The president has attacked the integrity of U.S. elections on more than 70 percent of the days — 460 in total — since he returned to office, says a New York Times interactive.
And he’s “set loose torrents of hostility toward the men and women who oversee balloting nationwide,” Barton Gellman wrote last week in The New Yorker.
“In this election season, the familiar threats, online and often pseudonymous, have been accompanied by new ones from federal authorities,” Gellman says. The Department of Justice has warned election officials that they may face criminal prosecution and imprisonment if they fail to surrender state voter rolls and purge them as the President directs.
As we know, the founders of our country provided that the states and Congress are in charge of elections, not the president.
And “if one thing has been decisive in safeguarding the nation’s electoral machinery, it is the tenacity of state officials who willingly accepted the political, financial, and personal risks of defying the president. They did so in a strong majority of states, including some under Republican control,” says Gellman.
“In order to protect democratic institutions,” says Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist who studies democratic erosion, “we still depend on politically ambitious people sacrificing their careers.”
On Friday, a federal judge issued an order to block the Trump administration from threatening or intimidating election officials in the run up to the midterms. On Saturday, the administration appealed, reports NBC News.
In related news, blue cities in Republican states are preparing to combat election interference with the knowledge that the governor or attorney general won’t help, reports Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket.
And none of the law firms that capitulated to Trump early in his second term are publicly involved in the major legal efforts to check the administration’s attempts to interfere in the midterm elections, The New York Times says.
Norm Eisen, who leads the Democracy Defenders Fund, says there nevertheless are more than enough lawyers to counter Trump in court.
If you have a problem at the polls on Tuesday
The presenters at the No Kings training on Thursday night titled “Know Your Voting Rights,” were from the American Civil Liberties Union. They said:
“If there is a problem at the polls, do not assume your only option is to leave without voting.
• Try to resolve the issue at the polls so you can cast a regular ballot
• Call the Election Protection hotline at:
866-OUR-VOTE, 866-687-8683 and 866ourvote.org (English), administered by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
888-VE-Y-VOTA, 888-839-8682 (Spanish/English) administered by the NALEO Educational Fund
• Ask for a provisional ballot.”
Here is the video of the training. And here are the slides.
No Kings will hold an online event if there’s election interference
If necessary, No Kings will hold a virtual event on Wednesday, Nov. 4, from 8 to 9 p.m. Eastern, “to share real-time updates, align on the election defense strategy, and provide clear next steps for attendees to take in defense of democracy.”
You can sign up to attend here.
Voting rights, commentary on briefing.center
“The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.” — late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., civil rights activist
Here are regularly updated voting rights resources for the midterm elections, on John Dineen’s briefing.center website. And here is John’s daily commentary on his briefing.center home page.
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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries
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