Watching Out for Election Subversion

by Neil Goldstein, Good Government Justice Team Leader

Beware: Pennsylvania could well be facing one of the most serious matters in history involving the state legislature, part of an emergency for American democracy.

Many knowledgeable observers warn that the legislature will be, or may already be, part of a national Republican effort to use a crazy, fringe legal doctrine to help subvert the 2024 presidential election results if the GOP candidate legitimately loses.

It’s the Independent Legislature Doctrine, which says state legislatures have absolute power to appoint electors. If that happens here and in other battleground states, the U.S. could end up with a president who was chosen not by voters but by partisan state legislators.

As one elections expert put it bluntly to the New Yorker, “I’m scared shitless.”

Possibly related is the PA Senate Republicans’ so-far ill-defined “investigation” of the 2020 election. Election experts fear the effort won’t improve voter confidence, as its proponents argue, but rather will sow doubt and spread misinformation, playing to Donald Trump’s base while raising questions that could discourage people from voting. It also could soften the ground for election subversion.

What’s more, Steve Bannon has been successfully using his popular podcast to promote a Trump-loyalist takeover of the GOP, from precinct positions on up, including in PA’s Cumberland County.

What can we do about this threat?

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin interviewed elections scholar Richard Hasen, who said, in part:

Possible legislative reforms include improved transparency with paper ballots and audit standards; reform of federal law to remove the potential for substituting legislatures’ pick for that of state voters and limit frivolous challenges; safeguards to ensure that election administration remains in the hands of nonpartisan officials; increased penalties for threatening election officials or tampering with results; and measures to counter election disinformation.

Beyond legislative changes, we may need to organize for political action to re-enforce rule-of- law norms in elections. This means: advocating for laws that deter election subversion and against laws making stolen elections easier; politically opposing would-be election administrators who embrace false claims about stolen elections; and preparing for mass, peaceful protests in the event of attempts to subvert fair election outcomes.

We’ll be vigilant about this threat. Please help us stay on top of it — if you see anything that makes you think PA legislators are moving in this direction, send a heads-up to neiljgold0@gmail.com and tomulrich41@gmail.com.

References and resources:

What we can do about it, from the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/21/how-serious-is-threat-democracy-how- do-we-defeat-it

An in-depth analysis, from the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie

Will 2024 be the year American democracy dies?, from the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/opinion/american-democracy- 2024.html?searchResultPosition=3

Protect Democracy, https://protectdemocracy.org/the-threat/