The power of the ballot box is guaranteed only to those who can demand and deliver 11,780 votes. The slow motion coup continues.
PHOENIX — With Tuesday’s primary victories in Arizona and Michigan added to those in Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who have disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and who pose a threat to subvert the next one are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run in several battleground states.
Running in a year in which G.O.P. voters are energized by fierce disapproval of President Biden, these newly minted Republican nominees for secretary of state and governor present a growing risk to the nation’s traditions of nonpartisan elections administration, acceptance of election results and orderly transfers of power.
Each has spread falsehoods about fraud and illegitimate ballots, endorsing the failed effort to override the 2020 results and keep former President Donald J. Trump in power. Their history of anti-democratic impulses has prompted Democrats, democracy experts and even some fellow Republicans to question whether these officials would oversee fair elections and certify winners they didn’t support.
There is no question that victories by these candidates in November could lead to sweeping changes to how millions of Americans vote. Several have proposed eliminating mail voting, ballot drop boxes and even the use of electronic voting machines, while empowering partisan election observers and expanding their roles.
Still, money has poured into some races for bureaucratic posts. Fund-raising by candidates for secretary of state in six battleground states has already topped $16 million, more than double that in the same time period of the previous cycle, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The analysis found that the fund-raising race so far appears to slightly favor candidates running against election deniers.
The next big test comes next week in Wisconsin, where Republican candidates for governor have vowed to overhaul the state’s election system in response to unfounded claims about problems in 2020. All of the major GOP candidates in the race have pledged to eliminate the Wisconsin Elections Commission , a bipartisan agency that oversees state elections. It was created by Republicans in 2015, but the party turned on it after commissioners issued guidance that made voting easier during the pandemic.
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If nothing else, this primary season has shown that, for many Republicans, denying 2020’s election results is the price for entry. A Washington Post analysis in June found that more than 100 Republican primary winners have backed former president Donald Trump’s false election claims.
That number is likely to grow quite a bit after all the results from Tuesday are in — particularly in Arizona, which has become a hotbed for election denial.
Results are still being counted in some races, but it’s possible that candidates who back Trump’s false claims of election fraud could win nominations to four of Arizona’s top positions: governor, U.S. Senate, secretary of state and attorney general.
Election denier Blake Masters won the GOP’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Arizona on Tuesday. Arizona Republicans also nominated Mark Finchem for secretary of state. He is a leading driver of the false idea that the election was stolen in Arizona’s second-largest county, Pima County.
The GOP primary for Arizona governor is too close to call, but it’s possible that voters will choose Kari Lake, another Trump-backed, unapologetic denier of the 2020 election results, who said that if she were elected, she would try to get rid of voting machines and vote by mail — even though most Arizonans vote that way.
Results are still coming in for the Republican primary for Arizona attorney general, but the winner is likely to be one of two candidates who have embraced election denial.
Whether these candidates win the general election in November, in a state that voted for Joe Biden, is another question. Republicans are justifiably worried that Masters is too polarizing to overthrow the well-known (and well-funded) Sen. Mark Kelly (D). “Whatever their cheating capacity is, I’m pretty sure they pulled out all the stops,” Masters said of the 2020 election.
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