The Growing Threat To The Integrity Of The 2022 Elections
Fred Wertheimer’s Weekly Note | March 10, 2022
The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” according to a statement issued by officials in the Trump Administration after the election. And, there’s never been a shred of evidence to back up Trump’s blatantly false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Nevertheless, Trump’s nonstop, groundless, demagogic attacks on the honesty of the 2020 presidential election have created the most serious threat to the integrity of our national elections that we have seen.
Trump’s Big Lie about 2020 has triggered the enactment of a wave of voter suppression and election sabotage laws in GOP-controlled state legislatures that started in 2021 and continues today. The laws have opened the door to partisan election officials rigging the results of future elections, including the 2024 presidential race.
Impartial election officials are critical to protecting the integrity and credibility of our elections. However, state and local election officials around the country are being subjected to threats, harassment, and intimidation by Trump followers.
An investigation by Reuters “documented more than 900 threatening and hostile messages to election administrators and staff in 17 states, almost all alluding to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.”
And a new survey by the Brennan Center of local election officials found that one in six “have experienced threats,” and more than half “are concerned about the safety of their colleagues in future elections.” The Brennan Center found that nearly two-thirds of the election officials surveyed “believe that false information is making their jobs more dangerous, and almost all blame social media for spreading it.”
The Brennan Center found that nearly three times as many local election officials are “very worried about interference by political leaders in how they and fellow local election officials do their jobs going forward as they say they were before 2020.” And, the survey found that 20 percent “plan to leave their jobs before the next presidential election in 2024, with a third citing political leaders’ dishonest attacks on our election systems as one of their top reasons.”
Meanwhile, Trump followers are working to infiltrate Secretary of State and other state-level election administration offices, to place themselves in position to do whatever it takes to make sure Trump and his supported candidates win future elections.
And, campaign money is pouring into Secretary of State races which are seen by Trump followers as prime places for rigging elections.
The Brennan Center found that, in key battleground states, contributions in Secretary of State races “are three times higher than they were at this point in the 2018 cycle and eight times higher than 2014.” Contributions were “particularly high” in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan.
The report found that these races are attracting a growing number of out-of-state contributors, likely reflecting a broader effort by Trump followers to seize control of these electorally important positions.
A dangerous attack on our elections is underway. It is being driven by Trump’s lies, by his followers’ belief in the lies, by the efforts of Trump acolytes to take partisan control of state election administration, and by Republican officeholders pursuing political advantage no matter the consequences for the American people.
At a time when the murdering invader Vladimir Putin is conducting a war to destroy Ukraine and its democracy, we have our own nonmilitary political war being led by Trump against our democracy.
It is a battle for the heart and soul of our democracy that must be won.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears each Thursday in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter here. Or, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
