Levine is an elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which develops strategies to deter and defend against autocratic efforts to interfere in democratic institutions.
Krystyna (Krysia) Sikora is a program assistant for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, where she serves as the assistant to the director.
Earlier this month, Harris County sued the State of Texas to temporarily block a law, known as Senate Bill 1750, that would eliminate the Harris County elections administrator position effective September 1st. Harris County really messed up its administration of the 2022 midterms, but removing its top administrator position with less than two months to go before the start of early voting for a countywide election is likely to cause more problems than it solves. Harris County needs more checks and resources behind their election officials, not an elimination of the top election position altogether. While the lawsuit is ostensibly about preserving a critical election position, beneath the surface it is also about the weaponization of mistakes to justify the takeover of election operations.
The 2022 midterms were not the first time Texas’ most populous county experienced election administration problems. On Election Day in 2022, more than a dozen voting locations ran out of ballot paper. As had occurred in past elections, there were widespread reports of voting machine malfunctions, paper jams, and unusually long lines. Several polling places failed to open on time for various reasons, including election workers quitting, not showing up, or not being given the keys required to operate voting equipment.
The mishaps did not impact Harris County’s election results, but they were significant enough to justify greater state oversight of the county’s election administration. However, rather than taking the opportunity to help Harris County improve its elections, state officials wielded the mistakes to increase partisan control over election processes in a way that could further cast doubt on the legitimacy of its elections. In addition to Senate Bill 1750, Governor Greg Abbott also recently signed Senate Bill 1933 into law, which authorizes the secretary of state to essentially take over Harris County’s elections on vague grounds, as well as Senate Bill 1070, which enabled Texas to resign from the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate compact that allows states to share information to help maintain accurate voter rolls. Another proposed bill would give an Abbott-appointed official authority to order an entirely new election in Harris County if 2% of its polling places run out of ballot paper for an hour. The bills were justified by the false claim that the election problems were deliberately orchestrated to disenfranchise certain voters.
Harris County is not alone in facing repercussions from election errors. A new report by the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund examines election administration mistakes made in three pivotal counties across the United States—including Harris—during the 2022 and 2020 elections, and how those mistakes were subsequently weaponized. For example, misreported results in Antrim County, Michigan served as the basis for a swarm of conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines, which subsequently sparked the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Likewise, after Maricopa County, Arizona reported issues with vote-counting machines reading ballots printed on site, losing candidates claimed malfeasance and sued to overturn and rerun the election. The claims underlying the suit were found to be without foundation. The weaponization of election mistakes is likely to increase in the run-up to the 2024 General Election as long-serving election officials leave their posts and less experienced—or ill-intentioned —officials replace them, risking more mistakes.
In a voting system as complicated as those in the United States, mistakes are bound to happen.
But without more evidence they are not signs of malfeasance. State lawmakers should bolster election administration processes through proactive, intermittent reviews that enable all counties to improve their administration of elections, making legislation like that adopted by Texas misguided. State lawmakers should strive to improve systems before problems arise, such as adopting vote counting timelines that can ensure election officials can accurately count ballots without unnecessary pressure. And if a mistake is made, post-election audits are an important tool for verifying results amid skepticism.
As polarization continues to prevail, it is more important than ever that our democratic institutions cooperate with and support one another. This includes our election system. Heading into 2024, less than half of Americans have high confidence that the votes in the next presidential election will be counted accurately. It is not too late to begin fixing this problem, but it will require political leaders to support their fellow election officials, not weaponize their mistakes for partisan gain. As the Harris County situation demonstrates, the latter risks undermining the work of election officials and casting doubt on legitimate results.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.