"It would be the end of democracy as we know it. This is just not a thing that can happen."

[Dennis Donovan]

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-local-elections-arizona-michigan-29da6aac9cc41e47f3095855e7af7031

Trump targets vote certification in late bid to block Biden

By ZEKE MILLER, CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY and COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Getting nowhere in the courts, President Donald Trump’s scattershot effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory is shifting toward obscure election boards that certify the vote as Trump and his allies seek to upend the electoral process, sow chaos and perpetuate unsubstantiated doubts about the count.

The battle is centered in the battleground states that sealed Biden’s win.

In Michigan, two Republican election officials in the state’s largest county initially refused to certify results despite no evidence of fraud. In Arizona, officials are balking at signing off on vote tallies in a rural county.

-snip-

There is no precedent for the Trump team’s widespread effort to delay or undermine certification, according to University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas.

“It would be the end of democracy as we know it,” Douglas said. “This is just not a thing that can happen.”

-/snip-

[Doodley]

1. It would be the end of democracy.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. Depending on the rural county, wouldn't the non-certification hurt Trump worse?

But I think this county election officials are not as tough as they think they are. The Michigan officials folded like a lawn chair when there obstruction started to get some heat.

I expect the same from others.

[gab13by13]

4. Those Michigan officials

said they were pressured into signing and have now changed their mind. This is serious shit that's going on, Democrats need to fight this right now and with full force. People need to have a good reason not to certify their election, a specific good reason.

Where are the Democrats, this is scary. Will this start a trend where Republican election officials simply refuse to sign off on certification?

Fuck the Electoral College it is just a means to keep minority rule.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. It's too little to late for them to change their mind.

That affidavit they signed was to save face with the party. But they certainly have showed off their racist colors. Glad they did so now we know for sure.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Pressured?

"You know this is legitimate, just sign the damned paper!" is pressure.
That's all the "pressure" that was likely applied.
Now, in standard form for Rs, they're whining & ducking for cover. "Waaah! They made me sign it! Waaah!"
Again!

[Towlie]

19. I don't think they were pressured into signing, I think they were pressured into rescinding.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/19/wayne-county-rescind-certifying-election/

“Do they understand how they are making us look as a body?” [Jonathan Kinloch, a Democrat and the board’s vice chairman] said. “We have such an amazing and important role in the democratic process, and they’re turning it on its head.”

It appears to me that somebody got to them after they signed.

[BMW2020RT]

24. I have been thinking the same thing.

[Towlie]

28. Here's evidence that we're right:

 
?
 

Link to tweet

This is shocking: Trump apparently "reached out" to the two Republican Wayne County Commissioners. The next day, they signed an affidavit saying they want to rescind their votes to certify the results.

Who is Josh Douglas?

[uponit7771]

39. Whoa !!!

[BlueTsunami2018]

3. "This is just not a thing that can happen."

Oh, but it can, there aren’t any rules in place for this. It’s just assumed that the results will be honored. They’re doing their damndest to make it happen. And who is there to put a stop to it?

Every time we say “oh, he can’t do that”, he does it and no one stops it.

Even if they don’t manage to pull this off, the damage will be severe.

[gab13by13]

6. Well said,

It is up to Democrats to push back hard on this, we can't count on the MSM to help. Republican election officials who refuse to certify a fair election need to be made to prove why, not just a general explanation, a specific one. What is the recourse? Take them to court? Sue them for libel? Do something because Trump wants to delay everything and when time expires he wants it to go to the Supreme Court.

[EndlessWire]

43. Why can't they just impeach him again?

He needs to be kept as busy as possible. He's doing something in the Middle East. It can't be good. Let him visit the Supremes with an impeachment in progress.

[Lonestarblue]

18. Yes, future Republican candidates are paying attention.

The fear we’re all talked about here is a smarter Republican who gets in the White House and uses the Trump precedents to keep democracy in name only while allowing Republicans permanent rule because they will do and say anything to achieve that goal. The 2024 candidate who I think fits that description is Tom Cotton. He is ruthless, willing to lie about everything, and smart (unlike Trump, he’s able to speak in coherent sentences) and disciplined. Based on his NYT op ed supporting the use of the US military to shut down peaceful protests, attacking and possibly killing people if they resist, he is another one without feelings for anyone but himself.

