As Trump surrogates suddenly howl about voting machines, election-integrity advocates should proceed with extreme caution. The GOP’s purported outrage likely has “nothing to do with democracy or election integrity...” by @jonathansimon14
1/ https://rsci.app.link/xrW7p5cpjbb?_referrer=twitter&_p=c11430dc9f057af2e31990ffebb3

2/ In stark contrast to Hillary Clinton (who was predicted to win in 2016), almost all polling predicted that Trump wld lose. And the GOP operatives now howling about voting machines “are the same cynics who doubled down on...voter-suppression and disinformation schemes galore.”

3/ The GOP also relished killing off the #SAFEAct, which would have required robust manual election audits to confirm the legitimacy of electronic totals.

(Note: Reference to HRC in post 2 & to the #SAFEAct here are from me; I hope Jonathan won’t object) https://thehill.com/homenews/house/482569-senate-gop-blocks-three-election-security-bills

4/ “It is worthy of note that Trump has never stopped claiming that there were ‘millions of illegal voters’ who cost him the popular vote victory in 2016 — without ever producing a shred of evidence to substantiate that eternally repeated claim.” https://link.medium.com/0PNzuOBujbb 

5/ “In fact, he slapped together an Electoral Integrity “Commission” to ferret out the fraudsters and then disbanded it without so much as a Report.”

6/ “And it is further worthy of note that Trump’s current strategy is not about actually overturning enough votes to win election legitimately. His own aides have acknowledged that is impossible. Rather it is fixed on delaying certification past the applicable deadlines.”

7/ “The law favors delay and Team Trump knows it. His plan is to prevent certification of 270 Biden electoral votes by tying up several state processes in court past the state deadlines (the “hard” one being 12/14, when the Electoral College votes on slates) and then...

8/ ....either importuning friendly state legislatures (the GOP controls GA, WI, MI, PA, and AZ) to send Trump elector slates to Congress, or simply throwing the election to the House, ...

9/ ... where the GOP controls the majority of state delegations (under the Twelfth Amendment, the House votes for president by state delegation) so Trump wins.”

“Does that look like democracy or electoral integrity to you? To me it looks like yet another right-wing scheme to steal an election — and haven’t we been through (and been irreparably harmed by) enough of those? Don’t kid yourselves — this is a clear and present danger.” 10/

“So I think we should examine what’s going on now in context.” 11/

“Yes, our electoral system” needs “serious reform. And yes, no Democrat, since The Help America Vote Act (2002) ushered in the Computerized Voting Era, has challenged the system’s non-transparency or the parade of red flags that that non-transparency has given rise to.” 12/

“But Trump has no intention of pursuing a genuine investigation bent on bringing transparency to the system. He is interested in the welfare of no one and nothing other than Donald J. Trump — not his party, not his nation, not its voters.” 13/

“That has been demonstrated beyond any disputing. He will lie. He will falsely accuse. He might even commit fraud as part of his desperate putsch.” 14/

“I think our responsibility is not to join the Ds & media in chanting how wonderful & legitimate our electoral system is. We know better than anyone that it is not. But our responsibility is to keep careful watch over the delay-scam that Trump is now setting in motion...” 15/

“So far Trump has failed for lack of evidence in virtually every case he has taken to court, some before highly partisan right-leaning judges.” 16/

“We can let that process play out (it is infinitely more than Kerry or Clinton or Ossoff or Coakley or any Democrat-of-note with the exception of Al Franken has ever ventured).” 17/

But election-integrity advocates “don’t have to and shouldn’t provide more anecdotal or ambiguous forensic fuel to a desperate man who has utter contempt for fact and evidence, or to the party that yet again is riding cynical shotgun for him.” 18/

“It’s not that we — as Democrats, Progressives, or EI advocates — ‘won.’ Given the polls and the control of the equipment, and given all the other outcomes (from Senate to House to state legislatures), Democrats are hardly the “winners” of this election.” 19/