January 6, 2021, that day of presidential infamy, was also an experiment for Donald Trump and those who wanted to overturn a legitimate election through a quiet coup; when it failed, violence was the fallback. Call it a beta test for what may be in store if Trump loses in 2024. But to be forewarned is to be forearmed. We are better prepared now, in part through a salutary reform of the Electoral Count Act.
The bipartisan legislation, signed into law by President Joe Biden, limits many underhanded means Trump’s allies would otherwise employ in case of another electoral loss, including sending in bogus alternative slates of electors.
Still, challenges remain. In fact, since at least last October, Trump has been preparing America for his post-election campaign to overturn the election if he loses. He said then, “You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.” He said it again to a group of Christian conservatives on July 25. “We don’t need your votes. We have enough votes.”
With such proclamations, Donald Trump is doing two things.
First, he’s telling his MAGA troops to aggressively monitor voting. That instruction is not coming out of the blue. MAGA lawyer and strategist, Cleta Mitchell, who, according to the New York Times, “plotted” with him “to overturn the 2020 Trump loss,” has been running a well-funded effort “recruiting election conspiracists into an organized cavalry of activists monitoring elections” using “aggressive methods.” She told 150 MAGA activists-in-training that this was all about “taking the lessons we learned in 2020.”
Ordinary citizens, it is crucial to note, can neutralize intimidation at polling places with our own monitors, as we have in previous cycles.
Trump’s second tactic is about his planning to overturn his election loss if it occurs. He’s softening the ground to repeat his 2020 Big Lie: “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT.” He paved the way for that claim before election day 2020 by regularly claiming in advance, “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
Trump has already signaled, consistent with his 2016 and 2020 pre-election statements, that he will not accept election results if he loses. In a May 1, 2024 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel interview, Trump said that only if “everything’s honest” would he “accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight.”
On July 29, Rolling Stone Magazine identified – and seemingly exaggerated — possible trouble ahead: the number of election deniers who now occupy local election offices in swing states, including Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Importantly, the astute analyst Robert Hubbell pinpointed the limited scope of the threat reported on by Rolling Stone. “[T]he officials identified by their survey are in ‘16 counties across the six key battleground states.’” Of course, it could well be more. The plan is to refuse to certify results in enough counties that their states cannot formally certify the electoral votes.
Before discussing the remedies, let’s acknowledge that this did not happen by accident. Mere months after January 6, Steve Bannon broadcast on his “War Room” podcast his MAGA world call to take over local election offices “village by village.”
Here’s the good news. Most of the key swing states have as their top election officials people who will protect free and fair elections. They include Democratic Secretaries of States in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, as well as Republicans Al Schmidt in Pennsylvania and Brad Raffensperger in Georgia. Most of them won in the midterms, demonstrating once again the importance of protecting our votes.
Of course, we’ll need not only honest statewide election officials but also courts upholding the integrity of the results. There’s good news on that front, as well.
State attorneys general are the first responders who decide whether or not to bring legal actions to compel election officials to perform their duty to certify elections. That happened in 2022 in New Mexico when the all-GOP Otero County election officials declined to certify the midterms. Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver sued and obtained a state supreme court order forcing the county to certify. That is a template for combating future efforts to refuse certification.
Like Oliver, the attorneys general in battleground states Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin are Democrats. Kris Mayes, Arizona’s AG, won her election by 280 votes. Every ballot matters.
Recall that after Trump’s 2020 defeat, he scrambled desperately to get battleground state legislatures to reverse their states’ election certifications of President Joe Biden’s victory in their states. But it was too little too late.
Though there are strong firewalls in these swing states, we should not overlook trouble spots. After the 2020 election, when Raffensperger stood up to Trump, the Georgia Republican legislature removed him from the Georgia Election Board, which has election rulemaking power. Its membership is now full MAGA. Trump praised it this weekend – and it is trying to change the rules to benefit Trump. The Board does not certify elections, however; and good government watchdogs, like American Oversight, are doing their best to keep it honest.
There is another state that could prove more troublesome — Virginia. If the election is close and Trump loses in Virginia, he can go to the Commonwealth’s State Elections Board and try getting them to abandon their duty to certify any win by Vice President Kamala Harris. The Board’s chair and majority are Republicans appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin, despite his genial manner and fleece vests, has proven to be a full-on Trump loyalist. With a green light from him, the Elections Board could try to knock Virginia out of Kamala Harris’s electoral count total.
Significantly, short of a massive national victory, every likely route for Vice President Harris to electoral college victory, including winning the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – depends on holding Virginia’s 13 electoral votes. Without Virginia, in a close election, Vice President Harris could lose an electoral college majority.
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If neither candidate gains such a majority, under the 12th Amendment, the election gets thrown into the House, where each state delegation gets a single vote. House Republicans currently have majorities in enough states to prevail. Even if Republicans lose their narrow majority in November, in a contingent election the odds favor them continuing to hold majorities in enough House state delegations to make Trump president.
Virginia’s voters, like citizens in any vulnerable swing state, can do things to help prepare for “the Day After,” blocking Trump from successfully targeting those states for his anticipated made-out-of-whole-cloth, “Stop-the-Steal” campaign. In addition to using social media and news outlets, citizens can make news outlets and state legislators aware of the potential January 6, 2025 “quiet coup” to deprive Vice President Harris of a win in their states and the country.
Importantly, journalists can press all of the relevant officials to pledge that they will do their duty to respect and certify the results of the election in their states. And should that not work in Virginia, post-election, although the state’s attorney general is a Republican, if he does not sue the Election Board for an order to compel them to do their duty, the Harris campaign can.
Most obviously, to avoid that need, Virginians can help ensure a massive turnout, and a clear election defeat for Trump. That will give pause to any state executives before they accede to democracy-defying pressure from the former president. And all the more so if battleground states send the man who would be king, and the party that has enabled him, to his final election defeat.