The coming election war

A few days ago, I posted about comments that Rachael Maddow made concerning DJT's recent public statements asserting that he "had plenty of votes" and people did not need to vote for him. Maddow hypothesized that DJT planned to steal the election by way of having election deniers in country and local elections offices refuse to certify vote counts. 

Now, more sources are making the similar arguments. Democracy Docket writes:

What Happens When Election Officials Refuse to Certify Results?

What was once seen as nothing more than a procedural part of the elections process has, in the past two election cycles, evolved into something of a battlefield in the election denial movement.

By all accounts, election certification is somewhat of a mundane statutory task: after tabulating all ballots — in-person, mail-in, provisional, absentee — local election officials certify that the ballot count is complete and accurate. That process is then repeated by election officials on the state level and, in the case of a presidential election, in Congress.

.... election certification has become one of the more pervasive, and legitimate, concerns of the upcoming election. What happens when rogue county and local election officials who refuse to certify their jurisdiction’s election results? A recent Rolling Stone investigation found there are at least 70 election officials in key swing states with a history of promoting conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election — igniting concerns that such officials would refuse to certify the election results in their jurisdiction should they not be happy with whichever candidate wins.

Lauren Miller Karalunas, a counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, explained “certification is the process by which local election officials sign off on the completion of the election results to say that: yes, the many processes to tabulate the results and confirm that they’re correct, have all taken place.” While that process is a necessary step in the election process, it’s more “a formality that’s procedurally important, but substantively very narrow,” Karalunas told Democracy Docket.

Some states use a single official, like the secretary of state, to certify all the election results from that state. Whatever the method, states do this within 30 days after the election, though some do it within one day. This certification process, Karalunas stressed, is a “mandatory process for election officials to do. It is not the time for them to investigate election results. And that’s because there are other procedures like election contests and court proceedings that are specifically designed to answer legal questions about election results.”

But what happens when an election official refuses to comply with a court order to certify an election? They could be removed from their position. In the 2022 midterm elections in North Carolina, two officials were removed for refusing to certify.

Do we need to be worried about rogue election officials disrupting the 2024 election?

Yes and no. As the Rolling Stone article noted, and as Marc Elias explained in his latest column, “we are going to see mass refusals to certify the elections” because the GOP is “counting on the fact that if they don’t certify in several small counties, you cannot certify these statewide results.”

Such refusals to certify local elections by rogue election officials are certainly going to cause a headache, but the important thing is that there are processes to ensure each election is properly certified.

“Voters should be rest assured that if they see an attempt to refuse to certify an election in their jurisdiction, that does not mean that there was a problem with the elections,” Karalunas said. “There are processes in place to make sure that certification ultimately will happen in a timely fashion and that their vote will be counted.”

Some states have legal means to reign in rogue election officials. So do not. Presumably, all states where election deniers who are in power will dispute the outcome if they do not like the result in their jurisdiction. The open question is what will happen in states that do not have laws that deal with corrupt election officials. And, what is to stop red states from getting rid of such laws, or even empowering rogues to wreck the entire state? 

In a separate article for Democracy Docket, election expert Marc Elias writes:

The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun

Earlier this week, the Rolling Stone published a deep dive investigation into the pro-Trump election deniers who may refuse to certify accurate election results at the county level.

In the article, I voiced my concern for this possibility, predicting that “we are going to see mass refusals to certify the elections” because Republicans are “counting on the fact that if they don’t certify in several small counties, you cannot certify these statewide results.”

After Rachel Maddow featured the article on MSNBC, my concern quickly reached far and wide, with thousands of people taking to social media and flooding Democracy Docket’s inbox with questions about how this could happen and what can be done to prevent this seemingly new threat.

Except, this isn’t a new threat. I have been fighting against it in court for years.

We first saw Republicans deploy this anti-democratic tactic in the aftermath of the 2020 election. At the time, I was representing Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in recounts, election contests and litigation brought by Donald Trump and his allies.

As Michigan’s county certification date approached, we learned that the Trump campaign was pushing the GOP members of the Wayne County Canvassing Board to vote against certifying the election results in Detroit. Part of that effort, we have since learned, was a call from Trump himself, along with then-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, to the local county canvass board members.

Ultimately, this scheme failed as did a subsequent effort to convince the Republican members of the statewide county canvassing board to refuse statewide certification. But its failure was not for lack of effort.  

So what are pro-democracy advocates like me supposed to do about it? Already, we’re fighting back. We’re in court to prevent Republicans from changing the rules so they can cheat later on. The excitement generated by Democratic candidates from top to bottom is aiding in our own volunteer efforts. And, there are dozens of election officials of both parties who take pride in their work and want a free and fair election.

This is the new normal. As long as the Republican Party remains morally corrupt and authoritarian, attacks on elections will continue. Remember, this 40 seconds of horror is from 1980: