How the Republicans are carrying out an all-out assault on the electoral system: “There is a risk that everything will collapse”

The lies of Donald Trump about his defeat in the 2020 elections may be trite and well-known, but in the last four MAGA (Make America Great Again ed.) efforts to undermine the democratic process have become increasingly sophisticated.

While Trump’s attempts to overturn the victory of Joe Biden were largely unrealistic and desperate – culminating in a violent insurrection which he continued to defend in his debate against Kamala Harris — the former president’s allies have since orchestrated a much more coordinated attack on the system, passing laws aimed at making it harder to vote. They campaigned on the legal side to make it easier to challenge the election results. They even tried to gain more control over the gears of the system, as seen in Georgia with the new law that guarantees a board to intervene in all the state’s electoral boards promoted by right-wing exponents at the beginning of this year, praised by Trump himself in a state rally in August. All this has raised fears that Republicans may refuse to certify Harris’ victory. According to the Guardian a “behind-the-scenes network of county election officials” in the Peach State is pushing an agenda that would cast doubt on the results before the ballots are even counted.

“The situation has worsened,” he says Lauren Groh-WargoCEO of Fair Fight Action, the voting rights organization founded by Stacey Abrams based in Atlanta. “The right has become very energetic and organized,” he says, and is trying to “create the conditions… to be able to overturn the results this time.”

Many of the efforts to deny the election result pass through Mike Johnsonwhich — in the event of Harris’ victory and a Republican-controlled House — could hinder Harris’ certification at the federal level. Democrats said a Political that the speaker of the House could reshuffle the vote counting rules, convince House Republicans to object to the elector lists or even openly challenge the electoral law (Electoral Count Act). Meanwhile, governors, under Trump’s influence, could refuse to certify the winner in their respective states — a scenario that nearly 20 former governors are trying to avert with a pressure campaign, as always reported Political. The states most vulnerable to possible interference, second Axiosinclude Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizonathe latter notoriously prone to counting delays that Trump’s allies could exploit to file baseless lawsuits and incite his supporters to radical action.

Overall, the GOP’s goal would be the same as in 2020: help Trump and other MAGA right-wingers “steal the election” and erode Americans’ trust in the integrity of the process. However, the means that election deniers are using to achieve these goals have intensified, says Groh-Wargo: «Right now the strategy of one of our two main parties is mainly focused on spreading lies about hypothetical electoral fraud and the result of the elections”.

The American electoral process has so far resisted attacks, experts point out: “We see a system that has been tried and tested and has proven to be secure,” he says Joanna Lydgate, co-founder and CEO of States United Action, a non-partisan electoral organization. Nonetheless, the effort to rein in the democratic process could make things “extraordinarily difficult” in this round, especially with the November elections now upon us. “The anti-democracy movement is constantly changing shape,” Lydgate tells me. “And we must always be ready for this.”

Not a simple undertaking. Officials say legal challenges have little chance of success and that election denialism itself appears to be a loserbut the doubts that Republicans are sowing in the system can be destructive in themselves: “Our systems are robust and solid if supported by civic trust,” he observed Adrian FontesArizona Secretary of State, on the front lines against MAGA attacks on democracy, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August. “But if you lift the veil of that civic trust, everything can collapse very easily.”

In fact, the constant flow of lies has already sown much suspicion about the electoral process among right-wing sympathizers. A recent survey by CNN found that an average of just 15% of Trump voters in six key states expressed confidence in the integrity of the election, and “trying to dissuade them after they’ve decided there’s a problem is… very, very difficult the North Carolina Secretary of State told me Elaine Marshall in August.

In the same poll, nearly three-quarters of Harris voters expressed confidence in their states’ electoral processes. But experts and officials warn that MAGA’s threat to the system could shake people’s confidence, even if it holds. “What always worries us is that a certain tiredness sets in at this time,” Lydgate tells me. “What we don’t want is for people to resign themselves, to think that with all these threats and challenges on the horizon, it’s not even worth worrying about anymore.”

The good news: While the election denial movement has intensified its attacks on the system since 2020, the pro-democracy coalition has worked over the past four years to strengthen the country’s electoral infrastructureincreasing efforts to counter legal attacks and raising awareness among citizens of the threats. “Yes, Trump will try to do a lot of things,” says Lydgate. “But these things will not succeed.”

The public, of course, should help ensure that this is the case. As Groh-Wargo says: “If people’s votes weren’t so important, they wouldn’t try to manipulate them.” MAGA attacks on elections should “motivate people,” he says, “to oust these hired figures from office and continue the work of strengthening our democracy.”