt by the Republicans would be a good thing in the long run. Force the hand of some of the Republicans who, even if they don’t give a damn about their country, might still care a little about their legacy. What side would Mitch McConnell come down on? The Supreme Court (excluding Alito and Thomas)?
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: It’s important to know that the NEW Congress is the one that will count (not “certify”, that was never a thing) the electoral votes. It’s important to read the revised Electoral Count Act and understand that challenges to elector slates are much harder to make than they were in 2020. And it’s important to remember that WI MI PA are enough to win AND have Democratic administrations. Be prepared yes, panic absolutely not.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Yes to all that.
artem1s
If you can take the day off, work for your local BOE or wherever they need staff. They need to staff both D and G in every precinct. Sometimes they end up taking independents in precincts where no one from the one or the other party has trained and shown up. You can help prevent chaos at the polls. Getting everyone who shows up a chance to vote is the first step. Remember that the convicted felon tried to stop the counting as soon as he was ahead. Chances are there will be attempts to close the polls early or before everyone in line has voted. Keeping the polling places orderly, well stocked and open until the last voter is done is the first step to making sure these ratfuckers don’t have an reason to challenge the vote in the first place. If you can take time off for early voting do that too.
SpaceUnit
Good to know we’re all doomed again. The recent wave of optimism was making me queasy.
Jackie
@Baud:
The GQP’s are planning for there NOT BEING A CONGRESSIONAL COUNT.
If the states don’t certify… Hello SCOTUS.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Was it you who originally sent this to me? I left it open in a browser so I could do a post when i got time, and then I didn’t recall where I first came across it.
Baud
@Jackie:
We can send our slate of electors to Congress. What are they going to do?
Steve LaBonne
@Jackie: Any state that refuses to certify a slate of electors has its number of electoral votes deducted from the denominator, making it that much easier for Harris to have a majority of the ones that are left. Most of the panic scenarios making the rounds simply don’t make sense.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Guilty as charged 😊
kissel
I have been really stressed about this for some time now. These people have learned from the last election and are much more prepared to break the system this time around. I also worry that these tactics will impact the House, so even if Democrats win they are not seated, and then the House refuses to certify the election. This would lead to the election being determined by the states, and we know there are more Republican controlled states than Democrats.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Not much they can do, but one of the many many reasons why we want a Democratic House is to eliminate any possibility of attempted malarkey.
WaterGirl
@SpaceUnit:
Is that what you’re seeing in the comments in this thread? Because that’s not what I’m seeing.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Agreed.
SpaceUnit
@WaterGirl:
I’m seeing some. Mostly I was just being flip, I guess.
karen marie
@Baud: Which of course Republicans will point to as evidence that Trump’s loss is fake news.
NeenerNeener
My blood ran cold when I read the Rolling Stone article a week or so back. And Trump’s statements last week about how he’s going to “fix it” so we’ll never have to vote again just confirmed that they’re counting on this.
Baud
@karen marie:
I don’t care what they think.
karen marie
@Steve LaBonne: Republicans are setting it up so that the elector slates never get to the House.
gwangung
@kissel: I think you need to game out HOW they can do this.
If you go over the tactics, you might not be as stressed.
Save your stress for the next set of tactics, not the ones used in the last war
@karen marie: ALL of the states??? Don’t see how. If it’s just red states, it’ll just seal Harris’ victory. Worry about new tactics.
Baud
Kemp almost certainly wants to run in 28, and he’ll have a good shot, which if he’ll blow, I think, if GA doesn’t certify a presidential election.
Baud
@kissel:
No, the states don’t vote unless there’s an actual tie. Other shenanigans don’t trigger that rule.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: I went through all this stuff with panicky uninformed people on LGM in 2020. Trump never had a realistic path to overturning the election short of a full-on military coup, which wasn’t going to happen. And now the amendments to the Electoral Count Act, plus control of the executive branch until Jan. 21, make a “legal” coup even less doable. What I, like Biden, actually fear is that there will be blood.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: As I explained, that simply makes it easier for Harris to get an electoral majority.
Matt McIrvin
This all sounds like Weird Tricks. I think among nerdy people there’s a tendency to believe that law and politics are like computer code and you can crash any system by finding the right Weird Trick. But in practice, Weird Tricks only tend to work if there’s sufficient political will behind them among the people.
