Democrats across the country are “sounding the alarm” about election fraud. Have Democrats seen the light and are now concerned about election integrity?
Not hardly, In fact, Democrats are already beginning to blame Republicans for fraud by pointing out that a growing number of local election officials across the country believe in the so-called Big Lie. This means that Republicans are prepared to try and steal the election and must be stopped.
The Washington Post pointed out that that “half of all Republican candidates for the House and Senate and key statewide offices, 299 out of 569, are Big Lie believers.” Note that they don’t define the “Big Lie.” This is convenient if you just want to lump anyone and everyone who ever had a question about the 2020 election into one, large mass of “election deniers.”
And as the Denver Post hysterically points out, it even includes poll watchers and election judges.
County clerks across Colorado say they’re bracing for a surge of highly motivated election deniers working as poll watchers or election judges in the November midterms — part of a nationwide attempt to manufacture evidence of election fraud.
Local, state and federal officials, alongside political experts, have repeatedly debunked claims of election fraud but clerks in Chaffee, Eagle, El Paso, Fremont, Garfield, Summit and Weld counties told the Denver Post they’re still seeing an increasing number of bad-faith poll watchers and election judges around the state.
There is zero evidence that any of these poll watchers or election judges are not doing their jobs fairly and in an unbiased manner. We have accounts from Democratic county clerks that suggest otherwise, but this appears to be part of a nationwide effort by Democrats to accuse Republicans of exactly the same thing that Republicans are accusing them of.
Related: Narrative Destroyed on Voter Fraud
Democrats say they’re worried because there are so many GOP secretaries of state that the potential for Republican funny business is too high to ignore.
On November 4, 2020, the day after Trump’s defeat, the Guardian reported on a plan from a group of QAnon adherents to help elect MAGA-friendly secretary-of-state candidates across the country. Jim Marchant, who had served a single term in the Nevada legislature, had just been defeated in a bid for Congress—he later claimed, “I was a victim of voter fraud”—and was planning to run again in 2022. Around the same time, he met with a QAnon booster known as Juan O. Savin who, along with others, urged him to run, instead, for secretary of state. (Marchant did not respond to requests for comment; Savin could not be reached.)
In May of last year, Marchant and Savin created the America First Secretary of State Coalition. It started with just five members, but has grown to include more than a dozen candidates for office in various states, including Hice, in Georgia, and Doug Mastriano, who is currently the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania.
QAnon? Really? This is an effort to delegitimize a Republican drive to challenge Democrats in a similar way that Democratics — backed by George Soros — made an effort to take over state attorneys general offices and put radicals in local prosecutor positions. In fact, Democrats have done a poor job of overseeing our elections and Republicans have every right to challenge the status quo.
But the “Big Lie” is being used not just to justify questioning elections or the policies of Republicans in office; the Democrats have generated hysteria over the prospect that Republican state legislatures will steal elections based on spurious charges of fraud.
The highest legal authority in the land appears poised to make potential election theft the law of the land. This term, the court is hearing Moore v. Harper, a case in which Republicans in six swing states are arguing that state legislatures should have complete control over the conduct of federal elections—the so-called independent state legislature, or ISL, theory. If the court holds for the plaintiffs, and depending on how the majority opinion is written, it could mean that state legislatures will have several means at their disposal by which they can identify some voting irregularities, declare the election corrupt, and choose electors who will vote for Trump or any other Republican when the electors convene in December.
How did we get from ISL theory to legislatures changing the outcomes of elections? That’s just not rational, but it works fine if you’re simply trying to scare people into believing Republicans are cheating.
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