Harris tells her rally crowds: “When We Fight, We Win”, revving up her crowds to put in the work of knocking on doors, sending postcards, texting, calling to get out the vote and engaging in other efforts to remind voters about the huge stakes of this election.
Trump’s call to action should be: “When We Cheat, We Win.” Because that is what Trump and his allies are up to.
Trump’s campaign is not engaging in the normal get out the vote effort.
Gone are the days of the Republican National Committee leading the charge and aiming to hit the highest number of contacts possible.
Now, the Trump team is tailoring its effort, carried out in conjunction with outside groups, to be focused primarily on what it has dubbed “low-propensity voters” — the people who are showing up in poll after poll saying they did not vote in 2020 but are breaking Trump’s way this time.
“There is no tangible evidence that Trump and the RNC have invested in the kind of ground game that you need in a turnout election,” a Republican operative in a swing state said. “Local Republicans aren’t being asked to knock doors, make phone calls, text voters or even harvest mail-in ballots. Instead, they’re being asked to be poll watchers in Republican counties or localities with Republican clerks.”
So, why is it that the Trump campaign has no traditional ground game and instead is asking Republicans to be poll watchers?
The answer to this question is that Trump will try to cheat himself to a victory if he doesn’t win this election.
ONCE A CON MAN ALWAYS A CON MAN
Ever since Trump came onto our political scene, he has injected huge amounts of disinformation (lies) into our political bloodstream, He accuses the Democrats of doing whatever it is that HE is up to. Trump politicizes everything he can.
Take the recent example of what Trump and Vance are doing in Springfield, Ohio. When Trump and JD Vance talk about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, they claim are “illegal” (no, they were brought in under a totally legal plan to help Springfield gain more workers and that plan was successful at revitalizing the city) “stealing cats and dogs and eating them”, these are flat out lies that have been debunked by the Republican mayor of Springfield, the manager of the city and the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine. This disinformation sparked threats. There have been 33 bomb threats including threats to bomb schools and government buildings since Trump and Vance began their fear mongering campaign. Both Vance and Trump knew better, but they kept it up anyhow.
New reporting from The Wall Street Journal reveals that on Sept. 9, the same day Vance first amplified the right-wing rumors, Springfield’s city manager told his office that they were false.
- Vance’s office provided The Journal with an August police report in which a resident claimed her cat may have been taken by her Haitian neighbors.
- But when a Journal reporter visited that resident’s home, she said her cat had been found in her basement a few days later — and that she had apologized to her neighbors.
- Erika Lee, a Springfield resident whose Facebook post sparked some of the earliest rumors, has since deleted that post and expressed regret about the national firestorm she helped ignite.
The other side: Vance has not apologized, but rather he’s criticized the media for reporting on the wave of bomb threats that forced Springfield schools to close this week.
Why did Trump and Vance lie like this? Part of the goal is to stir up fear of and anger towards the “aliens”, the “others” which keeps the Republican base worked up. Trump needs his base to stay outraged so that his voters show up.
But another part of the goal is to try to get people to believe that illegal aliens will be voting in large numbers in the upcoming election. If Trump loses narrowly, he and his allies will claim illegals voted in large enough numbers for Harris to win and that will be at least one of the false narratives that his election denier pals in battleground states will rely on to withhold certification of their districts to try to keep their states votes for Harris from getting counted in the Electoral College.
DIRTY TRICKS
This is just one of the dirty tricks the MAGAs are working on. Trump and his supporters are cultivating a bunch more to wrest power from the jaws of defeat if he narrowly loses to Harris.
Trump allies on Georgia’s election board just passed a new rule requiring ballots to be hand counted. If that rule goes into effect, Georgia’s final vote totals could be significantly delayed. Republicans in Georgia including Brad Raffensperger (R) have come out against this rules change. In fact the board of elections does not have the authority to change the way votes are counted. Their new rule will be likely be overturned by the courts if officials with standing bring a cause of action. So why did the election board change the rule at all? Because the goal is to create doubt about the election’s legitimacy. They want to be able to say that because there was no hand count the final count cannot be trusted.