If Harris wins in some kind of squeaker and it feels like there’s actual uncertainty about the outcome, then the Weird Tricks maybe come in. That’s pretty much what happened in 2000: Democrats may have felt that Gore was the legit winner, but he didn’t convince a solid majority of Americans that he was. That produced the opening for the court shenanigans.
If Harris carries Pennsylvania by a healthy margin, so that it’s just blatantly nullifying a legit win because the “wrong” candidate won… yeah, I’m sure some county officials are going to *try* to crash the system, but will it work? 10,000 angry people outside the door might say otherwise.
At the level of the electoral count that was at issue in 2021, the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 actually clarifies a bunch of things that in my opinion should have been clear from the 12th Amendment all along.
I keep harping on this, but something people kept claiming, and the media kept being way too credulous about, in 2020 was the idea that the vote could be thrown to a House contingent election (voting by states, so it would be a Republican slam dunk) just by decertifying enough electors that “nobody gets to 270”.
That is not true. It should be obvious that it’s not true from the Constitutional text. What triggers a contingent election is if nobody gets a majority of the actual electors certified–so the necessarily denominator is reduced from 270 if electors are decertified. You actually need a tie or a three-or-more-way split for that to happen. I know some people were arguing there was some kind of difference between a certified elector and a certified electoral vote, but the 2022 law says no, anyway.
Now, they could certainly in principle turn a Harris win into a Trump win by decertifying enough Harris electors that Trump gets the majority of the remaining ones. But depending on the results, that could be a much heavier lift. And it’d be obvious to everyone in the country what they’re doing. Trumpies and the New York Times might think it’s legitimate but would you? Would anyone outside of their bubble?
Steve LaBonne
@NeenerNeener: And as we know, Republicans are ultra-competent and always have well thought out plans.
karen marie
@gwangung: But is that actually true – that only slates present at the time of counting are counted? I’d like to see a cite from that – not necessarily from you but from someone.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: Sigh. Read the 12th Amendment and the Electoral Count Reform Act. Both are easy to find on the Internet. I swore off doing people’s homework for them way back in the age of Compuserve.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Right. If it’s a 2000 situation, we’re probably in trouble. If it looks more like 2008 or even 2012, there’s really not much they can do except get themselves arrested or killed.
Frankensteinbeck
That is sure as fuck not what I’M seeing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve LaBonne: Yes, just look at 2020 were they tried to cheat, after they lost, and fucked it up anyway.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Thank Dog Virginia has turned blue since then.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: I disagreed with that part, too!
Steve LaBonne
@Frankensteinbeck: Marc Elias is a good guy who does good work, but he also has a brand to maintain.
Timill
What controls the elections of the House and Senate? Can Tennessee (frex) certify TN-1 thru TN-8 (all R) but not TN-9 (D)?
SpaceUnit
I’m just going to sit back and hope that the Harris campaign has assembled a crack legal team to counter this shit.
Because there’s dick-all I can do about it and I don’t have anymore fingernails to chew off.
Old Man Shadow
Win the election. Then crush the neo-Confederates. And don’t let the Supreme Court stick its paws on this.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: I sure hope he (space unit) was being sarcastic.
I guess I’ll read the link. But gods, I’m tired. This whole thing. JFC. I’m glad you’re bringing it up though. What Jackie said, it’s chilling.
id like to work as a polling place “judge”. It’s Denver, so I’d probably not get killed in a drive by, although we do have weirdos here, and enough republicans to staff the polling places and ballot pick ups with equal numbers of dems and gop folks.
I watched the Jan 6 certification until they were done, last time, until 2 am mountain, on Facebook live. I watched congresspeople question and challenge their states’ counts. It was procedural, and ceremonial, and it ended well. But I remember feeling so ragged, after the events of the day.
I had only turned on the news that morning to see if Rafael Warnock had won. Shit.
the thought of these creeps getting jobs so they can refuse to certify a count, really pisses me off. And the idea that this movement to subvert our elections county by county is based in “Christianity” horrifies me. Whatever my beliefs are now, lying isn’t what I learned to promote, growing up in church. These people are not asking “what would Jesus do? “ and it’s pissing me off. I know I already said that.
why isn’t that man already in jail, and selling off his properties to pay his legal fines, instead of grifting off the people he’s conned?
my moral compass is offended. im tired of my own helpless anger. I’m glad to think a lot of folks here will read the link and set up to take action.