He lacks charisma, but he’s an attack dog, which means that Republicans will embrace him.

[NJCher]

29. oh, kinda' like McTurtle

He lacks charisma, but he’s an attack dog, which means that Republicans will embrace him.


First, your post is right on the money. Second, an image for Mr. Cotton that repels voters needs to be shaped now. Democratic leaning public relations people: here's a plum assignment that will yield divideds for Democracy in the future.

[Maxheader]

7. President Biden needs to remind

those state officials the support the feds can give, and take away....imho...

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Not doing what voters want is disenfranchisement

if not treason. Voting is the basis for our entire system. It's right above inalienable rights.

Disenfranchisement is not the job duty of electors. Quite the opposite.

[dalton99a]

27. Absolutely.

[ConstanceCee]

10. Who?

Who is really masterminding this stuff? It certainly isn't Trump, who knows nothing about how this works. I wish we could name names and stop the use of "the Trump Administration" or "Trump". Who is it?

[wnylib]

12. Good question that some investigative

journalists and/or Dem lawyers and leaders need to look inti and publish LOUDLY.

[JHB]

13. There doesn't need to be a single mastermind. This is political stochastic terrorism.

Put decades of demonization of Democrats together with the crescendo of the desperation of Trump and the Republicans casting a Biden win in apocalyptic terms, and you get people at run-of-the-mill levels who swallow it all and think they're all that stands in the way of that (imaginary) catastrophe.

[orwell]

16. Bannon, Giuliani, and

Mark Levin would be my guess...

[ewagner]

21. Stone....

...probably has his filthy hands in here somewhere....

I also suspect Rove is involved in this because he was a master of undermining the infrastructure to get it to do his or his boss's dirty work...

[gab13by13]

22. I was going to post Bannon and I deleted it,

I agree about Bannon and he has a silent partner who even has ties to Alex Jones, a lurker named Steve Pieczernik. He was a superb hostage negotiator so he would be a perfect person to control the narrative, to control the propaganda. I go to his web site once in a while on You Tube and it is really scary. He goes back to the 2016 election where he pushed the narrative that Hillary was trying to win by doing a coup and trump was doing a counter-coup. I mean the guy says stuff that ends up on Fox News. I have absolutely no proof that he is hiding in the shadows other than he is a brain and knows how to run a disinformation campaign.

[orwell]

34. Thanks for that...

...check out this link that another DU'er posted. It is long but mind melting. It would explain a lot:

https://daniel-ed-morrison.medium.com/qanon-is-propaganda-and-we-know-whos-responsible-faa133fb6acd

[SammyBrown]

11. Fight Fire With Fire

[dreamland]

14. They need to be outed and questioned by the courts as to why they refuse to sign.

Seems everywhere we look now, people are not doing their jobs to uphold the system.

[UCmeNdc]

15. This is the dangerous thing about Trump and Trumpism. Trump does not like democracy.

Trump and his Trumpism movement only likes and respects raw power. Trump and his minions will use democracy as a way to get into power. But once Trump and Trumpism gains a foothold onto power the leader and his followers look to expand and entrench themselves into their positions and look for ways to never leave.

Democracy and voting means nothing to them actually.

Trump was slowly absorbing the power of the US government into his own personal power. Another four years and Trump and his followers would have become immovable from their positions. The United States escaped being consumed by Trump and Trumpism just barely this time.


There were laws broken. Biden must pursue what happened for the good of the country. Let the DOJ be staffed with good honest people. Then investigate any and all crimes Donald Trump may have committed while in office as well as any crimes he committed before Trump was president.

[JHB]

25. Republican collaboration with this shows that it isn't "Trumpism"

This is the true face of the Republican Party, ever since it was taken over by Movement Conservatives.

Their MO, from the days where they smashed the Rockefeller Republicans, to Gingrich and the hunting of Bill Clinton, to Bush and his war and jeering at "the reality based community", to McConnell and their fanatical obstruction of Obama, right through to backing Trump to the hilt, has been to smash norms and do whatever advances their hardline agenda or prevents backsliding, and simply brazen out the outrage around them.

