Ed Pilkington in The Guardian:
Fears are rising that the vote count in November’s presidential election could be disrupted as a result of the proliferation of Donald Trump’s lies about stolen elections and rampant voter fraud in the key swing states where the race for the White House will be decided.
A new survey of eight vital swing states reveals that at least 239 election deniers who have signed up to Trump’s “election integrity” conspiracy theories – including the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him – are actively engaged in electoral battles this year. The deniers are standing for congressional or state seats, holding Republican leadership positions, and overseeing elections on state and county election boards.
The report by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), a watchdog group focusing on special interests distorting US democracy, reveals the extent of denial in the eight critical states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It shows that corrosive efforts to damage public confidence in elections have proliferated there despite the drubbing the election denial movement received in the 2022 midterms.
Among the deniers identified by CMD are: 50 Republicans running for Congress; six vying for state executive offices; 81 leaders of local Republican organizations; and 102 current members of state and county election boards. They have all backed attempts to delegitimize elections even to the point, in some cases, of participating in the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
“What was striking to us about our research is how much election denialism and the voter fraud lie have infiltrated and taken over the Republican apparatus in each of these critical states,” said CMD’s executive director Arn Pearson….
CMD’s most disturbing finding is that there are more than 100 election deniers currently sitting on election boards that can influence the way the vote is counted and certified. The boards span 61 counties across all eight swing states.
Deniers wield majority power on the election boards in 14 of those counties. Six are concentrated in just one state – Pennsylvania, the swing state which perhaps more than any other is seen by both campaigns as the path to the White House….
Rick Hasen, an authority on election law at UCLA law school, said that the new research highlighted how election denial had become an article of faith on the right. “To show you are a loyal Trumpist Republican, you have to claim the last election was stolen.”
Hasen added that though there was potential for chaos and delays in the vote count as a result of the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the electoral system was now better prepared. The 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act has clarified the process of certifying electoral college votes in the presidential race, making it more difficult for trouble to be sowed either at the state level or in Congress.
“Trump is laying the groundwork to contest the election and deligitimize a Democratic victory, but it’s going to be harder for him to mess with the rules this time,” Hasen said.
You can find the CRM report here.