Republicans Are Gearing Up to Steal Elections

Donald Trump falsely claimed that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen”.  Unfortunately, there is a great risk that the 2022 and 2024 elections will be rigged and stolen…by Republicans.  And even if they fail to accomplish that feat, the Republicans may generate so much chaos and confusion about the election results that they will badly undermine the legitimacy of our democratic system. 

The Democrat leadership in Congress does not seem to have an effective strategy to counter the Republicans’ drive to establish one-party rule in most states and, ultimately, the nation. Under Sen. Chuck Schumer’s hapless leadership, the Democrats failed to attract even one Republican Senator’s vote in favor of the For the People Act, their sweeping voting rights reform bill. 

The proposed reforms were all reasonable, from a moderate Democratic perspective, and certainly not a “power grab”, as Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described the bill.  Unless, of course, you believe that making it easier for citizens to vote, particularly Black and Latino Americans, is a power grab. 

The Danger of Abolishing the Filibuster

However, the Democrats should have narrowed the scope of the bill and engaged in some horse-trading with the few centrist Republicans left in the Senate.  But they apparently assumed that their cause was so noble, and the threat to our democracy so severe, that all Democrats would agree that it was time to end the filibuster in order to pass the For the People Act.

Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have been pilloried by progressives, and some journalists, because they refused to end the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to pass a bill.  Instead, Manchin and Sinema urged their colleagues to negotiate with Republicans.  Striking a deal with Republicans on voting rights was a long shot, to be sure, but the two Senators have valid concerns about eliminating the filibuster.  That rule was the only barrier that prevented Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act, because they could never muster 60 votes.  

Let’s assume, for the moment, that the Democrats abolished the filibuster rule and passed the For the People Act with only 51 votes.  That could be a very short-term victory, if the Republicans recaptured the Senate in 2022.  In that event, Mitch McConnell could quickly repeal the Act, and any other legislation passed during the Biden Administration…or the Obama Administration, for that matter.    

Finally, Democrats are talking about possible alternative approaches in Congress, but they have wasted a lot of time. 

Sen. Mitch McConnell

All-Out Assault On Voting Rights

Meanwhile, on the state level, Republicans are moving at lighting speed to suppress Democratic voters.  This is the broadest, most ferocious attack on voting rights since the end of the Reconstruction Era in the 1870s.  Republicans have passed highly restrictive laws in battleground states such as Florida, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. Democrats blocked passage of a draconian bill in Texas, which already had the most restrictive laws in the country, but that is probably only a temporary reprieve.  

The parallels between this period and the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) are striking.  In each case, one political party rigs the election laws to preserve white supremacy, by making it difficult for Black Americans to vote.  After the Civil War, newly enfranchised Black Americans used their votes to gain substantial political power in many Southern states, where they constituted a large part of the population. 

However, after Federal troops left the South in 1877, white Southern Democrats struck back.  They enacted Jim Crow laws that made it virtually impossible for African-Americans to cast ballots. When that failed, they used violence—notably lynching—to intimidate Black voters. Southern Democrats established a brutal, one-party system of government that lasted for about 90 years, until Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

In our time, Republicans are also reacting to unfavorable (for them), dramatic changes in the composition of the electorate.  In Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and other Republican-dominated states, cities are growing rapidly, while rural areas are stagnant or declining.  The cities have large Black populations, other minority groups and moderate whites, which all tend to vote Democratic.  Atlanta and Savannah are Democratic strongholds in Georgia. The four largest Texan cities are all blue. 

To counter these demographic trends, Republicans are following the same playbook that the Southern Democrats used 150 years ago.  They pass voting laws that may seem neutral on the surface but are designed to discourage or prevent Blacks and other minorities from voting. 

Then, as now, Georgia was a early focal point for the white backlash against a rising tide of Black political power.

