Trump Completely Serious About Rigging Elections, Not Pretending To Hide It
Gavin Newsom reminds him there are other big states that could redistrict.
Now that he’s got his authoritarian takeover of the US government well underway, Donald Trump is eagerly embarking on another step in the authoritarian playbook: very openly talking about how he’d like to rig upcoming elections to preserve the thin Republican majority in Congress. No subtlety about it at all. Trump made a call to Republican members of Texas’s congressional delegation yesterday to inform them that the Texas legislature plans to gerrymander the electoral map to create five new Republican-majority districts, and then before boarding Marine One to fly to Pittsburgh, he said Texas would definitely do what he wants.
REPORTER: Are you calling for a complete redrawing of the [Texas] congressional map?
TRUMP: No, just a simple redraw, we pick up five seats. But we have a couple of other states where we’ll pick up seats also.
This administration is so openly and habitually corrupt that we honestly can’t remember whether this is the first time a US president has so openly called for states to gerrymander district maps for partisan advantage. We’re pretty sure it is.
After the helicopter landed at Andrews, Trump was even more eager to share his plans, musing that in addition to redistricting Texas and a “couple other states,” it would actually be good to do the same in more states, like four others, “I’ll let you figure them out.” Isn’t he cute when he plays coy like that?
Asked if he worried that California and other blue states might follow suit and add new Democratic-majority seats, Trump said, without missing a beat, “Well, we’ll fight them, they’re so corrupt in California, you never know what’s gonna happen, but we’ve done pretty well in the courts.”
Redistricting to add Republican seats is just a thing he wants, so it’s OK. California doing that in Democrats’ favor would be corrupt. As far as we can tell, nobody pointed out that looks a teensy bit contradictory. Probably because that would be a very nasty question that only a very evil, stupid person from Fake News would ask.
The potential downside of redistricting for Texas Republicans is that in trying to add five more R-advantage seats in a state where 42 percent of voters went for Kamala Harris last year, a new map might end up including enough Democrats that some solid-R districts would become competitive, especially if the national mood continues shifting away from Trump. like if the economy goes south or people get sick of all the fascism and ethnic cleansing.
As election law expert Rick Hasen, of the UCLA Law School, explained, “There comes the point where you slice the baloney too thin and it backfires.”
Democrats remember very well how the state swung against Republicans in 2018, flipping two congressional seats blue, and adding 12 Democrats in the state House. More competitive districts could be helpful if Trump continues making everyone mad at him.
Texas state Rep. Julie Johnson (D) said Democrats are watching to see just how far Republicans will go, considering that “too damn far” tends to be a thing with these chuds. “We’re waiting to see how greedy they’re trying to be,” she said. “You know the old adage: a pig gets fat and a hog gets butchered. I think the Texas Republicans are pushing the limits on this one.”
And of course, there’s always California. On social media yesterday, Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to news of the impending Texas fuckery by tweeting simply, “Two can play this game.” Whether Newsom and the California Lege would actually do it isn’t clear, but if Republicans try it, it becomes more likely.
But the gerrymandering is only the part of the plan that Trump’s people seem to have told him about. The Washington Post reports today (gift link) that Trump’s Justice Department has been asking states to submit detailed information on voter records and even on their voting machines, because the 2020 election will never be over until the last Trumper draws breath. And good lord, does that fishing expedition stink!
The most unusual activity is happening in Colorado — a state that then-candidate Donald Trump lost by 11 points — where a well-connected consultant who says he is working with the White House is asking county clerks whether they will allow the federal government or a third party to physically examine their election equipment.
On top of that, the DOJ has requested nine states (so far) to hand over copies of their voter rolls; at least two states have complied.
The consultant creeping out Republican county clerks in Colorado is one Jeff Small, who has served as chief of staff to Rep. Lauren Boebert but has not attended any musicals with her, as far as we know.
Small told more than half a dozen GOP county clerks by phone or text that he was working with the Trump administration to ensure the integrity of elections and to advance Trump’s election agenda, county officials told The Washington Post.
“To me, it felt like they were wanting to intervene before 2026,” said Justin Grantham, the Republican clerk in Fremont County.
Five other Republican clerks raised similar concerns.
So far at least, the DOJ inquiries have been pretty fucking weird and seemingly scattershot:
In Colorado, it made a sweeping request for “all records” related to its election. In Alaska, it questioned why no voters had been removed from the rolls for mental incompetence. In several states, it asked detailed questions about the process to remove noncitizens and other ineligible voters from the rolls.
Colorado voting officials are especially wary of Trumpy interference, since they’re still rattled by last year’s election-machine-tampering conviction of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk and recorder who fucked around with election equipment in hopes of winning a matching set of MyPillows, but instead got nine years in prison. The Post notes that this spring, Trump’s DOJ “made an unusual move to assist Peters with her appeal, further worrying election officials.”
Small’s appeals didn’t go over so well with El Paso County Clerk Steve Schleiker. Small said he was working with DOJ and Homeland Security on “election security,” and not long after that, Schleiker said he was called by a DHS official who wanted to have a look at the county’s election equipment, which is not a federal concern outside an actual criminal investigation. Schleiker said the official told him, “We would like to test the voting equipment to see if there’s any gaps,” although Schleiker did not add whether the official added, “nice and friendly-like, see?” Schleiker said nothing doing, so good on him.
As for the DOJ requests for voter rolls, that too is pretty bizarre, and Not Normal. The requests were sent to Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, the Post reports. Colorado and Florida complied, but only handed over information that’s already a matter of public record, like names of voters and which years they’ve voted. But voter rolls also include voters’ Social Security numbers, birthdates, and other information. Trump’s political staff may want that, if only to keep up with what Elon Musk already took with him before feuding with Trump.
As the Post points out, it’s a tad highly irregular: federal law allows the DOJ to make sure states maintain accurate voting lists and that they have nonpartisan ways of removing ineligible voters. But no law authorizes the Justice Department to go trawling through state voter rolls.
Ann Jacobs, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said she worries the federal government could try to use the information to justify new rules that would make it harder to cast ballots.
“Is this a backdoor way to get access to the data that the statutes have said [they’re] not entitled to have?” said Jacobs, a Democrat.
Oh gosh, people are so paranoid! Just because Trump routinely says Democrats are the worst people on Earth, and they hate America and want to destroy it, doesn’t necessarily mean he’d actually do anything untoward like stealing an election! He just wants to keep Democrats from stealing elections themselves, and the best way to be sure is to make sure they can’t vote.
[Texas Tribune / AP / Salon / WaPo (gift link)]
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𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Is there anyone, anywhere, who still thinks that the Republican Party won't steal the upcoming elections and use *A*N*Y* means necessary to hold onto power, including violence?
Interuption for Nice Times
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Thousands of Arizonans now have a financial burden lifted off their shoulders, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced on Wednesday.
According to the governor, $429 million in medical debt has been erased for more than 352,000 Arizonans as part of a partnership between her administration and national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/gov-hobbs-announces-erasure-of-429m-in-medical-debt-for-thousands-of-arizonans/ar-AA1IJnbz