This is why Donald Trump should never be president of the US again. This is why voting for him is voting against American ideals and America. He doesn't want a vote of the people. He wants to win at all costs. He knows he has passionate followers who believe strongly in his vision of an authoritarian country that does things for the benefit of those specific people. But they are not a majority. He is close, but potentially not quite, on the Electoral College. So, he and his MAGA politician supporters are doing all they can to subvert our system of free elections to install his government against the will of the people. That is what you are supporting whether you want to admit the truth or not.
The other battle
 | By Nick Corasaniti
I’ve been reporting on efforts to undermine the election. |
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There are some big clashes coming in November, both before and after Election Day.
Donald Trump and his allies have spent years sowing doubts about the integrity of American elections. They’ve falsely claimed, including through lawsuits, that voter rolls are full of ineligible voters and that mail ballots are often improperly counted. They’ve installed sympathetic officials at the state and local level who are ready to act on these accusations. They have hundreds of lawyers on standby.
At the same time, Democrats and voting rights organizations are preparing to counter such efforts. They’ve revamped a nationwide voter protection team and built a legal army of their own.
Polls suggest the presidential contest will be close. In every state where the margin is small, both sides expect a post-election battle over the outcome. (Since 2020, local officials in eight states have refused to certify various results.) The maelstrom could endanger the swift outcome that many voters expect.
I’ve spent years reporting on the gathering storm. In today’s newsletter, I’ll describe what it could look like.
The challenges
American elections don’t all look the same. Each state runs its own election, meaning that each state will likely face its own unique set of legal challenges in November. Mail ballots have emerged as targets in Pennsylvania and Nevada. The manual that governs elections in Arizona faces multiple lawsuits. Republicans say the voter rolls in several states, including Michigan, are improperly maintained. Controversies could arise in any of those places.
But the likeliest source of trouble at the moment is Georgia, which embodies Republicans’ two-pronged approach: They’ve set up new hurdles to voting and a process to stall — or even outright avoid — certifying the results if Trump loses. (In certification, local election officials are like scorekeepers at a football game, tallying up the points from each quarter to make a final, official score.)
Georgia Republicans passed a host of new election laws beginning in 2021. One changed the makeup of the State Election Board, taking power from the secretary of state — Brad Raffensperger, who declined to help Trump overturn the last election. Lawmakers can now appoint a majority of members. (I’ll return to this in a minute.) Another law expanded the ability for citizens to challenge a voter’s eligibility. Right-wing activist networks in states beyond Georgia, such as Michigan and Nevada, have been filing tens of thousands of citizen-led mass challenges.
The new laws could fuel a post-election dispute. Trump’s allies might claim, for instance, that unresolved challenges or improperly maintained voter rolls are evidence of illegal votes. Courts, secretaries of state and law enforcement have traditionally solved those issues, because local officials are not referees; in nearly every state, they must sign off on elections by a specific deadline. But this year, right-wing activists hope to assert greater control over certification, allowing them to hunt for fraud or delay the result.
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Electronic voting booths. Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock |
In 2024 alone, local election officials in Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania have refused to certify primary elections, though they’ve never overturned results. In Georgia, a crucial swing state, the State Election Board could equip county board members to do the same. Using their new 3-2 majority there, Republican appointees ruled that officials could conduct “reasonable inquiry” into elections before certifying the results. Democrats worry they will use this new power to point to any irregularities and defend a refusal to certify. Trump said the new Election Board members were “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
In a worst-case scenario, officials in any of these states could blow past the Dec. 11 deadline to submit their final certified results, throwing the election into a legal gray area. That could give their allies in Congress political cover to reject slates of electors and overturn the election result.
The counteroffensive
In previous cycles, Democrats had an expansive team of lawyers and volunteers on what’s known as a “voter protection” unit. This year, they’ve moved those people
inside the legal apparatus of Kamala Harris’s campaign. They’ve also hired dozens of lawyers in battleground states.
At the same time, the Republican National Committee has a legal team of hundreds. They work with local lawyers in key swing states. Allied outside groups are also joining the battle.
The sides have already tussled in dozens of lawsuits this year, arguing over mail ballots and voter rolls. But they’ve also zeroed in on certification in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. Democrats have asked courts to require local officials to certify elections. Trump allies want those officials to have discretion over whether to certify. Two lawsuits in Georgia are testing these ideas.
In other states, such as Arizona, courts have agreed with Democrats that both local and state officials must certify the vote by established deadlines.
Even as some voters will begin to receive absentee ballots starting tomorrow, much of the legal picture remains unsettled. New lawsuits are filed regularly, and nearly every court decision is immediately appealed. An informal judicial doctrine, known as the Purcell principle, urges judges not to change rules close to an election, but it is not binding. Just last week, a Pennsylvania court ruled that
misdated mail ballots could be counted. By Monday, Republicans had already filed an appeal.
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