Update on the following posted story with this new headline
story from CNN:
“Nearly 1 in 3 election officials feel
unsafe because of their jobs, a new survey shows”
Nearly one in three state local election officials included
in a new survey say they feel unsafe because of their jobs, part of a report
released Wednesday (June 16) that highlights threats to election workers in the
ugly 2020 election, aftermath, and now sustained ugliness all across many
states that Trump, Inc. disputed and still are challenging.
About one in six election workers who responded – some 17% –
said they have received threats – that according to the survey of 233 election
officials on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's
Law School.
Larry Norden, director of the election reform program at the
Brennan Center, told CNN, in part: “They feel like they have a target on their
backs for doing their work. It's one of the scariest parts of the attacks on
democracy. You can't have a democracy that functions if you don't have people
who are unafraid to be the administrators of elections.”
Norden said the threats seem part of a broader problem,
chipping away at the public's confidence in elections and the people who run
them, concluding: “It's all of a piece the attacks on voting rights, these
fraudulent reviews that are happening of election results, the casting doubt on
whether we can trust election officials. It's all about undermining democracy.”
A very notable case
in Georgia:
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his wife
Tricia described receiving a death threat as recently as April 24. At one point,
they decided to stop allowing their grandchildren to visit their home to guard
against people screaming at them or worse.
Raffensperger told CNN's Erin Burnett recently: “Just kind
of think about the emotional scars that would or could happen to them, but also
what if they're actually in physical danger?”
Biden won traditionally red Georgia by fewer than 12,000
votes last year. However, still months after the election, Trump and his allies
have pushed to reexamine ballots.
In Georgia for example, a Judge agreed just last month to unseal more than 145,000 ballots in Fulton County, the home of Atlanta, and to allow a post-election review there.
Note: Three previous audits of the results in Georgia have found no evidence of
fraud.
Further and across the country in Arizona (with that bogus
Cyber Ninjas “audit”) a problem-plagued hand recount of 2.1 million ballots in
Maricopa County, ordered by Republicans in the state Senate, is nearing completion.
In this report,
the Brennan Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center call on social media
companies to help combat the election disinformation they say is helping to
drive the attacks against election administrators.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Original Post Follows:
Fallout after the 2020 election and the Republican conspiracy side seems to be winning in state election offices with massive changes ongoing with raw
partisanship and only partisan positions as they boot others. This story from
The AP with this headline (formatted to fit the blog):
“Exodus of election officials raises concerns of
partisanship”
Specific examples follow as well as this sub-headline: “There is no
shortage of job openings for local election officials in Michigan. It's the
same in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
Introduction: After facing threats and intimidation during the 2020
presidential election and its aftermath, and now the potential of new
punishments in certain states, county officials who run elections are quitting
or retiring early.
The once quiet job of
election administration has become a political minefield thanks to the baseless claims of widespread fraud that continue to
be pushed by many in the Republican Party.
Barb Byrum, clerk of Ingham County, Michigan, has an idea and poses
this question: “Who will take these jobs? These conspiracy theorists are in
it for the long haul. They’re in it to completely crumble our republic, and
they’re looking at these election administrator positions. They’re playing the
long game.”
Examples:
In Georgia: U.S.
Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) and a Trump recruit who voted to overturn the 2020 results in the House of Representatives, is challenging Secretary
of State Brad Raffensperger (R) who has been attacked by his own party for upholding
President Biden’s victory.
In Arizona: State
Rep. Mark Finchem (R), who was at the January 6 rally outside the Capitol and
is a chief supporter of a partisan review of ballots in Maricopa County (AZ),
is running for secretary of state. (Plus, the
bogus Cyber Ninjas 2020 audit & now this DOJ
warning).
In Nevada: Former
lawmaker Jim Marchant, who has clung to the conspiracy theory that the election
was stolen from Trump, is campaigning to replace Republican Secretary of State
Barbara Cegavske, who has repeatedly denied claims of election fraud. (Cegavske
can't run again because of term limits).
Notes:
1. Sylvia Albert, voting
and elections director for Common Cause, which advocates for expanded voter
access, said that while the statewide positions come with more power, local
officials generally have much discretion over how to solve common Election Day
issues such as long lines, voter roll problems or trouble with voting machines,
said: “If you have an elections official who doesn’t want to expand access to
the ballot, who finds democracy disturbing to them, they’re not going to fix
problems and then they’re going to multiply.”
2. The exodus comes as
Republicans in a number of states pursue legislation that imposes new fines or criminal penalties on
local election officials or makes it easier to remove them, as part of the GOP
campaign to rewrite rules for voting and administering elections.
3. Races for county
offices receive far less attention than those for statewide positions, and many
of those roles aren’t up for election for another year or more. Still,
partisanship has already seeped into the process.
In Michigan: Republicans
chose not to re-nominate a GOP member of the state
election board after he voted to certify Biden’s win in the state.
In Iowa: The GOP
board in Scott country chose not to hold a special election after the abrupt resignation of the longtime top elections
official, a Democrat, and instead appointed a Republican. Plus, a new law imposes
a $10,000 fine on election administrators for a technical infraction of
election rules.
In Florida: A similar law could lead to $25,000 fines for election supervisors if a ballot drop box is accessible outside early voting hours or is left unsupervised.
In Texas: Republicans have pushed a measure to make it a crime for local election officials to send voters unsolicited absentee ballot materials.
In
Georgia: Their new law allows GOP legislatures to appoint a board that can
replace a local election official.
In Wisconsin: Wendy
Helgeson, president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and clerk of
the village of Greenville, said the new penalties, coupled with the charged
atmosphere around election work, could make the job unpalatable to some. She added:
“It’s hard to convince someone it’s a good way to give back to the community
when you’re afraid of going to clerk jail. It’s harder and harder to get people
to work in government as a whole.”
My 2 cents: First is this related OSS extract on the assessment of Hitler's mind – sound like anyone recently: “Never to admit a fault or wrong; never to accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time; blame that enemy for everything that goes wrong; take advantage of every opportunity to raise a political whirlwind.”
I have three questions for many Republicans all across the country vis-à-vis Trump’s “Big lie” (his words NOT mine) and the above story.
(1) Do you still think the 2020 election was rigged, a fraud, and that Trump lost due to the cheating and illegal voting, etc., and a subject he still harps on after the 60 or so court cases he lost, plus the 50 state certifications and recounts and such?
(2) Do you still think all the talk now about DEMS hanky-panky is true and the above actions do not undermine fixing any problems?
(3) Do you believe those state actions listed above – all of which Trump challenged and lost – will “… move us forward to save our voting rights and strengthen our democracy?”
Well, my GOP friends, if you still believe all that now, then think again. You are being misled and you are wrong.
Thanks for stopping by.
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