Only about half of Americans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be counted accurately, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, though that’s an improvement from about 4 in ten saying that before the 2020 Presidential election. (St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2022)
When did this dominant pessimism about the casting of ballots really take hold in the American psyche? According to Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire it started with an off-the-cuff remark made by Donald Trump at a campaign rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, August 1, 2016. “I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest.”
There’s a good reason that the votes for the 2016 Presidential Election were not challenged, as the future President threatened to do: Trump won. As soon as the Electoral Vote declared Donald Trump the winner, the foreboding that the election would be rigged magically disappeared.
True, President Trump did set up an Election Commission, led by Kansas Secretary of State Mike Kobach, to determine why the President had not won the popular vote, which, according to Trump, was because so many unqualified voters, for example immigrants, had been allowed to vote. The Commission’s real fame emerged from Kobach’s demand that certain states release the names and social security numbers of its voters. Outrage came especially from Republican-led states New Hampshire and Mississippi. The Secretary of State of Mississippi made headlines when he said, “My reply would be: they can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from” (44).
These words remind us that the Republican Party was not always a mouthpiece for claims of voter fraud. The Election Commission, lacking cooperation, quietly disbanded in January 2018 without even reporting its findings. It was only forced by a lawsuit led by Maine’s secretary of state to disclose its findings: there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election.
But the barn gate of suspicion had been opened, and the cattle began to leave the barn. In the spring of 2020, the President began to lay groundwork for a possible defeat. He complained about policies of mail-in voting in Michigan and California. In September he declared, “Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of cheaters” (122).
Then, on election night, before all those mail ballots were counted, the President went on television to say, “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election”(119). And the great disillusionment with democracy was born.
With 65 lawsuits vindicating the 2020 elections in multiple states, Americans are still disillusioned. All because of a sore loser, a man who has never gracefully accepted defeat. Even when his television reality show The Apprentice and its spinoff, Celebrity Apprentice, was nominated nine times for an Emmy but never won, he accused that process of being rigged. It was a practiced litany for a man who hated losing so much, he would invent stories to explain why he had lost.
Because of this character flaw, half of the country has lost faith in democracy. Seldom has one man’s suspicions so infected a nation. Rumors of voter fraud crop up in every corner of the country, and investigations prove them groundless. Still half the survey respondents of our most recent national poll doubt that the votes in the upcoming election will be counted accurately.
The cause of this nagging disillusionment falls directly on Donald Trump, but its persistence is a mystery. What glaring voting malpractice keeps us up at night? Why are we so fatalistic about elections that are still on the horizon? Why is our doubt so widespread? 52% of those polled believe American democracy is not working well.
Possibly the January 6 Congressional hearings have contributed to disillusionment. We have heard how Congressional representatives have contributed to the assault on the Capitol, how the President instigated the violence. We have seen attorneys trying to prevent the Vice President from executing his Constitutional responsibility. We have seen Presidential staff dodging subpoenas, one convicted of contempt of Congress. It is a disillusioning spectacle, and yet only a few Oath-keepers have gone to jail so far.
Some disillusionment is warranted. Yet the overriding fatalism about democracy is a depressing outcome. We are approaching a pivotal, if only midterm, election, and people are poised to vote with their feet. Election by abstention.
The election of election-deniers is a tragic potential of this negativism. We could perpetuate the outcome we are all dreading. The election of anti-democracy skeptics combined with the election protests of anyone who is not elected. Election-year voter dropouts may create a self-fulfilling prophecy. We elect those who have little faith in democracy. We continue to reject the results of the polling of votes, and the great disillusionment persists.
The only response to election-deniers is to vote, and vote for candidates that affirm their belief in democracy. This is less about partisan support and more about saving the best governing system in the 21st century. Election deniers have no business in office, just as obese people have no business sponsoring weight-reducing diets.
Vote for candidates who gracefully accept the results of elections, not for the deniers. Vote to bring down the cynics who reject our system of conferring power on deserving candidates. Vote as an act of faith in democracy.
Marcus Aurelius is credited with saying, “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” When you vote on November 8, you will be denying the deniers. You will take Marcus’ advice, as well as the anonymous advice of another Latin immortal:
(“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”)