Overturning the 2024 election, political violence

If Trump loses, we're likely to see a repeat of his efforts to overturn the election results. Marc Elias, the election lawyer who successfully fought almost every Republican lawsuit challenging the 2020 election, has written an insightful article about a concerning trend. He highlights an undemocratic tactic (refuse to certify) that Republicans are likely to employ in states where they lose.

Elias points out a significant shift in Republican strategy. Instead of focusing on traditional get-out-the-vote efforts, they're now directing money towards voter suppression and campaigns to prevent the certification of unfavorable results.

The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun - Democracy Docket

Spoiler

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.

In 2021, I warned about the need to reform the certification process to prevent these abuses in the future since it was clear from the violent insurrection on Jan. 6 that Trump and his allies would focus their attention on the individual state processes for election certification. To prevent this, I laid out the concrete steps necessary to prevent Republicans from weaponizing certification in the future:

1. Clearly define the power of state officials in the certification process and immediately remove bad actors.
2. Remove unnecessary links in the certification chain.
3. Abolish the requirement that a state’s partisan governor, secretary of state or election board certify the results.

While this wasn’t going to resolve it all, these were three actionable steps that states and Congress could have taken. When that didn’t happen, we then saw Republicans expand the use of weaponizing certification in 2022.

During the midterm primary elections, at least 10 counties — including four in Pennsylvania — refused to certify accurate election results. After the general election, counties in Arizona and Pennsylvania refused to certify election results that saw Democratic candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and Congress prevail.

Once again, my legal team was forced to bring litigation to protect against election subversion. We sued Cochise County, Arizona and Luzerne County, Pennsylvania and won as they ultimately certified their results. Democracy was protected for at least one more election cycle.

But even so, my fear for future elections remained as the “Big Lie” spread by Trump and his allies became core to the Republican Party.

Over the course of the last year, Republicans have become bolder in their plans to subvert the election results in 2024. They now speak more openly about the need to control the certification process. They litigate more aggressively to be able to subvert election results. They enact new laws and rules explicitly for this purpose.

But it’s worse this election than previous ones because this year, the GOP is far more organized. They might have tried to subvert the results in a handful of places in 2020 and 2022, but this year, they will try to subvert them all, setting the stage now for what’s to come in November.

With fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.

They have sacrificed traditional get out the vote activity to fund and recruit for their massive voter suppression program. They have a constellation of well-funded legal groups supplanting these efforts with unlimited money and grassroots volunteers. They are sending their lawyers into courthouses around the country to lay the groundwork for their anti-democratic plans.

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.

I am glad that people have awoken to the genuine threat posed by election deniers. It is an opportunity for people to remember to check their voter registration status and make a plan to vote. For people with the time, it may motivate them to volunteer as a poll worker or help a local campaign.

Most importantly, for undecided voters, I hope that it sharpens the stake of this election. I hope it causes them to ask why, if the GOP is so sure it offers the best choice for America, it is committed to depriving its citizens of fair election results.

ps. Some even think, due to left wing leadership, extremists on the right have no option but to start a civil war (see the Why Musk is pushing for a civil war thread)

 

You have family, right? Why not spend time with them and take a break from social media for a few days?

 

Another article on the undemocratic tactic and what can be done.

Get Ready Now: Republicans Will Refuse to Certify a Harris Win (thebulwark.com)

Who Can Stop It?

Courts have already intervened to stop efforts like this. At least ten counties refused certification in the primaries in 2022, followed by two counties—in Arizona and Pennsylvania—refusing to certify general election results that year. They lost in court and the results were certified. Participants in fake elector schemes have been prosecuted.

In retrospect, those efforts look like initial probes—like a bank robber casing the joint, figuring out where the guards stand and the cameras are while planning the real heist. Elias wrote last week that “Republicans are building an election subversion war machine.” It sure doesn’t appear that the law is going to deter them from launching an unprecedented attack on our elections.

And the ways that the potential scale of the assault will test the legal system is, in and of itself, daunting. The Brennan Center for Justice wrote, “little academic attention has been paid to the mechanics of state certification processes, leaving many in the legal community bewildered by the recent string of attacks.”

The Washington Post reported in June that “in some states, election administrators have already identified voters in each county who could serve as plaintiffs in emergency lawsuits to force county boards to certify results. In others, state administrators are sending detailed instructions to county officials laying out the limits of their power to block certification.”

It’s crucial that these plans are widely publicized. And they can be. Just like Project 2025, which was virtually unheard of and is now in the forefront of the political debate. Putting a media spotlight on this issue will force Republican officials to address what they are well aware of and are refusing to call out.

Yesterday CBS News reported Biden said in his first interview since leaving the presidential race he is “not confident at all” there will be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses. Harris isn’t likely to talk about this in her campaign, so it’s critical that other high-profile surrogates do. President Obama, President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and others must educate voters about the plot underway to force more public pressure and accountability on the process.

Every Republican must be asked about local certification of elections, electors honoring the popular vote of their state, preventing political violence—all of it. Repeatedly.

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.

 

In the English language, 'they' can refer to a single person. A whole book was written about this a while back (and no, it's not about today's pronouns but the historical usage of 'they' and how it still applies today). Yes, English is a funny and ever-evolving language

Singular they - Wikipedia