They think they have a Divine Right to rule, and refuse to recognize Democratic administrations as legitimate. Not Bill Clinton, not Obama, not Biden.

It's not "Trumpism", and it never was. This is what they are. All Trump has done is strip them of their respectable coat of varnish.

[crickets]

33. Well said. nt

[I_UndergroundPanther]

37. i wish i could rec this a million times.

[scarletwoman]

38. Excellent post!

(I'm replying so I can find it again.)

[uponit7771]

40. +1

[Joinfortmill]

17. Will this fucking nightmare never end?

[RVN VET71]

20. Democracy ended when Hillary lost

It just took this long for the final brick in the foundation to be kicked loose.

Trump is not just a petulant bully, he's now showing himself to be a monstrous nihilist who would rather utterly destroy the nation and its government than admit he lost an election.

Biden, if he actually takes command on January 20th, is not going to have to "fix" the things Trump broke. He's going to have to rebuild completely from the ground up.

[gab13by13]

23. Will be a lot easier if we win the Senate,

Go Georgia.

[RVN VET71]

26. We're coming' in on a wing and a prayer

but the airfield's being blown up and the landing gear is jammed. President Biden's task -- if he's allowed to undertake it -- will be enormous.

Without the Senate, of course, Biden will be care-taker for at least 2 years. The Senate will refuse to work with him and, as a result Fox and company will relentless attack him as a do nothing president. So in 2022 the booboisie (71,000,000 strong) will vote Republican, because that's what they do; and millions of potential Democratic voters will stay home, because that's what they do.

With the Senate, Biden will be able to get things done even as Fox and company squawk and scream "socialism!" to enflame the already burning Trumpers, but it's possible that the Dems will stick by Biden and enable him and Harris to keep the Senate for the remainder of their first term. If they don't and the Republicans win back the senate in 2022, it'll be game over.

(I'm feeling dark on a Thursday morning.)

[scipan]

35. No.

We just had an election and Trump was resoundingly defeated. You could even call it a landslide.

The election was very clean. Very few glitches. No major ones at all. Poll workers came out in droves and did their jobs.

So far Trump is 0 for 25? in the courts. Even Trump nominees are interpreting the laws in a non-partisan manner. Secretaries of state are following the laws.

This is the cornerstone of our democracy - voting and counting the votes- and it is working.

We will have a peaceful transition. The military has signalled that it will stay out of the process. We have defeated a sociopathic wannabe dictator. The system is working.

[RVN VET71]

42. Just thinking about worst case regarding the Senate

Sure, if the Dems take the 2 Georgia seats, Biden will have the tools he needs to begin the rebuilding of the Federal government. But his task will be daunting.

I've mentioned elsewhere that he will NOT be charged with fixing the damage Trump did to the government. He will be charged, actually, with the much more difficult, challenging, demanding, and risky task of actually rebuilding the whole thing. Even if he is content with going back to what it was like before Trump -- and I think that is what he's aiming at, at least for his and Kamala Harris' first term -- it's going to be a gigantic task: rebuilding the DOJ, State Department, Treasury (and the IRS), Emergency services like FEMA, social support services like HHS and HUD; regaining the trust of the military.

And I absolutely agree with you that we will have a transition without Civil War -- but we are already going through the transition process and it is not "peaceful" at all. Electors and other politicians involved in the process have been getting death threats, and the cowards in the GOP are still afraid to put country and honor above keeping in the good graces of a mentally and morally deficient madman. It will be a great day when that son of a bitch is gone from the WH, but getting him out of the WH is a process that, so far, has been far from easy or peaceful, and the threat of sporadic Trump-inspired violence will still cloud the air after he's gone (hopefully to a NY State prison facility).

[Blue Owl]

30. Go away, Donald. Just GO AWAY.

GO. THE. FUCK. AWAY!!!

[MerryBlooms]

31. States need to get busy and tighten up their language governing election laws and

duties of those involved in running them.

[Solly Mack]

32. K&R

[TomSlick]

36. If Trump succeeds, we have witnessed our last election.

Democracy stands on a knife's edge.

[budkin]

41. It would start a civil war

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.