"No Doubt" Trump and His Allies Will Attempt to Overturn a Harris Win. Here's How Democrats Are Preparing
A GOP attempt to overturn the election result is expected to be more sophisticated this time round. Democrats say their defense is too.
The rapid rise of Vice President Kamala Harris has calmed her party’s greatest fear about 2024. She could attract enough votes to beat Donald Trump.
But that, in turn, has elevated another fear lurking in the shadows long before President Joe Biden abandoned his quest for re-election this summer. If Harris attracts enough votes to win, can she get them accurately counted and certified?
For most of modern US history, that question would have never been asked. But the behavior of Trump and Republican allies after the 2020 election, culminating in the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, has made it a clear and present danger ever since.
Democracy advocates express cautious optimism that they can fend off the threat as they did four years ago. But once more, they’ll have to prove it.
“There is no doubt,” says Jess Marsden, a lawyer with the non-partisan group Protect Democracy, “that Republican Party activists are going to use the court system to try to bring about President Trump’s return to power.”
Memories of last time remain fresh. After losing the popular vote by 7 million ballots to Biden and the Electoral College 306-232, Trump tried to subvert the results with false allegations of voter fraud in individual battleground states.
After courts turned him away, Trump tried to block the tabulation of the electoral votes that Biden had legitimately won. Most House Republicans and eight Senate Republicans joined his objections even after the violence on Jan. 6.
Only after Vice President Mike Pence withstood fierce pressure from Trump – and despite threats from a violent mob that had earlier erected a gallows outside the Capitol – did the constitutional process of affirming Biden’s victory reach its appropriate conclusion.
From that day onward, lawyers for the Democratic Party and pro-democracy organizations have planned for 2024. They expect a more sophisticated and strategic Republican challenge than Trump’s ramshackle 2020 effort.
“We are much better able to withstand the threat than we were four years ago because we’re prepared,” says Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice. “But the risk level is also higher.”
How Dems Are Preparing
Part of the preparation has been political.