Five Years Later
Last week was the anniversary of Trump’s election defeat and the beginning of the Big Lie. But today I’m thinking of a different anniversary — the five-year anniversary of how our national nightmare began.
Last week was the anniversary of Trump’s election defeat and the beginning of the Big Lie. But today I’m thinking of a different anniversary — the five-year anniversary of how our national nightmare began.
Republicans have an election fraud problem. No matter how hard they look, they can’t seem to find any. Republican legislatures across the country have enacted new voting laws aimed at making ordinary activities illegal, thereby manufacturing fraud where none exists.
I have no doubt that we are only one, maybe two, elections from a constitutional crisis. My fear is that those in the pro-democracy movement are not as prepared or as focused as those who seek to subvert our elections.
This is a dangerous time in our country’s history. There is simply no historical analog in American politics to the current war the Republican Party is waging on election results and the transfer of power.
If the bill is enacted, more citizens will be able to have their votes counted. And, those of us fighting suppression laws in court will have the tools necessary to achieve fast, consistent victories.
There is no place in the Republican Party for supporters of voting rights. When the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act came before the U.S. House this August for a vote, not a single Republican supported the bill. Not one.
Not all bad laws come in big packages labeled voter suppression. Not all disenfranchisement tactics make the nightly news. Yet, regardless of the size of the law, the tragic result for democracy is the same.
We are experiencing an unprecedented attack on voting, election administration and democracy — and we must all prepare now. It is, as the president warned, “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”
Without election workers, we cannot have free and fair elections, and without elections, we will no longer have a democracy. We must act now to protect those who safeguard our right to vote.
While most of the legislative focus has been on the registration and voting process, significantly less attention has been paid to another point of vulnerability in our election system — the rules for tabulating and certifying elections.