The emergence of a second protected witness complicates efforts by Donald Trump and his Republican supporters to dismiss the complaint as politically motivated hearsay and may strengthen the Democrats’ case against himIn Michigan’s Macomb County, the Republican head of the board that will certify November’s election results called on former US President Donald Trump to fight to stay in power after his election loss in 2020.
In all, Reuters documented 37 election skeptics on the election boards of the five most populous counties in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – including 20 who have voted in the past to not certify results. Many smaller county boards in those states also include election deniers. Wisconsin was the only swing state whose big county election boards appeared free of such skeptics.
Trump’s efforts to undo his 2020 loss culminated in his supporters’ bloody attack of Jan. 6, 2021, on the US Capitol. The rioters attempted to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Trump still won’t admit that he lost in 2020 and has refused to commit to accepting the results this year. Some election-law experts express hope that Congress, regardless of which party prevails, will ultimately adhere to norms and rebuff any attempts to overturn the results, as it did in 2020. But they fear that false claims of fraud and disputes over the results could spark widespread unrest.
In Georgia – a focus of Trump’s efforts to upend the 2020 result – Trump allies on the State Election Board this year passed new rules which might allow certification delays so that local election officials could investigate fraud. Democrats have sued to block the rules. Last month, the board said all ballots would have to be hand-counted; Democrats have sued to block that rule, too.
Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, says his office is bracing for trouble, including efforts to hold up certification. “We’ll use any legal means necessary,” Fontes said in an interview, including court actions. “The election deniers, they don’t care what the law says.”In the US election system, voting is run and results counted by local governments, usually counties.
Linda Rebuck, a Republican election board member in North Carolina’s Henderson County, sent an email in August to Republican legislators saying that, without new measures to combat fake voters, “we are going to lose NC to the Dems in November which will likely mean we lose the country.” The counties – Berks, Lancaster and Fayette, which all have majorities of Republican voters – ultimately certified the results after a two-month delay. In Luzerne County, where voters are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, an election board in 2022 at first deadlocked but later voted to certify in the face of a lawsuit and media attention.