The Topical One

A new, (possibly) semi-regular GGF feature that looks from multiple angles at an aspect of governing and governance currently making headlines. Today's episode: Elections

With the Iowa caucuses taking place Monday, Jan. 15, the basic function of counting votes and declaring electoral winners and losers now sits top of mind. Restoring faith in that process is fundamental to restoring faith in government. Which, in case you need it spelled out for you, is kind of a problem.

This depressing chart brought to you by political consultant Bruce Mehlman. More fun charts from Mehlman can be found here. His summary statement on looking ahead to 2024? Rarely has trust been in greater demand and shorter supply.

What better place than Iowa, that bastion of good ol’ Midwestern common sense, to begin the difficult journey of convincing Americans those in positions of trust to conduct free and fair elections are worthy of their confidence? So much good soil, so many good people and a State Fair that features the Butter Cow and deep-fried bacon brisket mac-n-cheese grilled cheese.

Wrong, ethanol breath.

In a Jan. 9 piece titled An Election About Elections, Chris Stirewalt, one of my favorite journalists who writes about election stuff, puts it this way: “To a degree maybe not seen since the 1960s, the campaign will be about elections themselves. Then, it was voting rights for black Americans; now, it will be about the casting and counting of votes—about the process itself.”

And the process in Iowa is fraught, to say the least. It came as quite the surprise to me when I found out that Democrats won’t actually be caucusing in Iowa. (You may recall they had some issues in 2020.) The Iowa Caucus used to be that most American of electoral processes: speeches by regular folks in gyms, churches, and libraries in an attempt to persuade their neighbors to support their guy/gal. Caucus-goers would also write resolutions to begin the process of assembling their party’s platform. It makes me think of this Norman Rockwell classic, Freedom of Speech.

This year, Iowa Democrats will be voting by mail and waiting weeks for results. And in case you haven’t heard, President Biden isn’t the only candidate in the Democrat nominating process. (Say hello to U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips. Seriously. Listen to this interview with him, I beg of you.)

Not surprisingly, the Republican process is different but just as troublesome. From the Stirewalt piece:

The first controversy: Who will be allowed in.

Party rules hold that while the caucuses are just for Republicans, party switchers can make the change that night, and unregistered voters can sign up at the scene. An all-volunteer team spread out across 99 counties will have to process the petitioners and resolve their own disputes.

Then after speeches from campaign representatives, in most places voters will be given only blank slips of paper on which to record their preferences which are then interpreted and tallied, precinct by precinct. All told, the process can take three hours or more. Then the state party tabulates the results and, sometime late in the night, declares a winner. Gee, what could go wrong? If Trump underperforms by any significant margin, which would mean getting a plurality of the vote rather than an outright majority, things will surely get ugly.

OK. Iowa may be problematic. But surely those flinty New Englanders in New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first primary, haven’t succumbed to the kind of newfangled pig slop about to get dished out in Iowa.

Sigh.

Democrats in New Hampshire will hold their voting Jan. 23, the same day as Republicans. Because that is earlier than the national party sanctioned, Biden’s name won’t be on the ballot and the winner won’t receive delegates toward the nomination. What? How is the freaking incumbent president’s name not on the ballot?

Per a Jan. 9 Wall Street Journal article on the nominating clustermalarky: “Biden personally asked that South Carolina be the party’s first nominating contest. The state saved his struggling 2020 primary campaign after he performed poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

Republicans have been doing the same kind of thumb-on-the-scale machinations in other states. From the Journal article: “(T)he Trump campaign said it helped influence party officials in some states, including California, to change their rules so the former president can accumulate delegates more quickly. In Nevada, party officials close to Trump opted to award delegates through a caucus instead of the state-mandated primary because, they said, its in-person format mitigates election-security concerns. Critics said voters would be confused and Trump will benefit because the type of engaged voters who support Trump also favor in-person caucuses.”

You gotta figure litigation is coming once results are tallied and the losing candidates decide to fight back. Unfortunately, the idea of elections being constantly litigated is something we may have to get used to. Any reader not currently living under a rock understands there is already significant litigation under way before any votes have been cast. Two states disqualified former president Trump to be on the ballot because of the riot/protest/insurrection/tourist activity on Jan. 6, 2001. Understandably, the Trump campaign is fighting those decisions (along with a couple dozen others) in court. We’ll undoubtedly have the U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on those actions.

Regarding that litigation, my favorite political/literary podcast, America This Week, weighed in on the big picture implications of election litigation. (Regular readers may recall the hosts, reporter Matt Taibbi and writer Walter Kirn, offered scathing — but on-target, IMO — critiques of the way government officials handled the Maui wildfires in my Politics Vs. Governance post.)

They discussed the cases where state officials decided Trump committed insurrection on Jan. 6 and thus isn’t eligible to be placed on the ballot per the 14th Amendment, and the legal fights that have naturally ensued.

