![]() Arizona barred its secretary of state from representing the state in litigation defending its election code – that is, until 2 January 2023, when the Democrat who currently holds the position leaves office. Another law gives this board the power to claim control of the vote-counting process in individual counties, such as heavily Democratic Fulton county, home to Atlanta. Georgia Republicans censured Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who refused to be cowed by Trump’s attacks on the electoral process, then removed him as chair of the state election board – and seized that power for the legislature itself. Republican legislatures in eight states, sometimes overriding the vetoes of Democratic governors, have claimed partisan control of crucial electoral responsibilities or shifted them away from elected secretaries of state. They included 2020’s fiercest battlegrounds, Arizona (decided in 2020 by just 10,457 votes) and Georgia.ģ. In 2021, 19 states enacted 34 laws making it more difficult to cast a ballot. Any effort to change election laws or to argue that legislatures have the power to appoint electors themselves requires Republican control of battleground state legislatures.Ģ. These are the steps that Republicans are undertaking, now, to create a different outcome next time.ġ. It’s frighteningly imaginable to see how it succeeds. New laws have been passed by state legislatures under the pretext of halting “election fraud” that will instead abet the next big lie. Its plotters have learned important lessons from last year’s rushed and often-buffoonish dress rehearsal. The next attempted coup will not be a violent overthrow of the Capitol, but a carefully plotted and even technically legal one, subverting election machinery and exploiting various constitutional loopholes. One year later, it’s the second band of insurrectionists, the ones wearing suits and ties, that pose the most serious threat. Around 11pm, a majority of House Republicans voted to reject free and fair election results from Arizona two hours later, as a weary nation slept, a similar number refused to accept results from Pennsylvania. Then, with the marble corridors still stained with blood, 147 elected Republicans maneuvered across broken glass only to vote with the insurrectionists.
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