A new report from NBC detailed that despite election deniers being roundly defeated in 2022, the threats to our democracy still persist into 2024 and beyond. Protecting our democracy was a top issue for voters in the 2022 election and continues to be top of mind for voters months later. Democrats should and will continue to protect the voice and vote of every American.
NBC News: Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024: ‘The gun is still loaded’
Jane C. Timm
02/02/23
Key Points:
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The November midterms gave election officials and pro-democracy advocates their first sigh of relief in years: The election system they’d spent years defending and shoring up operated almost seamlessly, and most of the election deniers who threatened to disrupt it were defeated. The respite, however, appears to have been brief, with the new year marked by violent, moneyed and high-profile election denialism:
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A failed Republican candidate claiming fraud orchestrated shootings into local Democrats’ homes in New Mexico, police allege.
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Former President Donald Trump hit the trail for the first time in his third presidential bid and once again advanced the conspiracy theory that he won in 2020.
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In Pennsylvania, mostly rural Lycoming County spent three days doing a hand recount of the 2020 election ballots last month after having been being dogged by false fraud claims for years.
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In Arizona, Republican Kari Lake continues to challenge her November loss in court and on television, hosting rallies and raking in more than $2.5 million since Election Day, according to an analysis of her campaign finance disclosures after Election Day by the Arizona Mirror.
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Elsewhere in Arizona, an election official in Cochise County — who was personally sued as she was trying to fend off local officials’ efforts to block certification of election results there — resigned.
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“The extreme rhetoric is not stopping,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, a group that led the charge in battleground states against election denialism. “It just led to a little girl having bullets shoot through her wall in New Mexico because someone was mad at her mom because they thought that she rigged an election, right? I really do not think we’re out of the woods.”
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Election experts, pro-democracy advocates and secretaries of state who defeated election deniers said in interviews that while democracy defenders have won a key battle, the existential threat to American democracy remains.
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It [the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State] raised over $30 million during the 2022 cycle — more than 12 times its previous fundraising record — and injected millions into Arizona, Nevada, Minnesota, Michigan and other states.
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An ad in Nevada said Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, wanted “to end early voting and vote by mail to control elections for himself and his allies” and promised that Democrat Cisco Aguilar “will make sure everyone’s vote is counted, regardless of their political party.”
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Last year, secretary of state candidates were the top vote-getters in Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts; in New Mexico, Arizona and Rhode Island, Democratic secretaries of state outperformed the winning Democratic governors.
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Democratic governors and attorneys general, too, pitched themselves as democracy defenders last year.
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President Joe Biden personally campaigned on the issue throughout the year. In November, he called on voters to reject voter intimidation and political violence. The speech raised eyebrows on the left and incited mockery on the right — how could the sitting president be talking about anything other than the economy five days before the midterms? — but exit polling would later show democracy was a top issue for voters in November, right alongside inflation, and denialism was dealt a hearty blow in state after state.
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Simon said he’ll be focusing on relentless voter education in Minnesota, which he said undermines bad-faith pitches. “I think 2022 gave us a really good blueprint for how we can minimize if not eliminate some of those threats,” he said. “Transparency is really effective. Once people see or come to understand how the system really works, they inevitably come away with a lot more confidence.”
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