Election Deniers, Voter Intimidation, & The Dangers Facing Our Democracy

The Trump effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election was an unprecedented attack on our democracy that continues to this day with the election deniers’ movement.

The threat is real and extremely dangerous.

Millions of Americas have died to protect our country and our democracy, which holds a unique place in world history.

After Republicans in Congress blocked legislation early in 2022 to safeguard against voter suppression and election sabotage, the election deniers’ movement has been able to grow into a powerful threat to the integrity of our elections.

As a result, we are headed for midterm elections where hundreds of Republican election deniers are running for Congress and state offices, vigilantes are attempting to intimidate voters from casting their ballots, election workers are being trained to tilt elections to Republicans, and Republican candidates are refusing to commit to accept the results of next Tuesday’s elections.

Thus, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin proclaims that, if he is elected, “Republicans will never lose another election” in the state. The import of his statement: the election rules in Wisconsin will be rigged in the future to ensure only Republicans win.

In Miami-Dade County, Florida, three former Proud Boys qualified as poll workers, including one who had been indicted for participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. While the indicted former Proud Boy was later removed from the Election Day work schedule, the appointment of election deniers as poll workers is likely going on all over the country.

In Arizona, armed vigilantes wearing tactical gear, from a group misnamed Clean Elections USA, stationed themselves close to voting drop boxes with the apparent aim of intimidating voters. While a federal judge recently ordered the group to keep their distance from the ballot boxes, this kind of intimidation is likely occurring widely.

Cleta Mitchell, a lead lawyer for former President Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has been reportedly training thousands of Trump loyalists to serve as poll watchers.

Meanwhile, dozens of lawyers and law firms that supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and lost 60 out of 61 lawsuits — are now setting the stage for challenging the results of 2022 races won by Democrats.

The election deniers’ movement will believe Republicans have won, no matter what the vote count is.

While various democracy groups and public officials are resisting these election sabotage efforts, there are expected to be far too many such efforts going on around the country to effectively deal with all of them.

According to The New York Times, “[E]lection officials in several states are warning that efforts to intimidate voters and undermine public confidence in the electoral process are intensifying, even as voter fraud is rare.”

The widespread anti-democracy activities taking place in 2022 are a prelude to the suppression and sabotage efforts that will take place to ensure a Republican wins the “big prize” — the 2024 presidential election.

The more election deniers who win key positions that oversee elections in the states, the harder it will be to protect our democracy in the 2024 presidential and congressional races.

As President Biden said in a speech on Wednesday, “This is no ordinary year. … In a typical year, we’re often not faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year we are.”

The fight goes on and the stakes for democracy could not be higher.

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This op-ed first appeared in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter that comes out each Thursday. Read this week’s newsletter here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.