Two weeks out from Election Day, we’re already swimming in skullduggery lowlights traceable to forces hostile to the bedrock American process.
You’re stunned, I know.
The most theatrical incident so far appears to have unfolded over the weekend in Arizona’s Maricopa County, the very same venue that gave us the Great Recount of 2020 conducted by the Cyber Ninjas (not making that up), ostensibly to prove that Donald Trump won the state, but instead it showed that not only had Joe Biden been the winner, he won by 99 more votes than previously thought.
Perhaps you’ll remember that at the first of his rallies after the Ninjas had spoken, Trump said, "We won at the Arizona forensic audit yesterday at a level that you wouldn't believe,” just another bald-faced Lie of the Minute, sustaining the Big Lie that undermines a besieged democracy right up to the minute at hand.
Lest you’ve become confused on the principles of Trumpian Democracy, let me again disambiguate them: Votes for Trump, Trump-supported acolytes, or down ballot Trump wannabes and/or lickspittles, are wholly legitimate, while votes for anyone else are obviously fraudulent.
That’s essentially what the two masked men outside a Maricopa County ballot drop box were “thinking” Friday night as they sat with their tactical gear and what elections officials described as weaponry watching Arizona voters, um, vote.
"We are deeply concerned about the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to vote and who are lawfully taking their early ballot to a drop box,” county Elections Chairman Bill Gates and Elections Recorder Stephen Richer said in a joint statement. “Uninformed vigilantes outside Maricopa County's drop boxes are not increasing election integrity. Instead they are leading to voter intimidation complaints.
“Although monitoring and transparency in our elections is critical, voter intimidation is unlawful. For those who want to be involved in election integrity, become a poll worker or an official observer with your political party. Don't dress in body armor to intimidate voters as they are legally returning their ballots.”
The spectacle of government agencies forced to issue statements outlining the painfully obvious do’s and don’t’s of eighth grade civics (Google it!) probably isn’t going to improve things much in Arizona, but in both Texas and Florida, the courts have begun to rule against agents of intimidation within the government itself.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a cynical opportunist sprung to life in 2018 by one of Trump’s feckless endorsements, is off to a faltering start with his Office of Election Crimes and Security, which sent some local cops to arrest a Tampa man who thought he’d voted legally but required a different application. From police body cams, it was clear the alleged perp had no idea what they were talking about, but that was ok because neither did the officers.
A judge tossed two felony charges against Robert Lee Wood on Friday, then on Monday, according to the New York Times, a Texas judge dismissed an indictment against a Houston man charged with a felony for voting while on parole.
Efforts to intimidate voters and similar attempts to rattle election officials and frighten poll workers like the septuagenarian granny who hands you the “I Voted” sticker are the definition of anti-American chicanery. In addition to being criminal, they are despicable.
Merrick Garland, who as the nation’s highest law enforcement official might just have his suspicions as to which former president might be at the root of it all, weighed in on such matters Monday.
“The Justice Department has an obligation,” said the Attorney General, “to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated.”
Federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Homeland Security are deep into preparation for a combustible Nov. 8. The FBI will establish a federal command center to coordinate with state and local efforts, such as the one in Arizona where poll workers are getting “de-escalation” training.
Mind you, this is all for the mid-term elections.
I don’t even want to contemplate the climate for 2024, but I think I saw it framed pretty well the other day by Heather Cox Richardson, noted historian.
“If we continue in this direction, we already know how it turns out,” she wrote this week, “with a corrupt one-party government that favors an elite few and mires the rest of us in a world without recourse to legal equality or economic security. It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. At our most successful moments, Americans have backed not the vision of the Confederates but that of Lincoln, working to create a government of laws, not of men, and of equal access to opportunity for all.”
Don’t be intimidated. Granny’s gonna show up and peel you off a sticker. Make sure you get one.
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com and Twitter: @genecollier.
First Published: October 25, 2022, 8:35 p.m.