The same is true about Trump and the GOP claiming migrants will be voting in the next election. No they won’t. It is already illegal for immigrants to vote and there is no evidence that they ever vote at all and if there are a few who do it’s the result of innocent error.
WHY TRUMP TALKS ABOUT ELECTION INTEGRITY
Trump questioned the integrity of the perfectly clean election we had in 2020 and then refused to admit he lost that election, Trump has effectively created fear and uncertainty around our electoral processes. This helps to set the stage for his cheat to win strategy if he narrowly loses the next election in November.
The potential con jobs for 2024 have proliferated. Brace yourself for the Big Lie 2.0. But that’s not all we are going to get. There are more options for him now in part because of the many election denialists who want to help him have gotten into positions of power in the electoral system of battleground states.
In all, [Marc Elias’ group, Democracy Docket], has identified 230 election deniers running for public office, from elections commissioners and municipal clerks to board of commissioners’ members and state lawmakers, all of whom currently hold office and are either running for reelection, or for another position with their local government. (Democracy Docket)
Trump could use multiple pathways, some involving the Electoral College system and others involving state election deniers who might refuse to certify the results, to try to pull out a phony win if there are narrow losses for him in battleground states.
MANY POSSIBLE SCHEMES
After January 6th, Congress modified the rules governing the Electoral College. The Electoral Count Reform Act solved some of the problems we saw in 2021 especially with the role of the Vice President, which is now clarified as purely ministerial. Nonetheless, the ECRA still has some vague and confusing rules that govern the Electoral College and fail to cure all of the maladies of that Act as well as opening up some new ways to cheat to win.
Here is just one example of that.
THE ROGUE MAGA GOVERNOR PLOY based on How to Steal a Presidential Election by Lessig and Seligman
Let’s say a MAGA governor is elected in a battleground state. He wins election in November 2024 before the Electoral College meets in January 2025. He is someone who will do whatever it takes to get Trump elected. In fact, let’s say that governor is crazy Mark Robinson, the current Black Republican Lt Gov of North Carolina who is running against Josh Stein (D) to become the next governor of North Carolina.
A CNN investigation found that Robinson called himself a “black NAZI” on an online porn forum, where he also defended slavery, bragged about “peeping” on women showering, and posted extremely graphic content from 2008 to 2012.
- Even before the new revelations about his online behavior, Robinson had a history of offensive comments — including quoting Adolf Hitler, ridiculing school-shooting survivors and endorsing political violence.
If Robinson were to be elected the new North Carolina governor this November, he would be the one who would by law have to certify the North Carolina election by a date certain for the North Carolina electors to have their votes counted in the Electoral College.
Now let’s say Harris wins a narrow victory over Trump in North Carolina in November. Pretend that newly elected governor Robinson, acting to help Trump out, claims there are “allegations of voter fraud” being made about this election such as reports of migrants voting in large numbers and for that reason he cannot in good conscience certify the election results. Robinson could make this claim based on bogus reports the way Ohio Senator JD Vance is claiming his constituents are reporting Haitians eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.
There would be a lawsuit challenging Robinson’s actions. The courts would hear the case in an expedited fashion. A fair judge would conclude Harris won, and issue a mandamus order directing the governor to send the right slate of electors to DC that conforms to the will of the voters.
But what if a rogue governor refuses to do so? Threatened with a prison sentence for being in contempt of court, he might happily be a martyr and go to jail for failing to certify, all the while screaming “voter fraud!” and insisting he’s only trying to make sure the election is fair. He would be doing Trump a big favor and Trump would be in his debt if he won the presidency thanks to Robinson’s martyrdom. What could be better for Robinson?!
