Patterico's Pontifications

10/6/2022

People Who Won’t Honor Elections Should Not Be Given Power

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:56 am

[guest post by Dana]

During an event at Arizona State University yesterday, Rep. Liz Cheney warned against voting in election deniers. She was referring to Kari Lake, who is running for governor of the state, and Mark Finchem, who is running for secretary of state:

From Cheney:

“If you care about our democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then … we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.”

Lake, who is currently in a statistical tie with her rival, Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state, has publicly said on any number of occasions, that she would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona. Specifically: “He lost the election, and he shouldn’t be in the White House.”

If elected, Finchem would be responsible for ensuring a fair election process, including “oversee[ing] voter registration and participation and certifies election equipment, candidates and results…” He was an organizer of “Stop the Steal,” and believed that the election results in Arizona should be overturned.

Both Lake and Finchem have been endorsed by Trump. And both have asserted, without evidence, that there is the possibility that the midterms will be impacted by fraud. Unless they win, of course.

Do you agree with Cheney that putting election deniers in key positions of government will have an adverse impact on our nation? This is in light of the fact that the majority of Republicans running for office in 2022 are election deniers. The Washington Post puts the number at 299. I’m guessing that if you had no problem with Herschel Walker’s lies and hypocrisy on yesterday’s thread, you will have no problem with candidates who still deny the 2020 election outcome for the very same reason: No matter how bad a Republican candidate might be, winning and gaining power for the GOP and keeping it from Democrats is what is most important. (Which, when you think about it, is sort of funny because it was that same ends-justifies-the-means thinking that gave us Trump.) But is there any tipping point where you could see yourself saying “no” to the Republican candidate because they are just that bad – even if it meant that a Democrat might win?

–Dana

Comments (39)

39 Responses to “People Who Won’t Honor Elections Should Not Be Given Power”

Good morning.

[Pre-emptive strike to a few commenters: Yes, I know that Cheney lost her election. Yes, I know that she is irrelevant to you. Yes, I know it annoys you when posts involve her.]
Dana (1225fc) — 10/6/2022 @ 8:01 am
The key positions for this matter are Secretary of State (where that post is elected) and Govvernor

The New York Times had a long article Monday about the Republicaan Party and 2020 election claims.

Many rested their objections only on the idea that elections were conducted against the rules. The day after Jan 6 they got scared. But now a claim that the election was stolen has almost become an article of faith.

And Liz Cheney tried to prevent the objections.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/republican-election-objectors.html

It’s a long article.
Sammy Finkelman (19edaf) — 10/6/2022 @ 8:14 am
….On the eve of the vote, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, then chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, called an unusual meeting in the congressional auditorium. Her goal was to convince her fellow Republicans that the Constitution gave Congress no role in deciding presidential elections, and in the days before the meeting, she also distributed a 21-page summary of court rulings — many by Trump-appointed judges — that found no evidence of meaningful fraud.

Representative Chip Roy, a former top official in the Texas attorney general’s office and a staunch conservative, made the same case, warning that “history will judge this moment.”

“If a majority of Republicans vote to reject the electors, it will irrevocably empower Congress to take over the selection of presidential electors,” he said, according to one of several recordings included in the audio version of “This Will Not Pass,” a book by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, who covered the 2020 election for The Times.

“Doing so,” Mr. Roy continued, “will almost certainly guarantee that a Democrat House would vote to reject the electors of Texas or any of your states, based on our use of voter ID, our failure to adopt mail-in ballots, our choice of voting locations or otherwise.” He also pointed out that Republicans had just voted to seat themselves, accepting the tallies of their individual congressional races, despite their suspicions.

Others, however, reminded colleagues that their constituents overwhelmingly believed Mr. Trump had won in a landslide. “Don’t anybody fool themselves into thinking you are going to be able to make a constitutional argument at your Lincoln Day dinners,” said Representative Larry Bucshon of Indiana, according to the recording.

Mr. Johnson of Louisiana offered a third way.

Members could simply accept the results, as Ms. Cheney and Mr. Roy insisted, or they could vote to object because of the fraud concerns raised by the president and his allies. But Mr. Johnson argued that they could take a different path: object based on what he called “constitutional infirmity.”

The Constitution stipulates that state legislatures set election rules. Yet some state officials, without asking their legislatures, loosened restrictions on mail-in or early voting to deal with the pandemic. That was unconstitutional and grounds to reject the election results from those states, Mr. Johnson argued.

