How will courts respond if Team Trump tries to steal the 2024 Election?

As always, history sheds light on what is to come.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Two weeks ago, the Georgia State Election Board passed a new rule regarding election certification. After the polls close, local election officials are responsible for counting ballots. Once they count the ballots, they conduct what’s known as a “canvass”—they tabulate, double-check and transmit the results from the local jurisdiction to the state. Certification finalizes the state-wide results based on the canvasses.

The traditional role of the board members, therefore, has been to narrowly oversee the counting of votes for each candidate. It’s not their job to assess the credibility of the votes or to look into allegations of fraud. They count, check the count and report the results. That’s it.

This new rule in Georgia changes that. It empowers the board members to condition vote certification on a “reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.” This means that canvassers in Georgia now have an outsized role in assessing allegations of fraud for which they are not traditionally trained or experienced in handling.

At a rally in November early this month, Trump praised Georgia State Election Board members as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory,” and shouted out the names of three election deniers on the board, saying they "are doing a great job." This came just days after he told a crowd of Christian conservatives: “I love you. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

Chioma Chukwu, the interim executive director of American Oversight, a nonprofit that pushes for government transparency, commented on Trump’s shout-out to MAGA supporters on the Georgia State Election Board: “To the extent that Trump is that intimately aware of who is on the State Election Board and is championing them … that should raise the alarm bells for everybody.”

This is a serious concern. But as I discuss in today’s newsletter, there is one way around it.

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