In some ways, the current wave of voter restrictions is even more pernicious than the previous one. The newly enacted laws create obstacles for moderate white Democrats who live in cities, as well as minority voters, by limiting mail-in voting, drop boxes and other measures that make voting more convenient for urban dwellers who don’t have much free time.  

Furthermore, the cancer has spread beyond the South.  Northern states such as Wisconsin are resorting to such maneuvers, too.  It’s not a coincidence that Milwaukee, a Democratic stronghold, also has a large Black population. 

A Three-Pronged Attack on Democracy

The Republicans are sabotaging the voting process in three ways.  If nothing else, they are thorough.    

Besides passing the voter suppression laws, they are enacting measures that give state legislatures the authority to challenge the voting results in a Presidential election and choose their own slate of electors.  In the 2020 election, some Republican lawmakers, notably in Pennsylvania, tried to throw out the election results, but most of their colleagues rejected that effort. 

Until now, the secretary of state certifies the election results in all states.  But the new law in Georgia, as one example, takes that authority away from Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who refused Donald Trump’s demands that he falsify the election results so Trump could win.   

The new laws could enable hyper-partisan Republican lawmakers to disregard the popular vote tally, on the grounds of some purported fraud or irregularities, and then pick a different slate of electors.  In other words, they could defy the voters’ wishes and dictate the results of the election.  As a practical matter, they could probably only use this subterfuge if the election results were close…but remember that Joe Biden won Georgia by only 12,000 votes.

In addition, Republicans in Georgia have rewritten laws that required election boards to have members of both political parties. Local officials have recently fired several Democrats serving on election boards…and yes, they often happen to be Black. There is no indication that the officials were terminated because of incompetence. The Republicans are purging these officials because they would oppose unfounded challenges to election results.

How Can Democrats “Stop the Steal”?

At this point, it may be unrealistic to expect Congress to pass any legislation to protect voting rights.  It is very good news that the Department of Justice has just sued the state of Georgia, seeking to nullify its new voter-suppression laws. However, we should not simply assume that the government will prevail…particularly given the current Supreme Court.

So Democrats should, in this instance, follow the Republicans’ example, by focusing their efforts on the state and local level. 

The best defense for the Democrats is to mount intense registration drives in the battleground states that are trying to suppress voter turnout.  That will be a tough fight, since Republicans are creating as many obstacles as possible.  But the Republicans’ heavy-handed tactics undoubtedly have infuriated many minorities.  Democrats may be able to harness that anger and increase voter turnout.  

Here are some organizations or candidates that you could support: 

Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight changed the game in Georgia by registering thousands of African-Americans and is expanding its operations into other states. 

Senator Raphael Warnock will run for re-election in Georgia in 2022, because he won a special election rather than a full term.  He will face a tough fight, since the new voting restrictions target a large part of his voting base.  Of course, that’s one reason why Republicans rammed them through the legislature so fast.  

Representative Val Demings of Florida will run for the Senate, challenging Sen. Marco Rubio.  Demings should run a good campaign—she turned in an impressive performance during the first Trump impeachment--and she is a former police chief.  Republicans will have a hard time accusing her of being soft on crime.  This will be a difficult contest, because Rubio can count on a lot of Latino support.  But Democrats should have a decent chance of picking up a Senate seat in Florida, which could help offset possible losses elsewhere in 2022.  

The Texas Democratic Party is launching a drive to register one million unregistered voters in the state.  Texas is a deep-red state, but Democrats could benefit from demographic changes and Americans moving from California and other moderate areas to booming cities like Houston and Austin. Still, moving Texas into the blue column is a long-term project.  The goal of the registration drive is to blunt the impact of Republicans’ onslaught on voting rights.   

In the face of this extraordinary attack on voting rights, the Democrats’ best defense is a strong offense.  Democrats may have to fight this battle on the state level, rather than in Washington.  If they don’t, “stop the steal” could become a Democratic rallying cry in 2022.   You don’t want that to happen.   

The Wall Street Democrat