As former President Donald Trump seriously considers another run for the White House in 2024, GOP supporters are attempting to make it easier to overturn election results, experts say.
Trump claimed for months after Joe Biden unseated him -- and continues to claim -- that election results were 'rigged' against him although after many legal challenges he and his team were never able to produce proof.
This time around, Trump and his GOP cronies are attempting to pull levers in key states like Georgia and Arizona that would make it easier for partisan office-holders to refuse to certify results they don't like. Jessica Marsden, counsel to an organization called Protect Democracy, called it "fundamentally at odds with the basic rules of democracy."
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But attempts are spreading. Voting Rights Lab reported that so-called subversion bills that give elected officials rights to refuse results they don't agree with have 'been enacted or seen significant momentum' in battleground states Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
Sixteen states are also considering laws that create new felony and misdemeanor charges that criminalize "even inadvertent, technical noncompliance with election rules," the report said. The AP reported one provision would create a fine of up to $10,000 for a “technical infraction” and unintentional mistakes like opening a polling place a few minutes late.
“It’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables and people make mistakes, and now I’m liable for all those mistakes,” election auditor Joel Miller told The Associated Press. “The process could be likewise corrupted by the secretary of state arbitrarily administering the law in a very uneven manner, depending on whether you’re a Democratic county or a Republican county.”
Megan Lewis, executive director of the Voting Rights Lab, summed up the concerns by saying too many states are "advancing legislation to undermine confidence in our elections and weaken the resiliency of our voting systems."