I have my own personal life to pull out of disarray. I’m off to a drumming memorial service tonight, for an important leader in my spiritual community. Hope this turns into a productive thread (and not bickering jackals.) I’ll check back later.
jeepers
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: Virginia was actually the case I was thinking about the hardest: it’s, by now, a dependably blue-leaning state that currently has a fairly obnoxious Republican Governor and a Republican Secretary of State. While I’m guessing here, I think the chances are good that Harris is going to carry Virginia by a solid margin (though the way things usually go, that won’t be clear until late on Election Day when Fairfax County reports in). Suppose Youngkin and Gee try to pull something to just delete Virginia’s electoral votes for Harris? How’s that going to work out for them? I suspect it’s not going to work out well for them at all.
Old Man Shadow
@SpaceUnit: I hope Biden would declare martial law and put down this nonsense.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Marc Elias is a hero, but you’ll never see any advocate underselling the threats they’re fighting.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t see any Virginia Democrats thinking Youngkin is THAT stupid.
Baud
@Old Man Shadow:
Matt McIrvin
@SpaceUnit: Be ready to be part of a mob if necessary. The freaks with buffalo horns aren’t the only people who can show up in numbers.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Like Kemp. Youngkin wants to run for president. He’s not going to destroy his chances by helping a loser Trump win.
Gloria DryGarden
@SpaceUnit: exactly
@Old Man Shadow: exactly
schrodingers_cat
Bulwark is not trustworthy.
WaterGirl
@SpaceUnit:
I would posit that this is not the election for any of us to sit back and hope. What we all DO in the next 2-3 months will determine the outcome. Sitting back is not an option, if we’re serious about this fight.
Chet Murthy
@Baud: Now -that- is what the Insurrection Act should be for!
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The theory is that they’ve gotten better at it, and that they’re going to try to somehow stop the election result before it even gets to Congress. But I suspect it’s going to be impossible for them to do this without a giant spotlight on it.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: Jeepers is a word that isn’t used often enough.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: I am optimistic that by November Trump will absolutely reek of loser stink. No ambitious Republican politician will risk career and maybe freedom trying to help him pull off a (doomed) steal.
SpaceUnit
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ll charge at the local post office armed with a folding chair.
Shalimar
A nightmare where neither Harris or Trump is certified and Biden continues as president indefinitely? That is not in my top 1000 nightmares.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
A state not certifying will have spotlight on it. Not even the NYT could relegate that to the back page.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: Not entirely trustworthy, for sure. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be right about this.
Chet Murthy
@Shalimar: As we used to say back in early/early 2021, the President’s term ends decisively on Jan 20. If no next President gets chosen, then the Speaker (hopefully a Dem) becomes President. At least, I think that’s how it works.
Steve LaBonne
@WaterGirl: They aren’t right about this. And I guarantee the campaign- and Biden- are well prepared for malarkey.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
That would be consistent with his actual odor.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I do think Donald Trump had the idea from the example of 2000 that he had the Supreme Court in his pocket and if he just called the 2020 election result into doubt, the good conservatives on the Court would just nullify it and declare him reelected. But that wasn’t how it worked, even in 2000.
gwangung
@Steve LaBonne: Yeah. I’m sure Trump will TRY…and neither Biden nor Harris are dumb enough to think he won’t. THey’ll have gamed out possible tactics, both on the state by state level and at the national level and have counter measures.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Trump pretty much admitted that at some point, or at least one of his top people did.
I would suggest that the Supreme Court showed their colors with the immunity bullshit, so I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl:thanks, yes, well I’ve tired of all my swear words,
but they’re roiling in there. I learned to not-cuss from Facebook and working w kids. Mostly.
I do feel so very angry, so I have this multilingual swearing phrase
katrikyia madre.
criminy, Jeepers, for crying out loud!
really I’m more at go fuck a duck, vote out duck so he can’t be president , no more ducks.
I look forward to hearing how people are lining up for action.
jeez Louise.
Matt McIrvin
@Chet Murthy: Acting President, but yes. The Constitution combined with the presidential succession act are pretty clear about that. If they had genuinely managed to create enough chaos and confusion that there was no certified electoral vote by January 20, 2021, Nancy Pelosi would have gained the powers of the President until the situation was cleared up.
