“No, Biden and Trump are not alike on election legitimacy”

CNN’ column by John Harwood:

In other words, Trump unsuccessfully sought to replace a legitimate election outcome with an illegitimate one; his allies aim to improve the chances of succeeding next time. Biden sought safeguards against illegitimate outcomes in elections to come.

White House in cleanup mode after President Biden’s marathon news conference 04:27That doesn’t make the current President’s comments about 2022 wise. To begin with, every contemporary and historical marker of political conditions points toward a fair and legitimate Republican victory even if none of the new state-level GOP laws had passed….

“There is a point at which voter suppression is so extreme it would call the legitimacy of the election into question,” observed Rick Hasen, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California-Irvine School of Law. “But none of these laws come close to that.”

Republican steps toward “election subversion” — making it easier for partisan officials to change outcomes by disqualifying legal votes — pose a greater threat. That looms larger in the 2024 presidential contest, however, when states certify the winners of their electoral votes.The hazard of warning about “illegitimate” elections lies in eroding public confidence and weakening the democratic processes Biden wants to strengthen. At the same time, Trump and his Republican allies plainly intend to weaken them.”

Democrats are right to complain about both voter suppression and election subversion,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor who worked on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration during the Obama administration. “But we need to be very careful about how we use words like ‘illegitimate.’

“How do you sound the alarm without questioning outcomes? That’s very difficult. But it’s a critical needle to thread right now.”

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