'Horrible scenarios': Report details MAGA scheme to block election results in 5 key swing states

26 June 2024

Many legal experts, including election lawyer and Democracy Docket publisher Marc Elias, have been warning that if Donald Trump loses the 2024 election to President Joe Biden, his MAGA allies will do everything they can to overturn the election results —only this time, they will be better prepared than they were in 2020. And prominent Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) haven't committed to accepting the election results if Trump loses.

In an article published on June 26, Washington Post reporters Amy Gardner, Patrick Marley and Colby Itkowitz detail a strategy by pro-Trump MAGA Republicans to block the election results in five swing states.

"Delaying certification at any step could hold up or halt the process, potentially preventing the rightful winner from taking office," the journalists explain. "Since 2020, county-level election officials in five key battleground states — Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — have tried to block the certification of vote tallies in both primaries and general elections. So far, none of the efforts have succeeded."

Gardner, Marley and Itkowitz add, "In some cases, the actions came up against strict state rules limiting the role of county election boards in determining electoral outcomes, and critics say those rules will serve as essential guardrails this fall to thwart any coordinated efforts to set aside a state’s popular vote."

The Post reporters warn that Trump "has stated plainly that the only way he can lose this fall is if Democrats cheat."

"His campaign and the Republican National Committee are spending historic sums building 'election integrity' operations in key battleground states, preparing to challenge results in court, and recruiting large armies of grass-roots supporters to monitor voting locations and counting facilities and to serve as poll workers," Gardner, Marley and Itkowitz observe. "Certification of local results is a key target in this effort, a once-mundane administrative step that has become a flash point in the debate over election security — and a potential opportunity to subvert the will of voters."

Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party, is sounding the alarm about possible GOP efforts to block election results in his state.

Olasanoye told the Post, "They are playing poker with the cards up. They are telling us exactly what they are going to do. We would be foolish if we sat on our hands and did nothing and watched this happen."

Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a veteran GOP election lawyer who has been a scathing critic of MAGA election denialism and testified before the January 6 Select Committee in 2022, is speaking out as well.

Ginsberg told the Post, "An awful lot of people are looking at a potential parade of horrible scenarios. The number of people who doubt the reliability of elections has only increased. It hasn't decreased. And that worries me tremendously."

Read the Washington Post's full report at this link (subscription required).

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