And I do very much believe that the military, at least, would have obeyed that to the letter.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Matt McIrvin: Well, we have a new Speaker now…
Gloria DryGarden
@gwangung: they better be gaming it out, and full of strategy tactics, and countermeasures .
I want free mental health care, I’m losing it. Are we all gonna meet at the local parks and wring towels til our arms shake, and shout real loud? Can we get the New Zealanders to do the thing they do, w the eye rolls and shaking fingers?
it’s me bitchin and bickering. Oh jeez. Have fun, please solve all the world’s s problems tonight
Mousebumples
@Trivia Man: I’d think about doing the same, but I run a major clinical meeting out of town – first Tuesday of November, every year.
I’ve complained about the overlap with elections, but that timing is set waaaay above my pay grade.
Thank you for volunteering!
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
It’s the speaker after the election that matters. If Dems win back the House, Jeffries would be Acting President.
H.E.Wolf
It can seem much more thrilling to fantasize about Scary Scenarios, than to buckle down and do the steady, unglamorous, day-to-day tasks that will result in victory for Harris/Walz and the Democrats in Congress.
It also uses up energy that could be put toward doing our necessary work.
Pay attention to which news organs peddle fear, anger, uncertainty, and alarm.
And ignore them. :)
Jackie
@Old Man Shadow:
That’s been niggling at my brain: Doesn’t not certifying the election mean Biden remains president until..? That’s the part of the GQP’s plan that confuses me.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: That’s something of a relief. Granted, failure to certify elections may throw this into chaos as well. Especially if it is done at the county level as the OP suggests may happen.
Still, I honestly believe we’re preparing for a blowout election. They’re still going to try to pull some shit. I don’t know what to expect in the end other than for things to get ugly.
zhena gogolia
@H.E.Wolf: Well, I did my 20 postcards today, even though a friend assured me yesterday that he heard a seasoned Democratic operative say they were not of any help at all. The only thing that’s useful is to give money. (I do that too.)
Bill Arnold
@Matt McIrvin:
I will not be complacent if neoconfederate fucks try to seize the United States of America, ignoring the votes.
That’s civil war, and it could easily and quickly turn violent, like the first time.
They should feel fear even thinking about such moves; fear of humiliation and defeat and prison, fear for their lives, and the lives of their family and anyone else they love.
zhena gogolia
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I’m hoping all the Jan. 6 convictions will help with that.
kissel
@gwangung: thank you, that is helpful. I know all my stress about this might not be logical, but I think these guys have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves, some of the pillars of democracy have been cracked by them, and their ace card is the Supreme Court. I wouldn’t put it past them to do anything to put Trump back in office this time around.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: No one can say definitively that postcards are no help at all, because there is no research that shows that.
Gloria DryGarden
agree, we need to.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@zhena gogolia: If any of these choads fail to certify the election, there need to be public demonstrations. Our own Brooks Brothers riots.
What is a clothing brand that would be common among working class leftish people?
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: pretty happy w this thought of yours
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: I think the idea that they’re putting forth is that the red counties in a state that Harris wins, like the Pennsyltucky areas if she carries Pennsylvania, could somehow refuse to certify any votes from their own area in order to obstruct the whole state from getting any electors at all.
I suppose whether that works or not is a matter of state law. But like the other scenarios we’ve been batting around, I also suspect it would not go well for these people.
zhena gogolia
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Carhartt?
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: Suds Pinchburger sez “Hold my beer.”
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin:
Exactly. Much like shining a giant spotlight on Project 2025. The earlier these shenanigans are exposed, the earlier these shenanigans can be thwarted and prevented.
KatKapCC
@Steve LaBonne: It’ll probably be a more pleasant smell than the one he currently leaves behind.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@zhena gogolia: Sold. The “Carhartt riots” it shall be if needed.
karen marie
@Steve LaBonne: Pobrecito. I didn’t ask you to do my “homework.” Your reading comprehension could use some work.
Princess
@Matt McIrvin: Hmm. I wonder if we could put it about that there’s no point in red voters in red parts of purple states voting because their local elections board people don’t intend to certify and their votes won’t count anyway.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@karen marie: I told him that earlier, just wordier.
karen marie
@Matt McIrvin: With the media in the back seat screaming – as they did in 2000 – WE WANT RESULTS NOOOWWWWWWW! – encouraging SCOTUS to intervene. Look where that got us the last time.
