{"id":1652368,"date":"2022-09-22T03:32:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T07:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652368"},"modified":"2022-09-22T03:33:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T07:33:31","slug":"republicans-using-the-democratic-process-to-win-local-elections-threatens-democracy-says-nyt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-using-the-democratic-process-to-win-local-elections-threatens-democracy-says-nyt\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Using The Democratic Process To Win Local Elections Threatens Democracy, Says NYT"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frepublicans-using-the-democratic-process-to-win-local-elections-threatens-democracy-says-nyt%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652368&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m starting to wonder what\u2019s wrong at The New York Times because the paper keeps telling the truth about some of my favorite topics. <\/p>\n<p>First, it was the admission that Ron DeSantis is an <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/09\/09\/democrats-arent-divisive-theyre-desperate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">exceptionally skilled public executive<\/a>. Now the Times is breaking the emergency glass to alert its audience that local Republican officials are creating election systems to \u2014\u00a0wait for it \u2014\u00a0document potentially invalid votes!<\/p>\n<p>They clearly don\u2019t mean to excite avid readers like me, but we\u2019ll take it. The Times website on Wednesday posted a nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/09\/21\/opinion\/republicans-democracy-elections-bannon.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">30-minute-long video<\/a> blowing the lid off of, as the paper called it, \u201cthe completely legal GOP plot to destroy American democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Having eagerly waited for someone of authority to explain in detail just how Republicans might end everything by stealing future elections, I was more than ready to watch something that might truly demonstrate the cynical means by which this could happen.<\/p>\n<p>What reporter Johnny Harris ultimately came up with is that after the 2020 election, newly engaged Republicans at the micro-level started running for local offices that had long since been held by the laziest of politicians, or otherwise Democrats who knew just how important those positions really are: local secretaries of state, election board seats, precinct captains, and so on.<\/p>\n<p>Those are the offices that control how votes are accepted, tallied, and organized. Mind you, all of the positions require the holders to be elected by the public. What\u2019s that word again for \u201cfree and fair elections\u201d? I can\u2019t think of it right now, but Harris said it amounted to a \u201cre-rigging\u201d of the process.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, then, what\u2019s so terrifying for people like Harris \u2014 he literally says in the video over and over again how \u201cscared\u201d this makes him \u2014 is that there is a strong new movement of formerly apathetic citizens now interested in ensuring that someone is <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/01\/06\/j6-hysteria-is-how-media-and-other-democrats-are-avoiding-accountability-for-their-rigging-of-the-2020-election\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">closely eyeing the votes.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the video, Harris cautions how they\u2019re all being \u201ctrained\u201d to look for ballots that are possibly invalid, which includes a \u201chotline\u201d to Republican lawyers who can then tell the officials how to proceed if any wrongful votes have been cast. This, Harris says, means there will ultimately be a \u201cpaper trail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No, he did not recite his lines in a dark room with a flashlight under his chin.<\/p>\n<p>But if you aren\u2019t already seized with crippling anxiety about what this means for the future of America, Harris dreamed up a bunch of scenarios wherein these new officeholders indiscriminately target ballots as suspect and gum up the next election. \u201cSo you can imagine,\u201d he says, \u201cthey\u2019re now seeing fraud everywhere they look. And they\u2019re reporting it, swearing that they saw irregularities in the election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, I guess anything\u2019s possible. After the 2018 Democrat gubernatorial nominee in Florida was found passed out, face-down in his own vomit <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/03\/13\/andrew-gillum-caught-in-crystal-meth-overdose-incident\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">while visiting a male escort<\/a>, there\u2019s no scenario in politics that will surprise me. But assuming Harris\u2019s fantasy were to pan out, legitimately or not, the process doesn\u2019t stop there. Donald Trump doesn\u2019t ascend to a throne just because some of his sympathizers on the state level raise a hand. The disputes would invariably be resolved on the left\u2019s preferred playing field:\u00a0the courts.<\/p>\n<p>And recall how that worked out in Republicans\u2019 favor last time. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/election-2020-donald-trump-pennsylvania-elections-talk-radio-433b6efe72720d8648221f405c2111f9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Not very well<\/a>. Though, as Harris notes, last time the GOP didn\u2019t have the \u201cpaper trail.\u201d They didn\u2019t have what Harris describes as a \u201cbody of evidence\u201d that would substantiate their claims. Next time, they very well might.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that is cause for worry among a few people. At least Harris and the Times admit that so far the process of destroying our democracy has been legal and, more importantly, democratic.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Liberal-Misery-Hateful-Everything-Everyone\/dp\/1637584350\">Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone<\/a>.&#8221;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m starting to wonder what\u2019s wrong at The New York Times because the paper keeps telling the truth about some of my favorite topics. First, it was the admission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":493,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1652368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/493"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}