This NYT article points out that, up until very recently, elected positions like “judge of elections” were all but anonymous and scarcely anyone knew or cared about them, but now Republicans are running for those positions and taking them very seriously (because of how such officials can wield influence over election outcomes) while Democrats are still not yet really caring.
“We have to count all votes and whoever gets the most is declared the winner. “
Republicans: “Sure, but what if we… didn’t?”
My one hope for this is that so many of the people the Republicans are counting on to steal the election actually seem to be True Believers.
That is, they really seem to believe that lots of fake ballots are being cast. How many times now have we seen people like this “audit” some subset of the 2020 votes, who believe at the outset that they’re going to find all kinds of fraud, only to have them find no fraud at all? If they were really willing to lie just to toss the election to the Republicans, why didn’t they lie then?
I can imagine a scenario in which a rabid Big Lie Believer gets elected to such a position, and declares, “There’s no way anyone is going to vote illegally on MY watch!”, only to see thousands of legitimate votes being cast for the Democrats. “Well, I tired to catch fraudulent voters, but there weren’t any (at least not in my district), so I guess the Democrats win…at least in my district.”
It’s one thing to believe something stupid about the elections in the abstract, it’s something more serious to see actual evidence right in front of you that shows the election is legitimate, and then just lie about it.
It’s a faint hope, but it’s a hope.
Well, they know lots of fake ballots are being cast because they are casting fake ballots themselves.
I think that next election these folks will have no problem saying the sky is orange, the sun rises in the west, black is white and they found lots of fake ballots. The lesson they learned from last election is that they need to lie more often and harder than before.
…and if they actually do honestly try to do the job they’re trying to get, they’ll catch at least some of those people.
It’s easy to make up stories about “what’s really going on” during vote counting when you’re on the outside looking in, and don’t know what the proper procedures are, and don’t have a reason to trust the people in charge. It’s a bit harder to do that when you are the person in charge, and can see and hear exactly what’s going on, and know why people are doing the things they’re doing.
And it’s also easy when you are the person in charge to “find” reasons to toss out votes for your opponent. Trump already gave them the way; “Find me 11,780 votes” In other words, just fabricate the votes out of whole cloth. Sure they are not there. Just make them up. Just write 11,780 in the tally. Everyone knows you made them up, but so what? Then we win, and nobody will punish you for this. In fact, you will be rewarded.
This is absolutely a possibility, which is why I described my hope as a “faint hope”, but at the same time, if they do this, it will literally be the death of American democracy. I still (faintly) hope that when it comes down to the wire, enough of them will balk at crossing that particular Rubicon that democracy will survive at least a little longer.
Me too.
It really comes down to the question of how many of them are honest, but misguided, vs. how many are okay with being willing participants in massive electoral fraud.
Unfortunately, I see no good way to figure out which person is which until it’s far too late.
I think one bright spot is that many of them may be so fundamentally stupid as to believe that they can just throw out votes or change vote tallies themselves, and this will be a trivially easy thing to do. They probably think “this is what Democrats do all the time, so I will just do it too.”
And then they’ll find out that there are many checks and balances in the vote tally process, and it is NOT easy at all to fiddle with the numbers. They are not the ONLY people in the room. Others are going to easily see their childish amateur attempts and call them out. And they will be caught. Easily. And they will be shocked, astounded that nobody is coming to their aid as they get arrested, charged, prosecuted and jailed.
ETA: I hope.
As amusing at this would be to see in the moment (and I agree it’s probably a lot more likely scenario than these people coming to their senses), it’s not something I think would be good at all. Actual election officials getting arrested, even if they deserve to be arrested, will only fuel the fires of conspiracy theories even more.
I think this is one of the biggest reasons we need to come down hard on anyone who was caught messing at all with the democratic process in the previous election. I believe the reason we did not see much of it from officials other than at the Federal level is that the risk-reward ratio didn’t reward them enough for taking the risk of huge penalties.
The reward is still the same: very little reward other than the satisfaction of thwarting democracy. But if it turns out that local-level election officials don’t have to face prison if they mess with results, the “risk” will alter the calculus in favor of partisan antics.
The potential rewards are now higher as well;
- If they succeed; Seen favorably by the new Trump regime, who rewards sycophants and punishes dissidents, like any totalitarian dictatorship
- If they fail; Go fund me campaigns to fill their coffers, or at the very least pay for their defense fund.