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Biden’s term expires on January 20th, 2025, so, no, he does not remain President.
If there is no new President or VP determined at that point, the Speaker of the House becomes Acting President until there is one. The new Congress takes office earlier in January and is the Congress presiding over all of this, so who that is depends on who takes the House in November. It could be Mike Johnson or it could be Hakeem Jeffries.
And, remember, the official actually leading the electoral count on January 6, 2025 will be the President of the Senate, Kamala Harris.
Jackie
@zhena gogolia: Carhartt was my first thought, too. And union made 😉
HinTN
@Baud: You gotta have the blue majority in each state’s delegation because each state’s delegation gets one vote. That’s a heavy lift.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: I feel moderately sure that I can count five SOCTUS votes against overt, blatantly obvious shenanigans (Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, Coney Barrett and Roberts), and at least two who will vote for every shenanigan possible (Alito & Thomas).
Kavanaugh & Gorsuch were part of the Bush II steal, but I think they’d want something at least plausible, so a squeaker needed for their votes to coronate Trump. But in a squeaker, even Roberts might continue with his current “fuck the reputation of the Court, we’re going for it” streak.
I could also be wrong about Coney Barrett, but while I think she’s all-in to further stymie abortion, and her vote on the Trump immunity case is shit, I think she’s still aware that a massive thumb on the scale in Nov. would lead to some fairly bad consequences for the Supremes (don’t underestimate the public possibly really showing up there with pitchforks and torches if they overturn a clear Harris win).
Chris Johnson
@Frankensteinbeck: Nor I. I might accept ‘more ruthless’, though it would help to have a sensible plan and resources. ‘more desperate’ is a slamdunk, they’re absolutely more desperate.
‘more organized’ is WILDLY, spectacularly wrong, as is ‘more prepared’. Half of the states don’t have GOP organizations anymore. Charlie Kirk’s ‘Turning Point USA’ cannot do it all, no matter how big his head is.
Gloria DryGarden
@schrodingers_cat: no?
Pls say more. Sometimes they make sense.
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin: Oh, you’re right. Does the new Congress have to be state/county certified before they report to the Capitol in Jan?
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: Many years ago I’d read that studies regarding postcard writing for elections showed they were almost useless. Personally, a postcard from a stranger about an election would have no effect on me whatsoever. I likely wouldn’t even look at it but drop it straight into the recycle bin with the rest of my junk mail. (Sorry!)
On the other hand, properly timed text messages reminding me to vote? That definitely had an effect. I had my mail-in ballot for the recent local primaries sitting on my desk for weeks but hadn’t filled it out. Then I got two text messages in the few days leading up to the deadline simply saying “we see you haven’t voted yet,” and I made election day an errand day, filled out my ballot and dropped it off on my way to do a bit of grocery shopping. I’m just one person but …
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: “remember, the official actually leading the electoral count on January 6, 2025 will be the President of the Senate, Kamala Harris”
One thing I am sure of, though I’m not pill-brained enough to try to game out the specifics, is a la Karl Rove, the Republicans surely have a plan to use Harris’s position as a means to attack her and the entire credibility of the tabulation of the E.C.
That attack will largely be in the court of public opinion. But I am certain as sunrise that they will go hogwild on how “corrupt” (its not), how “suspicious” and all that crap. “She’s the one to certify* her own election?!1!1 How can that possibly be legal!”
*being factual is not just not required, it’s not possible. Propaganda needs truthiness, not facts.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: I have never trusted them. Sarah Longwell is Frank Luntz in a dress. They are selling fear and Democrats are lapping it up.
Jackie
@Gloria DryGarden: Some Bulwark reporters are good; some aren’t. Just like most news orgs.
H.E.Wolf
@zhena gogolia:
20 postcards – congratulations and much admiration from a verrrry slow writer! I’m clunking along in the slow lane, with my 5 for the week.
Everything helps. Every single little bit. 20 people are going to have something nice in their mailbox from you – and tens of thousands of other people are going to hear from a hard-working, long-distance neighbor in the next 90 days, saying hello and their vote is important.
“Hands across the miles” actions (yes, donations; yes, postcards; yes, hot-dish drop-offs at the campaign office) change things for the better. They also make this country a more hopeful and friendly place, and that’s not nothing.
I get awfully preachy about this! But “create the world we want to live in” is just lots of tiny actions, done with good will. The bar is low enough for lots of us to get over.
