Marc Elias, the Democratic elections lawyer who oversaw the 60+ legal victories against Trump's 2020 state tantrums, writes that "with fewer than 100 days until the election, Republicans are building an election subversion war machine."
They're tuning up the machine they had in 2020 and the midterms, and building out from there. What in previous election cycles was local — Republicans molesting county ballots in only a scattering of states — is going on national tour.
With the financing of super PACs pumped full of billionaires' quid pro quo cash, the GOP is now its own Daddy Warbucks, but with a decidedly anti-philanthropic twist. It's redirecting massive bundles of outside financing to insider legal groups, what you might call pettifogger terrorist cells in coordinated cahoots against democracy.
Although the Republican plan for crushing the will of voters is going national, its machinations still often begin locally. NPR reported on Wednesday what the Party of Trump has been up to in Georgia. There, the State Election Board voted on Tuesday "to require county election officials to make a 'reasonable inquiry' before certifying election results to the state."
For starters, never has it been the business of such officials to make any kind of inquiry into election results. As opponents of the board's ruling have noted, state law mandates only that these officials "shall certify" results.
But — and this is the critical part — non-certification appears to be the Georgia plan's objective. The new rules are careful to be as careless as possible. (Hence the need for armies of GOP lawyers to bicker over ambiguities and nothings.) The rules offer no guidelines or specifications on what reasonable can mean, and it leaves the certification process open-ended.
Which is to say, certain county officials could make glacial inquiries into election results, even though there are hard deadlines for certifying a presidential election. Local election officials could even cease the counting of votes.
Said Megan Bellamy of the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab to The Washington Post: "It will create this focal point for tensions and argument around what the election results should be, and it will create a controversy at the tail end of the process."
In short, chaos, precisely the environment in which Trump thrives. Further, what if some counties fail to certify by the deadline? What happens to the state's Electoral Votes? (A: There would be none for Congress to count.)
"Local election officials [could] halt the counting of votes and slow down, or even outright refuse certification if they contend there are any irregularities, essentially making the certification of election results discretionary," said Democrat Sam Park, the House minority whip.
And fighting for chaos will be all those Republican lawyers, their pockets stuffed full of billionaire's super PAC cash, filthy but laundered through the GOP's election subversion machine.
Notes NPR: "The rule will take effect after 20 days, although it could be challenged in court." Of that you can be sure. And in court will be Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias — one of the good lawyers to be spared.
If there's any doubt about the novel skullduggery of Georgia's new election rules, it can be swept away merely by reading what Trump had to say about them at a recent rally in Atlanta:
"I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Georgia State Election [Board] is in a very positive way. They’re on fire; they’re doing a great job. Three members: [all pro-Trump]. Three people, they’re all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory."
I do wonder if even one member of Trump's Atlanta audience stopped to ask him- or herself: Is it the job of a state election board to fight for a presidential nominee's victory? Are not election boards supposed to be, uh, well, impartial?
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