In 2020, Trump tried to steal a presidential election. This year, he is trying to steal Congress.
Once again, it won’t work. Despite his best efforts, he does not have a sufficiently consolidated authoritarian regime, centralized federal control, or enough practical political support to pull it off. But the ineptitude of the attempt should not excuse the gravity of the crime. The president of the United States is attempting, in plain public view and with every power at his disposal, to destroy our democratic republic.
He has said as much all year. Trump has claimed repeatedly that Democrats can only win by cheating. After Michigan’s primary in August, he told his supporters, “Get ready for another Rigged Election.” Asked on Oct. 27 whether he would accept the results if Republicans lose Congress, he said, “I will if they’re honest elections.” This is his standard formulation for refusing to accept the legitimacy of any election outcome he doesn’t like.
His administration is acting accordingly. In Alaska, the Department of Justice is demanding that the state not certify the winner of its Senate race if its preferred candidate, incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, does not win. The theory is that a second candidate with the same name will confuse voters who meant to vote for Sullivan. The Alaska Supreme Court ordered the second Sullivan, who a New York Times investigation reported was recruited by Democrats, onto the ballot in June. DOJ sued anyway in federal court, after Alaskans had already begun casting ballots. The president was happy to take credit: “I’m the one that said ‘do it.’” On Nov. 1, a federal judge threw it out. DOJ appealed the same day.
In California, DOJ wants the state and Los Angeles County to pull some 20,000 registered voters’ ballots out of the count, based on a federal list of supposed noncitizens. DOJ will not say how the list was put together, and when the state asked for the methodology in writing, it got none. When California refused, DOJ sued to make a judge order the ballots set aside, in violation of established election laws and procedures.
Washington got the same treatment on Oct. 26: hold more than 400 ballots within two days, or face “emergency relief.” The attorney general says “a number of states” can expect more of the same. Asked whether DOJ might move to block certification elsewhere, he declined to rule it out.
In each case, DOJ is acting as the Republican Party’s election lawyer. The lawsuits are only the latest turn in a campaign that has been running for nearly two years. The administration has tilted the playing field wherever it could, and gone after the vote itself wherever it thought it could get away with it.