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: I decided to look into the question. You’ll be happy with the answer, I hope!
This is an excerpt from “Do Get-Out-the-Vote Calls Reduce Turnout? The Importance
of Statistical Methods for Field Experiments” – KOSUKE IMAI, Princeton University, 2005
I’m very happy to be proven wrong about the effectiveness of postcard writing.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: So you still won’t do your own homework, but you’ll snark and you’ll spread FUD. Not my problem.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Glenn Youngkin isn’t going to stick his neck out for Trump.
karen marie
@Steve LaBonne: What is your problem? I didn’t ask you to do anything.
Excuse me, I’m going to make some pie.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@karen marie: It amuses me how he makes his most recent demand for your homework immediately after a post where you did legitimate homework over something you were actually interested and engaged in.
karen marie
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I am perfectly happy to look stuff up if I know where to look. He actually did sort of give me that information in his snotty response.
He ought to see a doctor to have the stick removed from his ass. That’s got to be painful.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: I think that in some years, the President pro tem of the Senate has stood in. (That’s currently Washington state Democrat Patty Murray, though presumably if the Republicans take the Senate it’d be somebody else). Whatever, the 2022 Act also made it very clear that the VP’s role is “purely ministerial” and there is no power there to decide whether electoral votes get accepted. Mostly, whoever is in charge has to not create or allow chaos.
Steve LaBonne
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: The commenter asked the community for relevant information and was pointed to the primary sources. Both of you would better spend your time becoming informed.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: Ugh, see, I delete political text messages immediately.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: Oh, nice.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: The stick up my ass is the spreading of demotivating and unfounded fears by people who haven’t taken the trouble to educate themselves. As I said I dealt with it on LGM in 2020 and I have even less patience for it now. If you don’t like it, the pie filter is your friend.
Jim Appleton
@Steve LaBonne: Aanecdata I’ve shared before here:
A coworker told me he recently picked up target shooting ammo from https://highdesertcartridge.com/
He saw, very unusually, “a room full, dozens of pallets floor to ceiling, of AR ammo labeled Idaho Militia.”
He thinks it’s civil war (really insurrection, but who’s counting)
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: Yay, right?
I also delete political texts – in fact, I report as spam and delete. But these texts came, as I said, in the last few days before the final day for voting, and they weren’t for any candidate/party, simply “we see you haven’t voted.” That – plus a fear of getting dropped from the rolls for missing an election – was the small shove I needed.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
No wonder what I’m witnessing is an inflamed asshole.
Demanding homework from people not making assertions of fact, just seeking information from others who may already know, while demonstrating repeatedly an unwillingness to understand the content of, well, anyone he responds to is some gold standard ignorance.
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: I am always nice to the people who call to GOTV in the days before the election.
Steve LaBonne
@Jim Appleton: The Administration is very well aware of the threat of violence and Biden himself has already started speaking out about it.
Chris Johnson
@Jim Appleton: They wouldn’t even be able to conquer Ukraine with that shit. Cosplay. I don’t care how many AR15s they have (well, I’d rather they didn’t, but still).
How many tanks do they have? How many F15s?
I expect domestic terrorism, but we are not the only country ever to face that and in some ways it’s not even a new development.
Fuck the Idaho Militia and whatever horse they rode in on.
Also, a minimum of 1 in 10 of them are feds, and that might even be who’s putting up the money. Oh you say entrapment, and I say tomAHto ketchup spattered across the walls of Mar-A-Lago…
dkinPa
@SpaceUnit: We’re all suffering from anxiety from 2016, but just look at what the Biden-Harris team has accomplished in the last month. We’re watching professionals. They game out everything. Harris didn’t just accidentally shoot to the top. She and her team were prepared to move fast when Biden dropped out, and they did. If there’s a way for Republicans to fuck something up, the Dems are already way ahead of them. We have field offices, and just as importantly, lawyers in every state ready to jump on any shenanigans, if necessary.
Trump and JV are a disorganized mess. I think Vance is stalking Harris because yes, that’s the kind of guy he is, but also because he doesn’t have a good campaign team. They can’t even plan their own events. Much easier to copy what Harris is doing.
karen marie
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, no, I’m talking about texts. If I get GOTV calls, I wouldn’t know about it because I don’t answer my phone. Much of the time I don’t even know where it is and/or the battery is dead from lack of attention. Everyone who I care to communicate with knows to send me an email or a text (although they know that texts may not receive a response for a week or so because of my lax attitude toward my phone).
