It's not the number of votes, it's who counts the votes
Republicans are quietly working to oversee important elections.
There’s a reason low-level elected offices, like school boards and university student councils, are where the most out-there extremists seem to make their mark. So few people care about these elections that a small but highly motivated group of voters can can get their people actually elected to something.
Once elected they can make their mark in ways such as declaring Abraham Lincoln too doubleplusungood to have a school named after him or banning cystic fibrosis fundraising campaigns from campus because it’s a disease that allegedly affects mostly white people. But at least they don’t have the power to overthrow results of democratic elections, no matter how much they might want to.
There are state- and county-level elected offices in which people do oversee the counting of ballots. And guess who’s quietly infiltrating these offices while no one notices?
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.”
Some Republican election officials who refused to bend the knee in 2020 have already been ousted. No prizes for guessing who’s behind this strategy:
The push to take over the country’s election administration is being fueled by figures including Bannon, a former senior adviser to Trump who has promoted a blueprint he and others call the “precinct strategy” to take over every level of the GOP, from statewide officeholders to volunteer poll watchers and local committee members.
“We’re taking over school boards, we’re taking over the Republican Party — through the precinct committee strategy,” Bannon said on an episode of his “War Room” podcast broadcast Nov. 12. “We’re taking over all the elections.”
“They’re there to have a free and fair count,” Bannon added, referring to those seeking election and voting oversight positions. “And we’re going to continue that and we’re going to get to the bottom of 3 November and we’re going to decertify the electors. Okay? And you’re going to have a constitutional crisis. But you know what? We’re a big and tough country, and we can handle that.”
Hey, what’s a little constitutional crisis among friends?
In 2020, we saw Congresspeople and state officials arguing that vote totals showing Joe Biden leading shouldn’t be counted, because reasons. In 2024, if the stop-the-steal crowd are counting the votes in the first place, it won’t even get that far, because Trump will win Michigan, Pennsylvania and other key swing states - whether or not he actually got the most votes.
I know Democrats are busy with governing these days, but might I suggest that their activists might want to spend less time trying to cancel their own members for old tweets and more time fighting back against this?
This is it: the very last day for my 25% off sale for premium subscriptions.
Don’t be like Homer Simpson missing the chance to meet Mr. T at the mall. Act now!