Can American Democracy be Saved?

 

We have reached the point where there is real question whether U.S. Democracy can be saved.  And worse yet, the conventional answer everywhere I see is no, it is too late.

Democrats are lazy and sluggish, basking in the glow of victory, confident that, since we have removed Trump from office, the country is safe.  Republicans furious, highly mobilized in all red and swing states, setting out to ensure that Democrats can never win another election. Among Republicans, assuring that the electoral mechanism if fully rigged is an all consuming passion at all levels of the party.  Among Democrats, it is a concern whispered about among a handful of insiders, but not yet reaching the general public.  Public talk is instead about infrastructure, child support credits and the like.  THE ISSUES ARE NOT THE ISSUE!  PRESERVATION OF DEMOCRACY IS!

Republicans are installing safeguards at multiple levels to guard against ever allowing a Democratic victory.  

First, and attracting most attention, are bills to restrict access to the vote, especially for minority voters who generally support Democrats.  Laws are being proposed and some passed to limit mail-in voting and early voting, to restrict drop boxes, shorten voting hours, limit voting drives, tighten voter ID requirements, increase voting roll purges, etc.  A predictable result of this would be long lines on election day, particularly in urban and minority communities which vote heavily Democratic.  But there is doubt as to how restrictions like these actually affect voter turnout.  In at least some cases, the perception of attempted suppression inspired minority voters to turn out at increased rates.  

In case these restrictions fail to deter enough Democrats from voting, other safeguards are being installed.  Voting officials are being subject to criminal penalties if they allow anyone greater access than the law allows, an none for denying voters lawful access.  The result will be to encourage a strong bias against access.  Other laws make it easier to challenge elections, and easier for courts to overturn the outcome.  

But most alarming are the attempts to change vote counting.  Up until now, vote counting has been ministerial.  County Clerks and Secretaries of State are partisan elected officials, but their role has been to count votes and certify the outcome, regardless of whether their side wins.  In Georgia, a Republican Secretary of State who certified Biden as the winner is facing a primary challenge.  In Michigan, the Republican on the election board who voted to certify Biden as winner is being removed.  In Arizona, the legislature is shifting the role in defending election integrity from the Democratic Secretary of State to the Republican Attorney General -- until then end of their current terms.  After the next election, Republicans will presumably switch that responsibility to a Republican office holder, regardless of the office.  Georgia and Arkansas have passed laws increasing power of the (partisan) legislature or election board in determining election results.  Candidates claiming vote fraud are running for Secretary of State in key swing states.  

The same article notes that Secretaries of State have limited power to overturn elections, and more power to create the perception of fraud:

[S]ecretaries of state often play ministerial roles in election certification and vote counting, with more direct oversight of the process falling to local county and city election clerks. That means that functional risk of electing pro-Trump election truthers as secretaries of state could be lower than many perceive.

 But this gives me no comfort.  All it means is that Republicans may have one more level of power to attack before they can guarantee a monopoly on power.  Suppose one or more Trumpist Secretaries of State try to overturn an election that a Democrat won, only to learn that the actual vote counting was cony by County Clerks and cannot be changed at the state level.  What is the obvious response by Republicans?  Why to run a bunch of Trumpist county clerks who will throw away (say) one-third of all Democratic votes in their counties.  Given the rural-urban split in this country, and given that counties are drawn up based on geography rather than population, it should be an easy matter for a large enough number of county clerks to rig the election to ensure that on Republicans can win.  And a Democratic Secretary of State would have great difficulty overriding them.