Donald Trump’s Big Lie continues to damage democracy at every level. Its most prominent effect may have been the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, but it has seeped down to damage the execution of state and local elections. The Republican-led commission of Otero County, New Mexico, is refusing to certify primary election results because its Big Lie-believing commissioners don’t trust the Dominion voting machines used in the county.
Democratic New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver is asking the state Supreme Court to require the Otero County Commission to certify the primary results. Commissioners have said they don’t trust the machines and want a hand recount of the paper ballots, but they haven’t raised any specific concerns about discrepancies. They just heard that Dominion is bad, because that was a key point in conspiracy theories ginned up to explain away Trump’s 2020 loss, and they’re running with it.
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“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”
Not only are her concerns purely based on lies about the machines, not on any specific claim that anything went wrong in her county, but her demand—and the commission’s—is in violation of state and federal law, according to County Clerk Robyn Holmes, a Republican.
“The election law does not allow me to hand tally these ballots or to even form a board to do it. I just can’t,” Holmes said Monday. “And I’m going to follow the law.”
The Dominion tabulation machines, which are owned by the state, were tested in public in advance of the primary, as well as being independently certified. That’s not good enough for the Republican commissioners, because, said Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin, a member of the commission, “That’s a source that we don’t have any control or influence over.” Partisan officials not having control or influence over the operation of voting tabulation machines is, of course, a good thing—and the point of having them independently certified. The fact that Griffin objects to not having any control or influence over the function of the voting machines is kinda telling.
For her part, Marquardt is not worried about the possibility of a court intervening in the commission’s illegal actions, saying, “And so then what? They’re going to send us to the pokey?”
I mean … could someone take that as a dare? Please? Once again a Republican attempting to undermine democracy and delegitimize an election is making clear that they do not fear any accountability. Republicans love to talk about a “culture of accountability” when it comes to poor people and pregnant people and student debt, but when it comes to their own unlawful behavior they think the very concept of accountability is a joke. That needs to change.
We talk to expert Brandi Buchman about everything you need to know for the Jan. 6 committee, hearings, and investigation on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast
Republicans up and down the ballot are embracing Trump’s Big Lie—one that for Trump originated because he’s a sore loser who couldn’t accept that President Joe Biden beat him like a drum, but that is becoming dominant in the Republican Party out of a combination of loyalty to Trump personally and the realization that, hey, Republicans could gain a lot of power by dispensing with that whole democracy thing and just seizing power wherever and whenever they can get away with it. In this specific instance, it’s up to the New Mexico Supreme Court and other authorities to prevent the Otero County commissioners from getting away with it. Beyond Otero County, it’s got to be an all-hands-on-deck situation. Either you’re for democracy and you’re working to safeguard it and against the people trying to dismantle it, or you’re helping to end democracy as we have known it in the United States.
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