Relax.
Democracy will survive the election of election deniers.
It is easier to complain if you don't have the job.
Few Republican candidates or officeholders paid a political price for being a 2020 election denier. Some on the national stage won their primaries because they adopted the full Trump stolen election story. More typical are Republicans who say they don't disagree that the election was stolen. They split the difference. That doesn't satisfy Trump enough to get his endorsement, but it satisfies most GOP voters. They like believing they were cheated, somehow, maybe, probably, and they don't want someone disagreeing with that belief.
My own congressperson, Cliff Bentz, voted to overturn the electoral votes of Pennsylvania. Why would he substitute his judgement for that of Pennsylvania voters who gave Biden an 80,000 vote margin? Why would he substitute his legal judgment on Pennsylvania law for that of the Pennsylvania courts? Because the GOP House caucus wanted him to do it. Bentz went along. He is expected to win handily today. Republican voters are OK with discarding elections, if a Democrat wins. No harm, no foul.
Yet I am still optimistic that America will get through this rough patch in our democracy.
Republican victories today may restore Republican support for elections. After all, if they won, the election was free and fair. I expect the new officials to announce yet more election audits. Good. Why not? Audits undercut the claims of the election deniers. Republican officeholders had a problem after the 2020 election because the same election that elected them failed to elect Trump. Somehow only Biden's victory was fraudulent, but not theirs. I presume the 2022 election today will be honestly counted, and that some election deniers will win. That isn't all bad. At least that resolves that elections can be fair. That is progress.
But! But! But! When in office, won't election-denying officials put their thumb on the scales, under cover of wink-wink "election security?" Won't they under-resource polling places in Democratic neighborhoods? Won't they disproportionately challenge the signatures on absentee ballots from likely Democratic voters? I expect they will try, and sometimes succeed. It sometimes happens now.
Having been elected on an election-denying platform they will be watched, challenged, and brought to court for bad behavior with more vigor than ever. The new election officials may try purging their staff of professionals. They will get criticized for it. Governing well is hard. Elections are complicated. Clackamas County, Oregon is Oregon's third most populous county. Its county clerk is a Trump-oriented Republican. Her primary election vote count was delayed by a big screw-up with mis-printed ballots. She has just announced that now the general election vote count will be delayed as well. Two contests of intense national interest, Oregon governor and a dead-heat congressional race, will be in limbo. TV news will go on and on about it as they wait. Incompetent or corrupt government gets noticed.
My optimism may be misplaced. Officeholders can declare legal fictions and stick to the story in the face of all contrary evidence. We have seen the power of willful blindness. There is risk that election-deniers who win office will simply over-rule the actual vote and refuse to certify it. Trump and his loyal supporters urged election officials do that very thing.
But I have hope, and a basis for it. Incumbency requires accountability. It is easy to complain and accuse if one lacks accountability. There is nothing like having the job to bring people back to reality. Incumbency requires people to swear on affidavits and certifications. Even under extreme pressure, state and county election officials in Georgia and Arizona refused to fold. Claiming fraud in their own elections requires they betray their own employees, their own systems, their own work, their own reputations. Most people in executive branch administrative functions did their jobs honorably in 2020. The persistent accusers of a corrupt election are candidates, opinion hosts on TV and radio, and, of course, Trump. They are outsiders looking in and throwing stones.
I expect Republican election deniers to win some offices, and I will regret that. It is bad, but not all bad. Now they have accountability.
Having some problems understanding as to how a County Clerk anywhere in Oregon can put off an election result for a whole day for no reason. What am i missing?
As a conversation starter this morning we asked for opinions about post marked rather than received ballots on election day. Every vote in this unscientific survey was for received ballots, and the sentiment was that it's not too much to ask that a ballot received two weeks before election day, with a pre-paid return envelope, can be voted and returned without inconvenience to anyone, and that the count could proceed more quickly.