Steve LaBonne
@dkinPa: “Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.” US Grant
zhena gogolia
@karen marie: And I wouldn’t read texts! We’re in complementary distribution.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: Oh, I understand. But from the perspective of how the Trumpers will spin up the anger that may lead to violence, the VP’s limited role won’t matter.
Trump says whatever is at hand to get his marks to react how he wants.
dkinPa
@H.E.Wolf: Writing postcards is so soothing! I’m halfway through my 200 Postcards to Swing States, PA of course!
Matt McIrvin
Imagine, before 2021 this was basically pro forma stuff people usually ignored. The Electoral College vote and the Congressional certification of the results were minor news items that got buried deep in Section A. Even in 2000, once Bush v. Gore came down on December 12th, it was all over and Gore conceded, and there hadn’t been an election even that fucked-up since 1876.
It took a man as loathsome as Donald Trump to realize that you never have to accept losing a Presidential election; it just takes a complete lack of shame, and hey, maybe it’ll work and they’ll just let you win, what do you have to lose?
Jackie
Good news! (For now…)
I say good news for now – we’ll have to see what happens if/when the Supremes take the case.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: What do they have lose? One of the participants is going to lose 20 years of their life. And Trump himself will be next, after he loses this time.
sdhays
@Steve LaBonne: It’s an interesting conundrum. If you’re an ambitious Republican, you want Trump to go away (to make room for your own “awesomeness”), but you don’t want any blame for him losing.
If you’re honest with yourself, you want him to lose big time this year.
Steve LaBonne
@sdhays: About the only thing on which I will ever agree with a Republican!
prostratedragon
@Steve LaBonne: I always did like Grant.
Luther M. Siler
@Jim Appleton: I’d like to know who the hell they think they’re going to insurrect against in Idaho. They’re all too scared to come into actual, y’know, cities.
wjca
@Trivia Man:
I’m going to be a poll worker here in California. Have been for years, actually. (The title is “Inspector.” The reality is basically supervisor of the handful of people working one polling place.)
Not, perhaps, that consequential, given we already know how California will go on the Presidential level. And our Congressional district is a safe seat. Our Assembly district might not be, since our (Democratic) Assemblywoman has, in prior elections, demonstrated a devotion to the truth worthy of Donald Trump. (Yes, really. That bad.)
Still, at the local level it’s a pretty purple-to-red precinct. So who knows what fun times we will see.
wjca
It’s also important to note that, if a state doesn’t certify its slate of electors, and thus they don’t vote, that reduces the number of electoral votes that constitute a majority.
It would not be all that surprising if the refusal to certify, done in the wrong places, resulted in Harris having a majority of the reduced number of electoral votes. And they really are dumb enough to miscalculate that way.
Eolirin
I’d be mostly concerned about them doing this to the senate races
Brown is probably going to win and by a good amount, but Tester is gonna be close if he even manages to win. And they’re both hostile states.
Juju
@Steve LaBonne: That is a wonderful thought.
wjca
Seems like a golden opportunity to take a page from the War in Ukraine. Once it’s delivered, float a drone in and detonate the whole shipment. Probably illegal for the moment. But as soon as they start something….
Always amazing the way these militia guys utterly ignore that the US military has things like tanks and planes, while they do not. And yet they persuade thamselves that they can stage a civil war and survive. Never mind win. And now, drones.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: That’s why we use so many different methods of communication. Different things work for different people.
I’m with you on texts from political campaigns.
The Lodger
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I wear a lot of Duluth Trading gear. I don’t know the politics of their customer base, but it’s a Minnesota company.
The Lodger
@RaflW: Somebody tell Karl Rove that Al Gore didn’t pull any of those shenanigans on his boss when Congress certified the 2000 election.
The Lodger
@Geminid: Glenn Youngkin will make the safest move he can for himself, whether that’s refusing or approving certification.
Colette South
@The Lodger: I like Duluth trading clothing. I can’t say anything in particular about their politics but they are certainly pro-women and very midwestern in their sense of humor.
