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Trump and Biden supporters are equally likely to say they will not accept the results of the election if their candidate loses.
Millions of voters will be very sore losers, either way, poll shows
Oct 26 2020
The intensity of the presidential campaign appears to be creating a huge number of sore losers in waiting.
More than two out of every five supporters of President Donald Trump, and of former Vice President Joe Biden, say in a survey out Sunday that they will not accept the results of the coming election if their candidate is defeated. And decent numbers in both camps say they're prepared to protest a result they don't like.
The numbers from the new Reuters/Ipsos poll provide fresh evidence of the fragility of American electoral democracy, which has relied for more than two centuries on the losers deciding the election was fair enough to peacefully accept the outcome.
<p>The survey pegged at 43 percent the share of Biden supporters who would not accept a Trump victory, with 22 percent of the Democratic nominee's backers saying they would engage in street demonstrations or even violence if he loses. </p>
<p>The president's camp was almost as impassioned: 41 percent said they would not accept a Biden win and 16 percent said they would protest if they're told the Republican has lost re-election.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>The degree of distrust in the outcome raises the stakes anew for those cautioning patience in eight days. Definitive results from many of the Electoral College battlegrounds may not be known on election night if the contest remains as close in those states as polling suggests. That is not because the sort of cheating that Trump baselessly allegess is surely coming, but because of legally required delays in processing and tabulating the record numbers of ballots being returned by mail in response to the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>Confusion and skepticism about delayed results is just one of the many challenges that have amplified concerns about the public's confidence in the result.</p><p>Russian attempts to hack into election systems during the 2016 campaign heightened concerns about the legitimacy of the 2020 vote long before the first ballots were cast. The pandemic then prompted most states to relax at least some rules for mail voting — which has prompted a steady diet of unsubstantiated claims by Trump that absentee ballot fraud will rob him of a second term.</p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>During his campaign rally Sunday in New Hampshire, for example, Trump went on another long diatribe in which he claimed that mail-in ballots that had been requested by voters are OK — while those being proactively sent to voters are highly problematic. (Of the 10 states where that's happening, only Nevada is competitive in the presidential race.)</p>
<p>"The ballots get handled by many, many people by the time they even get there and it shouldn't be allowed," Trump said. "And the Democrats know it's a hoax and they know and it's going to cause problems."</p>
<p>Last week top national security officials warned that Russia and Iran had been attempting to hack into U.S. voting systems and looking for other ways to undermine confidence in the election.</p>
<p>Trump also has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if the vote count shows him to be losing.</p><p>A poll <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/election-results-2020" target="_self">released three weeks ago</a>, by Politico and Morning Consult, found most voters do not expect to know who won the presidential contest on election night. Only a small majority in that survey thought the election would be fair, and three-fourths expressed concern about violent post-election protests.</p><p>The Reuters/Ipsos poll was of 2,649 adults the week ending Oct. 20 — including 1,039 who said they had voted for Trump or were planning to vote for him and 1,153 similarly behind Biden. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.</p>
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California's safeguards against voter fraud include signature matching.
Claim: California sent 440,000 ballots to people who died or moved. Fact check: Mixed
Oct 22 2020
440,000 "Questionable" Ballots Mailed Out in California's Election-Correction to pdf download link… https://t.co/45eg7JoEGS— Election Integrity Project California (@Election Integrity Project California)1603163518.0
California election officials sent ballots to all active registered voters for the November election. But in a press release distributed Monday, Election Integrity Project California, a self-described nonpartisan watchdog organization, criticized 440,000 "questionable" mailed ballots.
The organization sent a letter to the California secretary of state, writing that 416,633 Californians who were registered to vote on or before Nov. 4, 2008, have not voted or updated their registrations since that date. Because of this, EIPCa wrote, those voters "likely moved or died." Voters in California are marked as "inactive" if they move within the state and do not re-register to vote. However, there is no law in the state that eliminates voters from the active list because they have not voted.
<p>EIPCa wrote that it cross-referenced 3,342 registered voters with names on the state's Death Index Record. The organization also claims 19,717 voters appeared to have registered twice. EIPCa sent out a <a href="https://www.eip-ca.com/press_releases/EIPCa_press_release_CA_2020_election_risks_20200507_final.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">press release</a> in May that 458,000 ballots would be sent to active status voters who had died or moved and election experts <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/03/will-458000-vote-mail-ballots-go-californians-who-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">questioned</a> how they got that figure.
</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><div id="7e452" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="445d99a6dca6f26c63c668e1f95413af"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1318389469901328385" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">440,000 "Questionable" Ballots Mailed Out in California's Election-Correction to pdf download link… https://t.co/45eg7JoEGS</div> — Election Integrity Project California (@Election Integrity Project California)<a href="https://twitter.com/EIP_CA/statuses/1318389469901328385">1603163518.0</a></blockquote></div><p>
The EIPCa has pointed out some clear instances where ballots have been sent to people who have relocated or died, however the 440,000 number may be inflated. Regardless, California has safeguards against potential voter fraud, including signature matching and a barcode connected to the voter's address and information.
</p>
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Brittany Greeson/Getty Images
VoteSafe is running ad campaigns in Michigan (and other states) to convince conservative and independent voters that the election is safe and secure.