The notion that Congress might have a say about the authority of state legislatures was unorthodox, especially among conservatives who emphasize state autonomy. But Mr. Johnson was well cast to make the case, telling colleagues he had studied up on the electoral issue — “more than when I first became a constitutional lawyer 20 years ago,” according to a previously unreported portion of the recording.
Sammy Finkelman (19edaf) — 10/6/2022 @ 8:15 am
Neither Lake nor Finchem have any qualification for the office of governor other than election denialism. So what else could they run on?
nk (cdf6dd) — 10/6/2022 @ 8:46 am
By this standard, Democrats have disqualified themselves for decades……..but continue to run. Hypocrite’s all.
Richard Wetmore (ddc02c) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:16 am
It would have been best if these folks had lost their primaries. But then so many former Republicans had abandoned the party to these people.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:27 am
The Constitution stipulates that state legislatures set election rules. Yet some state officials, without asking their legislatures, loosened restrictions on mail-in or early voting to deal with the pandemic. That was unconstitutional and grounds to reject the election results from those states, Mr. Johnson argued.

I’ve long said that if there was any “fraud” it wasn’t in the counting, but in how the election was conducted.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:29 am
Dana, this is a good post. The anti-American, anti democratic views of the modern GOP is mainstream and IMO disqualifying. In these cases it’s gone far past, sour grapes, the difference between a moral and legal victory, not criticizing an ally or ‘moving on’ and instead is part of what they want to accomplish. They’re openly planning to steal elections based on lies.

I think you should include Stacy Abram’s in these round up. While she’s not openly planning to steal future elections her history of refusing to acknowledge that she lost a free and fair election is also disqualifying.
Time123 (715640) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:31 am
Re: “The Constitution stipulates that state legislatures set election rules.”

All the Republicans want to do is make a minimal change in the wording – from “rules” to “results.”
John B Boddie (517c97) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:47 am
Left Liz conveniently fails to mention the countless election deniers from 2016. Funny how that works.

The fact that it involves many of her soon t9 be former colleagues makes it all the more duplicitous.
NJRob (0b5b44) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:04 am
Time123,

Fair point. I don’t include Abrams because she is a Democrat and I have almost always expected some double-talk dishonesty from her side of the aisle. I didn’t use to expect it from the right side of the aisle, but I certainly do now. Especially when it’s coming from a former POTUS all the way down the party line.
Dana (1225fc) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:37 am
Dana, there’s a difference in 1 bad person (Abrams) misrepresenting what happened in an election and the GOP making stealing the election policy.
Time123 (cb580d) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:42 am
Agreed.
Dana (1225fc) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:53 am
So I get your point.
Time123 (cb580d) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:55 am
10… They know and they ignore, Rob. Stop subverting their democrasay!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2022 @ 11:57 am
I’ve long said that if there was any “fraud” it wasn’t in the counting, but in how the election was conducted.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:29 am

I have long agreed with you. All sides have low confidence in election results – especially when they lose. Raise confidence in the process and the rest should follow.
felipe (484255) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:00 pm
Dana asked:
Do you agree with Cheney that putting election deniers in key positions of government will have an adverse impact on our nation?
Does that include actions by Democrats too? Especially post 2000?

What were those impacts?

I’ve long said that if there was any “fraud” it wasn’t in the counting, but in how the election was conducted.

Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 9:29 am

This. Right here.

And the failure to have any meaningful debate on this in particular is fueling the divide even more.
whembly (b770f8) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:08 pm
@16

I have long agreed with you. All sides have low confidence in election results – especially when they lose. Raise confidence in the process and the rest should follow.

felipe (484255) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:00 pm

Absolutely this.

We should be have ongoing debates and changes with that express purpose to raise the public’s confidence.
whembly (b770f8) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:10 pm
People Who Won’t Honor Elections Should Not Be Given Power

“Ike’-carrumba! Ei-sen-how-er; man of the hour…

The United States Overthrew Iran’s Last Democratic Leader

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/30/the-united-states-overthrew-irans-last-democratic-leader/
DCSCA (badee4) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:17 pm
Do you agree with Cheney that putting election deniers in key positions of government will have an adverse impact on our nation?

LOL Cheney doesn’t even agree, given that election denier Jamie Raskin is on the J6 panel and best buds with Liz
JF (615b19) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:35 pm
All the Republicans want to do is make a minimal change in the wording – from “rules” to “results.”

In my state, the Democrat legislature and Democrat governor changed the rules to use something other than the state’s voter’s choice. I guess that’s OK though.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:48 pm
All the Republicans want to do is make a minimal change in the wording – from “rules” to “results.”

In the 2020 election Democrat governors and Democrat judges altered the legislative rules for “fairness.” These changes invariably assisted voter access for Democrat constituencies. Some of these changes were to the detriment of Republican voters (e.g. placement of ballot drop boxes mostly in inner-city locations).
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 12:58 pm
On the other hand, we can whine about election rules all we want but Trump lost because he was a bloody fool.