Citizen Alan
@wjca: I think the concern is that, in a state that goes for Harris, some yokel election supervisor will refuse to certify in their county in a way that blocks the whole state, so Harris loses those votes. I am, at this point, not terribly worried about Shitgibbon winning this way. But since every Republican w/o exception is a Nazi in my eyes, I will not feel safe in this country until President Kamala Harris is sworn in next January.
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: You and me both!🤞🏻
wjca
So, the Republican mayor of Mesa, AZ, who just endorsed Harris, is a Nazi. Good to know.
I will, of course, not trouble you to provide evidence on that point. After all, you don’t need it, so why put you to the trouble?
EDT But yeah, holding my breath until the inauguration is safely past.
Citizen Alan
Given the track record of Republicans who were hounded out of office for voting for Trump’s impeachment in response to him sending a mob to kill them, I predict that the Republican mayor of Mesa, AZ, will very soon either not be a Republican anymore or will not be the Mayor of Mesa, AZ, anymore.
tokyokie
@Steve LaBonne: To add to your advice regarding research, I believe that election officials declining to perform their official duties would be in clear violation of Section 242 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code (Civil Rights Act of 1871), and the criminal sanctions available under the act are quite severe, ranging up to and including the death sentence. (Such actions would also violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, but the Roberts court has pretty much written that out of the Constitution.) Furthermore, such a conspiracy would also qualify as an interstate criminal enterprise under the terms of the RICO act. So if these assholes try any shit, crush them with criminal referrals, threaten draconian sentences, and watch them scramble to cut plea deals.
But a couple of factors give me confidence. First is tfg’s inability to hire decent legal counsel, which is closely related to his preference for stiffing them on pay, as he does with everybody outside his family. How many of the cases involving the 2020 election did he win? I’m thinking it’s zero. He has figured out that the best way to keep his fat ass out of prison is to get re-elected, and he’s skimming from his election campaign fund to keep current with his legal expenses, and the result has been that he has no campaign organization beyond the nitwits who thought giving Vance the VP slot was a good idea and neglected to consider strategical campaign options should Biden quit the race, because the graciousness Biden demonstrated is beyond the understanding of these self-centered shitheads. Furthermore, he had one campaign event this past week and has none planned for the next two weeks. We’re seeing an asshole with malignant narcissist syndrome decompensate before our very eyes. The longer he hides, while Harris-Walz hit the trail hard, the worse it will become for him and he’ll have a loser’s stench about him that’s worse than the load in his diaper. Old, decrepit, vengeful, and unlikable, supporting hugely unpopular policies, not having a GOTV effort, staying off the campaign trail while whimpering at his tacky resort property, yeah, that’ll turn out a crowd on Election Day. The tactics that the GOP is apparently adopting are of dubious legality and will not work unless the election is close, which the fat guy seems to be guaranteeing that won’t be the case.
wjca
I seem to recall something similar in 2020. Although I think it was more them just caving and certifying the results that time around.
The correct course this time will depend on external factors, such as the particular state’s laws on the subject, the willingness of state authorities to enforce those laws, and how critical the state’s electoral votes are to the overall outcome of the election. I expect the recalcitrant officials will cave quickly in some cases. For those who, don’t some plea deals may be unavoidable. But, as we saw with the Jan 6 cases, some serious jail time, at least for some, tends to discourage a repeat going forward.
Put another way, hardened criminals may shrug off the occasional jail sentence as just the cost of doing business. And return to their criminal activities on release. But these folks aren’t in that league. They can learn a lesson, if the smack upside the head is firm enough.
Chris T.
This is certainly a plan. It may well have been and/or still be the Republican plan. I have some strong doubts about whether it will work. We should all be prepared for an attempt to use it, though.
Geminid
@The Lodger: Yes, and the safer move for Glenn Youngkin is staying clear of the Trump trainwreck, like Brian Kemp did in 2020. All Kemp had to do then was do nothing. There was no press conference, no leaks to trusted reporters; Kemp just jammed Trump and went about his business.
I am speaking to Youngkin’s political safety here. As for physical safety, Youngkin has a bodyguard, and the State Police will be on high alert and they scare everybody. Plus, federal law enforcement agencies will be watching like hawks for intimidation. And Virginia is crawling with federal agents of every kind. It seems like they’re everywhere now.
fancycwabs
If that happens Biden can “official act” a half-dozen republican members of congress into custody for six hours and get it done.
I’m waaaay more concerned about the widespread purging of democrats from voter rolls in red states.