Republican attacks on elections infrastructure continue

“People are free to vote in The Soviet Union because their votes mean nothing. The people who count the votes mean everything.” --- paraphrasing the well-known authoritarian Joseph Stalin, expressing the well-known authoritarian attitude toward elections (the attribution is false, Stalin didn’t say that, but I’m sure he wishes he did)

By now, it is clear to almost everyone who can accept it. The Republican Party has become authoritarian and most of its rank and file still falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen. In response, Republican politicians and average voters nationwide are continuing to directly attack the infrastructure that used to protect election integrity. In at least 17 states where the ARP (authoritarian Republican Party) is in power, laws to suppress votes and/or rig elections have been passed. The election rigging laws allow the ARP to simply invalidate an election vote they dislike. There may be nothing unconstitutional about this. State legislatures may be able to nullify any elections they want to nullify for any real or fake reason or no reason.

The elections clause of the Constitution reads as follows: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

The Washington Post writes on the ongoing ARP effort to subvert elections:

In Michigan, local GOP leaders have sought to reshape election canvassing boards by appointing members who expressed sympathy for former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged.

In two Pennsylvania communities, candidates who embraced election fraud allegations won races this month to become local voting judges and inspectors.

And in Colorado, 2020 doubters are urging their followers on conservative social media platforms to apply for jobs in election offices.

A year after local and state election officials came under immense pressure from Trump to subvert the results of the 2020 White House race, he and his supporters are pushing an ambitious plan to place Trump loyalists in key positions across the administration of U.S. elections.

The effort goes far beyond the former president’s public broadsides against well-known Republican state officials who certified President Biden’s victory, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. Citing the need to make elections more secure, Trump allies are also seeking to replace officials across the nation, including volunteer poll watchers, paid precinct judges, elected county clerks and state attorneys general, according to state and local officials, as well as rally speeches, social media posts and campaign appearances by those seeking the positions.

If they succeed, Trump and his allies could pull down some of the guardrails that prevented him from overturning Biden’s win by creating openings to challenge the results next time, election officials and watchdog groups say.

“The attacks right now are no longer about 2020,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D). “They’re about 2022 and 2024. It’s about chipping away at confidence and chipping away at the reality of safe and secure elections. And the next time there’s a close election, it will be easier to achieve their goals. That’s what this is all about.”

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment. [no surprise there]

Supporters of the former president who are seeking offices that would give them oversight of elections say they just want to make the system secure. 

Voters have a right “to scrutinize the election process,” Kristina Karamo, a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, told several hundred demonstrators gathered on the lawn of the state Capitol in Lansing last month in support of a “forensic” audit of the 2020 results. 

One leader of the effort to challenge the 2020 vote in the state, West Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno, is seeking the GOP nomination for attorney general. DePerno, who waged a failed legal battle over an election-night vote-counting error in Antrim County, has built his campaign around a vow to expose fraud.

“The elites in this state, the elected officials they don’t want you — the voter, the common man, the taxpayer — they don’t want you to see the voting data,” DePerno told the cheering crowd at the Lansing rally, adding: “The Democrats and the establishment don’t understand the power of the grass roots movement in Michigan.” 

“This is a great big flashing red warning sign,” said Jeff Timmer, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and a Trump critic. “The officials who fulfilled their legal duty after the last election are now being replaced by people who are pledging to throw a wrench in the gears of the next election. It tells you that they are planning nothing but chaos and that they have a strategy to disrupt the certification of the next election.”

In Genesee County, home of Flint, Michelle Voorheis, a 13-year Republican veteran of the county canvassing board, said in an interview that she believes the local GOP committee did not renominate her this year because she defended the outcome of the last election on social media.

The fact that elections were secure in 2020 makes no difference in ARP ‘thinking’ or propaganda. Voters are told they can scrutinize the process. But now the process can be subverted and nullified by partisan legislatures or partisan elections officials for partisan advantage. All the voter scrutiny in the world cannot affect toxic partisanship that subverts elections. 

ARP promises of transparency do not have to be kept because transparency for the public has not been put into any ARP election laws. Some ARP politicians and propagandists claim they want voters to see the voting data. In fact, seeing election subversion is consistent with the ARP's unjustified attacks on elections and voting rights. Transparency for voters has nothing to do with it. 

Thus it is reasonable to believe that ARP politicians and operatives would hide that data if they choose to nullify an otherwise valid election result. The ARP is no fan of transparency or inconvenient truth. Opacity and mendacity is the normal mode of operations for the elites who run the ARP.

We will have to wait for the 2022 and 2024 elections to see how badly the ARP has damaged elections and voting rights. The time of free and fair elections in America just might have come to an end. 

Questions: 

1. Was the 2020 election stolen as the ARP elites and rank and file constantly claim to the public, and as it relies on to justify voter suppression and election rigging laws, and the ARP’s overt efforts to oust honest elections officials? 

2. Is seeing ARP laws and actions as attacks on election integrity consistent with what the ARP is has done and still is doing to election infrastructure? If not, then why is the ARP doing what it is clearly doing and has done by (i) passing Republican elections-related laws in some states, and (ii) opposing a proposed voter protection law in congress? 

3. Do ARP claims of transparency for voters ring true, or is that just more ARP mendacity?

4. Do Democrats and the establishment not understand the power of the grass roots movement in Michigan as one ARP politician claims, or do rank and file ARP supporters in Michigan not know they have been deceived and arguably betrayed by ARP elites?