ALL he had to do was get people to mail in those ballots. He allowed Biden 30 days of Get-out-the-vote while his voters were to ld to wait for Election Day. Some of them had work that day and couldn’t vote.

The narrowness of the loss makes this Trump’s fault.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:01 pm
RIP Bernard McGuirk…

Iman’s colleague for many years… Bernie was one of the funniest men alive, IMO.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:01 pm
A majority of GOP nominees — 299 in all — deny the 2020 election results
…….
Although some are running in heavily Democratic areas and are expected to lose, most of the election deniers nominated are likely to win: Of the nearly 300 on the ballot, 174 are running for safely Republican seats. Another 51 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races.

…….If Republicans take control of the House, as many political forecasters predict, election deniers would hold enormous sway over the choice of the nation’s next speaker, who in turn could preside over the House in a future contested presidential election. The winners of all the races examined by The Post — those for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, Senate and House — will hold some measure of power overseeing American elections.
…….
The Post’s count — assembled from public statements, social media posts, and actions taken by the candidates to deny the legitimacy of the last presidential vote — shows how the movement arising from Trump’s thwarted plot to overturn the 2020 election is, in many respects, even stronger two years later. Far from repudiating candidates who embrace Trump’s false fraud claims, GOP primary voters have empowered them.
…….
“Election denialism is a form of corruption,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and a historian at New York University. “The party has now institutionalized this form of lying, this form of rejection of results. So it’s institutionalized illegal activity. These politicians are essentially conspiring to make party dogma the idea that it’s possible to reject certified results.”
…….
The Post has identified candidates as election deniers if they directly questioned Biden’s victory, opposed the counting of Biden’s electoral college votes, expressed support for a partisan post-election ballot review, signed on to lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 result, or attended or expressed support for the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
……..
The Republican fervor to elevate election deniers this midterm cycle comes at a time when pro-Trump allies and activists are continuing to doubt the administration of elections in the United States, demanding investigations of voter fraud and accusing state and local election officials of rigging races or using fraudulent voting equipment.
…….
…….[A]nother close presidential contest in 2024 could produce even more chaos than what the country lived through in the aftermath of the 2020 vote, when pro-Trump rioters ransacked the Capitol. More officials may be willing to try to thwart the popular vote, potentially delaying results, undermining confidence in the democratic system and sowing the seeds of civil strife.

The proportion of election deniers on the November ballot is particularly high in three of the battleground states where Trump contested his defeat in 2020: Arizona, Georgia and Michigan. Election deniers have targeted offices in each of those states — as well as in other battleground states, including Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania — potentially giving Republicans a platform from which to challenge a popular vote they do not agree with in 2024.
……..
……..Among 419 Republican nominees for the U.S. House, 235, or 56 percent, are election deniers. And the vast majority of those, 148, are running in safely Republican districts, with another 28 in competitive races, according to ratings as of Oct. 5 by the Cook Political Report.
……..
The only states where the GOP nominated a clean slate of election deniers are Montana, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming, all of which are reliably Republican. But even in closely divided states where Democrats have been gaining in recent years, candidates who refuse to accept the 2020 result dominate within the GOP.

Among the Republican nominees for Arizona’s nine House seats, all but one are election deniers, according to The Post’s analysis. ……

Just two states — Rhode Island and North Dakota — did not nominate an election denier for any of the offices The Post examined.
……….
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:32 pm
Another never trumper bites the dust! Nebraska senator ben sasse to resign instead of facing the trumpsters wrath at the polls.
asset (12c12f) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:37 pm
Sen. Ben Sasse named sole finalist for University of Florida presidency
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:41 pm
Most americans don’t understand the ramifications of state legislatures setting the rules for voting and the election until it hits them in the face. Same with the supreme court rulings. Dred scott and now abortion. The fact that 18% of voters in 26 states control 52 senate seats with the fillibuster on top of that. The corporate establishment has been trying to keep the status quo with their stooges running politics and the courts. As long as the two party system was run by the corporate establishment in both parties mildly progressive to control the minorities it bounced along. Now with the populists taking over both parties the center can not hold. It is unlikely the deep state corporate establishment will tolerate a collapse of the system and the steel fist will be removed from the velvet glove.
asset (12c12f) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:53 pm
27… say it ain’t so!

https://youtu.be/dW223heMb5c
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2022 @ 1:55 pm
Most Americans will be sh*tting their pants when the military and Strategic Petroleum Reserve Replenishment Bills hit Congress.

That’s really what the Democrats meant… doing it to the children.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2022 @ 2:02 pm
27…

“He’s like David French with 20% less paunch.”