Said Matt:

“(T)hat places us in this realm where elections are going to be decided really by courts, and everybody hates that. I don’t know any normal people who wouldn’t hate that. And if you look, even (independent candidate) Cornell West came out a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘Donald Trump’s a gangster and a fascist, but courts can’t decide elections.’ (Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) put out a big statement. He’s like, ‘I want to win, but not this way.’ The ordinary person, I think will look at this, no matter what their politics are, no matter what they think about Donald Trump, and they’re going to think that this looks like cheating. And so no matter what the outcome of this is, you’re going to end up with a furious electorate at the end of it. And I don’t see the play. It brings into question this whole lawfare mechanism that has developed at this fantastic rate since Trump became president.

“And I guess we have to start thinking about, is that really how the country is run now is through these little bureaucracies and lawsuits and lawyers, or do elections still matter? I don’t know. A lot of complicated questions here. I feel like there are so many different lawsuits and smoke-filled room decisions going on that are affecting what otherwise is something that used to be satisfying because it was clean and obvious.”

Oh, how I long for the day of satisfying elections where all reasonable folks believed the results reported by election officials because the process was “clean and obvious.”

Walter is optimistic SCOTUS will do its part to bring sanity to the process when the appeals inevitably make their way to its courtroom. He thinks the justices will be an in an “F-U mood” because there has been so much discussion about making the court more receptive to the whims of whatever political party is in power at the moment.

Said Walter:

“There’s been a trend to force them into a corner kind of. And it’s been going on for a while now. There’s a lot of pressure on the court. There’s a lot of question about whether maybe someday they’ll need to have more members, et cetera. And they’re being forced to do the dirty work, or at least make decisions that will increasingly place them at the pinnacle of political power such that ultimately maybe Supreme Court nominees will be seen as the presidents of the United States.

“I think they’re going to resist being trapped in this fashion. I don’t think they want to have to rule every election year on 10 different things so the election can go forward in any normal way. So I don’t expect them to be generally friendly to this overall movement to make them have to adjudicate every little thing about elections.”

Lord, I hope he’s right.

Back to Matt’s comment about a “furious electorate” if there are too many unanswered questions about election integrity by the time Election Day rolls around. I fear by then we’ll be too far through the looking glass for some people to accept whatever results are reported in the wee hours of Nov. 5. Take a listen to that Dean Phillips interview I linked to above where he explains how some state parties (like in Florida and North Carolina) just decided to have only one candidate on the primary ballot.

It’s a Good Government Truism that people will go along with a result they don’t agree with IF they believe the process used to get there was fair and reasonable. If it isn’t, then be prepared for all hell to break loose.

Which, to me, seems more and more likely to happen. I’m not the only one. Last week, on Bari Weiss’ podcast Honestly she interviewed several thought-leaders looking ahead to what the new year holds. She brought on Republican pollster Frank Luntz to talk politics. He’s not optimistic either about what’s likely to occur on Election Day if we don’t have “clean and obvious” results. Here’s why:

“Number one, we’re more polarized than we’ve ever been. And it’s polarized in a negative, in an angry, in a vicious, in a mean-spirited way, so that rather than embrace the things we love, we instead embrace and fight the things we hate. Number two, there (are) no limits to what we will say and what we will do; that honesty and integrity are nothing in American politics right now. The people in charge are prepared to say anything and do anything to win. Number three, the most important value in our polling is truth. And I don’t know where to go for it. I don’t know what newspaper to read. I don’t know what TV show to watch to actually get the truth. And number four, we truly define ourselves by those things that we hate most. And so we’re not seeking unity, we’re not seeking a decision. And I can add as an appendix, because it comes right from the TV show Succession. I don’t believe we’re going to even know who won on election day.”

Based on current polling, Luntz believes Trump will win by a margin of maybe 1 percent. Of course, it’s entirely possible Trump loses by 1 percent. That scenario is why Luntz told Bari he doesn’t think “the American people realize that the consequences this time are not like 2016 or 2020. The consequences this time (will) be our American democracy.”

“He won't accept defeat,” Luntz said of Trump. “So he’s going to tell all of his people that he won, and it’s going to be another 40 (percent) or 50 percent of his own voters who will believe he won. And that’s why I believe that democracy is in jeopardy. Because if you can’t confirm within 24 hours of the election who won and who lost, then it’s not a shit show. Then it’s the disintegration of democracy as we know it.”

While I long to be the Ted Lasso of government Substack, right now — on the cusp of this absurd/cray cray/dysfunctional presidential election cycle — it’s really, really hard to maintain a sunny outlook on successfully dealing with the challenge of election integrity. So, the least I can do is leave you with a lovely thought about how to cope. It’s from The Peace of Wild Things¹ by Wendell Berry.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Onward and Upward.

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