Weeding out election denialism

Schmidt is a syndicated columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Anyone who has been pulling weeds in their gardens this spring understands that while weeding is tedious and may not be very satisfying, it is necessary for optimal growth.

Consider the following metaphor: Our constitutional republic is a garden. Our free and fair elections are the plants. Bipartisan election officials are the gardeners, working tirelessly to produce the best garden harvest as possible. Election denialism represents the insidious weeds, which began propagating before the 2016 election and have only taken off since 2020.

Weeds rob nearby plants of water and nutrients. If large enough, weeds can compete for sunlight. Weeds can be home to pests and some can even secrete chemicals into the soil that inhibit growth of nearby plants.

And so it is with election denialism.

In April, the county where I live held municipal elections. Ahead of the election, our county election authority held a phone town hall led by the director of the election authority. Residents were encouraged to call in. The director shared information about the upcoming election and then opened it up to questions.

Voters inundated the director with questions that were primed by copious amounts of disinformation. One asked if our county uses Dominion Voting Systems machines. Another asked if our county uses drop boxes and, if so, whether they are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yet another asked what measures the county takes to prohibit illegal immigrants from voting.

The director answered all their questions, without judgment, and attempted to uproot the weeds one by one by addressing the misinformation that was behind each question.

As a concerned citizen and a self-described democratic botanist, I will call out the infectious weeds referred to above.

Invasive species No. 1 involves Dominion Voting Systems. The election technology company had alleged that it was defamed by Fox News in the wake of the 2020 election, claiming network hosts allowed lawyers affiliated with Donald Trump to falsely claim that the company had rigged the election against the former president.

Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., ended up striking a deal with Dominion, averting a trial in the defamation suit and paying Dominion $787.5M for the false statements made on air.

Dominion CEO John Poulos told reporters following the settlement: "Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and the customers that we serve. Nothing can ever make up for that. Throughout this process, we have sought accountability. Truthful reporting in the media is essential to our democracy."

Invasive species No. 2 is the vilification of ballot drop boxes. For the record. my state does not allow for drop boxes so this one is not even applicable.

There have been many conspiracy theories surrounding drop boxes, including those fueled by the completely debunked movie “2000 Mules.” Dinesh D’Souza’s film suggested that Democrat-aligned ballot “mules” were supposedly paid to illegally collect and drop off ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

All of the claims made by the film have been revealed to be false. Ballots dropped in a box, mailed or hand-delivered to an election location are verified by signature and are tracked closely.

The newest variety of weed is invasive species No. 3 — voting by illegal immigrants. Trump and many other Republicans are again pushing the unsubstantiated claims that noncitizens are voting in federal elections.

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal and state elections. Those who break that law are eligible for prison time and fines.

During a recent press conference, Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly cited the immigration crisis at the southern border while talking about alleged voter fraud. When pressed for proof from reporters, Johnson became exasperated saying: "We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections," Johnson said. "But it's not something that is easily provable."

There continue to be many elected Republicans like Johnson who are proliferating noxious disinformation thistles into the fertile soil.

Weeds can be tricky and are difficult to control once they have broken ground. They can also get in the way of growing what we want or living in a desired way. The same goes for our elections.

It appears that for the short term, the plants in America’s democratic garden are going to have to live among those weeds. Those who can identify unwanted and interfering falsehoods surrounding our democratic process owe it to the rest of the citizens to yank them out as effectively as possible, roots and all. This is difficult and backbreaking work, but very necessary.

I am hopeful that American democracy will thrive again and be bountiful. It will only happen as long as we keep eradicating the distortions of election fraud.