—- Ace
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 10/6/2022 @ 2:08 pm
All the Republicans want to do is make a minimal change in the wording – from “rules” to “results. They can do that, provided that they make all the rules before the date of the presidential election set by Congress, and if they really want to fix the election results, they need to do that openly and aboveboard, by picking the Electors themselves.

What will happen to the careers of the legislators involved, and to their party, is another question

No state has done that since 1836, except South Carolina through 1860, and Colorado, in 1876, the year it was admitted as a state.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 10/6/2022 @ 2:11 pm
26. 37 They quit, more and more, in the middle of a term.

They never used to do tat/
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/6/2022 @ 2:32 pm
Sasse likely to resign from Senate, putting all eyes on Ricketts

Ben Sasse is likely to accept a job as the president of the University of Florida and resign his Senate seat in the near future, according to two people familiar with the Nebraska Republican’s plans. -politico.com

… and another one bites the dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf3dHfucoQk
DCSCA (e40014) — 10/6/2022 @ 3:27 pm
I suspect there will be a sigh of relief from Sasse if he takes the UF job.
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 10/6/2022 @ 4:50 pm
Just two states — Rhode Island and North Dakota — did not nominate an election denier for any of the offices The Post examined.

So, what’s your takeaway from this? Me, I see it as a popular belief that the election was fraudulent. Doesn’t matter if it’s true (it probably isn’t). It just matters they believe it and they will act on it.

Perhaps one would better spend their time trying to figure out why THEY DON’T TRUST YOU. Because as long as they don’t trust you, all your words are as tears in the rain.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 10/6/2022 @ 7:21 pm
> What will happen to the careers of the legislators involved, and to their party, is another question

Absolutely nothing. The trick is to gerrymander the state so that the legislative majority can be elected with 36% of the state’s votes, and then convince that 36% that the purported results are fraudulent. The majority will be outraged but powerless to do anything, the Supreme Court will change the active rules so that neither the governor nor the state courts can do anything, and the minority will stay in power until there’s a revolution.

It’s a great game. Pity nobody’s willing to do the work to stop it.
aphrael (4c4719) — 10/6/2022 @ 7:41 pm
@37 As thomas jefferson said to robespierre whats wrong with revolution or was it the other way around.
asset (23f7d1) — 10/7/2022 @ 11:56 pm
I don’t mind election deniers if they can come up with evidence of fraud. But Trump has not done so. For example, the very thorough audit in Arizona (of Maricopa County) turned up nothing suspicious. Perhaps massive election fraud occurred, but such things require proof. The 2020 election was probably stolen by dirty dishonest tricks that would make Richard Nixon blush, but those were borderline legal tricks by people like Mark Zuckerberg who spent hundreds of millions of dollars turning out the vote in urban Democratic areas, and dishonest ex-intelligence officials and social media companies dismissing valid news reports about Hunter Biden and the kickbacks he gave to “the bug guy” because the laptop allegedly had all the hallmarks of Russian propaganda.

Plenty of high-ranking Democrats denied the legitimacy of Trump’s win in 2016, but that’s no excuse for Republicans to do the same regarding the 2020 election.

So, I agree with Cheney that putting either Democratic or Republican election deniers in key positions of government will have an adverse impact on our nation. But I think she has done an awful job on the congressional committee. If the Defense Department and law enforcement had done their jobs, the Capitol would have been just as well-protected on January 6 as the White House had been during the George Floyd riots. If the Capitol had been properly protected that day, then there would have been no trespassing, no allegations of insurrection, and no attempt later that month to impeach the president. Cheney should have exposed law enforcement and Defense Department official responsible for that debacle on January 6, who had all the authority they needed but failed in their duties because of an absurd fear about “optics” or a fear that deploying troops to the Capitol would enable Trump to take charge of those troops to help him somehow stay in power. Cheney’s TDS prevented her from investigating any of that in a proper way, and she merely served as Pelosi’s tool by giving a bipartisan appearance to that committee from which Pelosi had outrageously excluded people appointed by the House minority leadership. Cheney is right that putting either Democratic or Republican election deniers in key positions of government will have an adverse impact on our nation, but Cheney undercut that message by her TDS and poor performance on the January 6 committee.

I also have a problem with Herschel Walker’s poor behavior. I would write in someone else, unless Walker promises to resign upon being elected (so that Governor Kemp could appoint someone). And I wouldn’t vote for any 2020 election deniers.
Andrew Hyman (50c293) — 10/9/2022 @ 7:34 pm

10/6/2022

People Who Won’t Honor Elections Should Not Be Given Power

39 Responses to “People Who Won’t Honor Elections Should Not Be Given Power”

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