Politicians, philanthropists latest working to assure public that election is fair
Oct 20 2020
In the latest in a string of such efforts, a group of prominent political leaders and one of leading philanthropists are trying to spread the word that this election is safe and secure — and will be accurate.
The organizers of these and other campaigns are facing a much more skeptical and worried electorate than usual — thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and President Trump's steady drumbeat of assertions without evidence that record mail-in voting is riven with fraud.
<p>The first group, <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/votesafe" target="_self">VoteSafe</a>, is led by Republican Tom Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania and Homeland Security secretary, and Democrat Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan.</p><p>VoteSafe has unveiled a $1.7 million <a href="https://votesafe.us/press/" target="_blank">advertising campaign</a> featuring local election officials reassuring voters that the election is safe and secure. The "guardians of democracy" campaign is beginning in four battleground states: Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. </p><p>The digital ads are targeting independent voters in the four states. In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, ads targeting conservatives are appearing on Fox News.</p><p>In the Michigan ad, Walker City Clerk Sarah Bydalek says, "Absentee voting in Michigan is nothing new. I can assure you our system is safe and secure. We have a strict verification and ID process once your ballot arrives."</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>"Whether you vote in person or by mail, have faith, your vote will be counted," Bydalek says.</p><p>Meanwhile, about 115 philanthropic leaders have signed a letter calling for safe elections in which all votes are counted and the results accepted peacefully.</p><p>The letter, reported this week by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, cites the highly partisan and inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the election.</p><p>Among those signing the letter are Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn; Nicole Taylor, president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; Rachel Hoff, policy director of the Ronald Reagan Institute; and Larry Kramer, head of the Hewlett Foundation.</p><p>"These are giant warning signs for American democracy, for civil society, and for most of the issues about which philanthropy is concerned," the letter states.</p><p>It urges leaders of all types and ordinary Americans to make sure "the sacred right to vote is upheld."</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p>
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Wikimedia Commons
DOJ's dubious election crime announcement: an October surprise?
Oct 13 2020
Last week, when President Trump complained about Attorney General William Barr's failure to bring charges against his political opponents, the Justice Department lifted restrictions on election-related federal prosecutions. Let's hope these developments do not presage a new kind of October surprise.
Justice Department policy until now has been to prevent election-related announcements, raids or arrests from affecting a campaign. According to ProPublica, federal investigators will now be allowed to investigate certain kinds of fraud before the polls close, even if those actions "risk affecting the outcome of the election."
<p>As we've seen recently, there's no need for actual wrongdoing for an investigation to make news and impact a campaign. Two years ago in Georgia, then Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced, a week before Election Day, an investigation into the state Democratic Party for hacking state computer systems. Kemp was also the Republican candidate for governor at the time, a race he won narrowly.</p><p>Subsequent <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/law-enforcement-files-discredit-brian-kemps-accusation-that-democrats-tried-to-hack-the-george-election" target="_blank">review</a> by the state attorney general found no basis for the fraud allegation Kemp investigated. In a <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/georgia-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp-election-not-stolen.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Slate magazine piece</a>, election scholar Rick Hasen called Kemp's "false accusation" the "most egregious partisan action by an election official in the modern era."</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>It remains to be seen how federal attorneys will apply the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/us/politics/justice-department-election-fraud.html" target="_blank">new DOJ policy</a>, but the president's anger suggests they may feel pressure to act. Trump has repeatedly insisted without evidence that Democrats are planning massive absentee ballot fraud. Have U.S. attorneys now been asked to go find some evidence?</p><p>The situation recalls the controversial firing of nine U.S. attorneys by the George W. Bush administration, dismissals that were driven in part by those attorneys' <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/15/15641318/us-attorneys-gonzales-bush-trump-justice-rule-of-law-scandal" target="_blank">inability to find and prosecute election crimes</a>. </p><p>With the Bush administration firings, many U.S. attorneys were willing to lose their jobs to resist attempts to politicize the Justice Department. If that's still the case, DOJ's policy change won't lead to a rash of "October surprise" headlines.</p><p>We may have more reason to worry about <a href="https://electionreformers.org/assessing-secretary-of-state-conflict-of-interest/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">secretaries of state</a>. Their responsibility for determining which election-related complaints should be investigated gives them considerable opportunity to affect the news cycle. Secretaries of state are elected or appointed through partisan processes, creating at least the appearance of allegiance between the secretary and a political party. In that context, perception of partisan manipulation is a significant risk.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>Elections should not be affected by unjustified October surprises. We need to return to the greater discretion in DOJ's policy, and we need impartial secretaries of state.</p><p><em>Kevin Johnson is executive director of <a data-linked-post="2641239195" href="https://thefulcrum.us/election-reformers-network" target="_blank">Election Reformers Network</a> and a member of The Carter Center's 2020 Election Expert Study Team. The opinions expressed are his own. Read more from The Fulcrum's </em><a href="https://thefulcrum.us/election-dissection" target="_self"><em>Election Dissection</em></a><em> blog or see our </em><a href="https://thefulcrum.us/election-dissection/election-coverage" target="_self"><em>full list of contributors</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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