Once Trump was president, Robinson could count on getting a pardon from him as long as this violation of law is a federal, not state, crime. (The way to prevent this problem is for every state to pass a law making it a crime for their governor to defy a federal or state court order to certify the state’s electors). Currently, however, pretend governor Robinson’s refusal to certify his state’s slate of Democratic electors could result in the entire state being disenfranchised because those electors would not be allowed to vote having not been properly certified. The number of electoral college votes to win the presidency would shrink from 270 to a smaller number after subtracting the Georgia delegation.
In other words, under the new rules of the Electoral Count Reform Act, a rogue governor can “depopulate” the Electoral College, reducing the number of Electoral College votes needed to win the election. Would that be enough for Trump to win? That depends on the vote tallies in other states.
There are a number of other dirty tricks that Trump and his allies could and probably will try if they see there is a pathway to victory using the confusing language in the constitution and the convoluted ECRA to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat if Trump narrowly loses. In another scenario a rogue governor like Robinson might substitute a Trump loyal slate of electors for the slate representing the true will of the voters and demand that MAGA slate be counted because they represent the real will of the voters. With two slates from one state claiming legitimacy, the decision for president could end up being thrown to the House to decide based on the 12th Amendment of our Constitution. In that case, the number of states with Republican or Democratic majorities after the November 5th 2024 election would end up making the ultimate decision about who will be the next president: Trump or Harris. Right now Trump would win. If enough state legislatures in AZ, PA, WI and other battleground states flip red to blue this November, Harris could win. (If enough state legislatures flip red to blue the MAGAs wouldn’t even try this dirty trick.)
Trump’s election subversion cons will undoubtedly get played out with seemingly endless accusations and lawsuits and appeals all the way up to our corrupt Supreme Court which has shown its loyalty to Trump in the recent immunity decision making presidents into kings.
But listen! there is good news for those of us who hope our country can return to some semblance of normalcy and peace and keep these schemes from being successful.
HOW TO DEFEAT TRUMP’S LIKELY PLANS TO CHEAT HIS WAY BACK INTO POWER
The good news for our democracy is that there are law abiding Democratic governors in most of the key battleground states: Governors Evers (WI), Whitmer (MI), Shapiro (PA), Katie Hobbs (AZ) and in Georgia, Brian Kemp and the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, did not slavishly follow Trump in 2020, so perhaps they would not act to subvert the election results this time. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper (D) is term limited, but Josh Stein (D) is 10 points up in the polls against crazy Mark Robinson in the race for governor there.
- The most important thing we can do to thwart Trump and his allies is to work hard right now, meaning in October! to get the biggest possible win for Harris/Walz. The larger the victory the better. That means canvassing, postcard writing, funding the Democrats so they get their message out. Women (and the men who love them) who are angry and worried about their loss of reproductive rights could make a huge difference in this election if they show up to vote in large numbers. The same is true for younger voters worried about climate change and gun laws in America. If these groups vote especially in battleground states Democrats could get a clear win.
- VOTE EARLY!! so that the Harris campaign can bank our votes and not waste time urging us to vote. That way they spend resources only on people who have not yet voted. (The campaigns know who has and has not voted but not HOW they voted). That early surge vote for Harris will add to the momentum for Harris/Walz and keep Trump from claiming an early victory which he would use to say the vote was stolen from him.
- One thing to watch like a hawk is that if Trump loses North Carolina – which we will know early because North Carolina reports its results early. An early loss there for Trump might mean its game over for Trump.
Democrats hope that momentum determines the presidential winner and even changes the contours of election night. North Carolina polls close early, at 7:30 p.m. Moreover, state law allows processing of mail-in votes well before Election Day, making an early count possible. (Some states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, cannot start processing until Election Day, which could result in delays of several days before a winner is determined.) Should Harris win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, Trump’s chances of victory diminish greatly. He would need a virtual sweep of other battleground states (and likely all of the blue-wall states). -Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post.
No wonder Harris and Trump have been frequenting North Carolina. It could be the tipping point state. If Trump loses there and Harris has a clear victory, that could mark the beginning of the end of our country’s Trump/MAGA nightmare.