Something Wicked This Way Comes: The GQP Primary For Secretary of State

Heather Digby Parton explains, It’s not voter suppression, stupid. The GOP’s new — and old — weapon is vote nullification (excerpt):

[T]he civil rights groups and Democratic Party officials who have been fighting for the right to vote for years don’t have a lot of experience dealing with this specific type of assault on the franchise. Voter suppression is sadly familiar in American political life. Vote nullification, however, is not. And that’s what all these new laws and regulations are designed to do. If the vote doesn’t go their way, they are putting mechanisms in place to simply nullify the results through a complex set of “legal” maneuvers.

We saw this earlier this year right here in Arizona. As I posted at the time, Authoritarian Rethuglicans Propose The Most Blatant Voter Disenfranchisement Bill Ever (Updated) (excerpt):

Now comes along the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, former litigation chief for the “Kochtupus” Death Star the Goldwater Institute, Rep. Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix), who wants to reclaim the power of the state legislature, which she apparently assumes will always be GOP-controlled, to elect presidential electors regardless of the popular vote of the citizens of the state. The will of the voters be damned.

Bolick’ s bill seeks to amend A.R.S. §16-650, among other provisions of law, but somehow overlooked A.R.S. §16-212.

Had this bill been in effect in 2020, it would have facilitated Donald Trump’s theft of Arizona’s electoral votes because you can rest assured that Trump’s sycophant supporters in the Arizona legislature would have voted to award him the state’s presidential electors regardless of the outcome of the popular vote of the citizens. The will of the voters be damned.

Why even hold an election then? This is GOP authoritarian fascism writ large.

* * *

The chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill January 27 that would allow the Legislature to override the secretary of state’s certification of the state’s electoral votes.

HB 2720 (.pdf), sponsored by Rep. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, says the Legislature “retains its legislative authority regarding the office of presidential elector” and can, by a simple majority vote, at any time before the inauguration of a new president, revoke the certification regardless of whether the Legislature is in regular or special session or has held hearings on the matter.

Bolick’s bill would also make it easier to contest the results of an election by not letting a court dismiss a challenge or enter a summary judgment until after a jury trial, and limiting the circumstances under which laches, a legal doctrine dealing with unreasonable delay in filing a suit, can be used to dismiss election challenges.

It would require at least 10 members of the general public who live in a county be chosen by lot and allowed to observe recounts, and it would require continuous video coverage of recounts, with the live feed clearly displaying the ballots being counted and the electronic screens being used by the Electronic Vote Adjudication Board.

Luckily this anti-democratic vote nullification bill died without even getting a committee hearing, because of all the bad publicity it received in the media.

But wait! Shawna Bolick is not done. This wannabe vote nullifier is going to run for Secretary of State so that she is in a position to do exactly what her anti-democratic vote nullification bill would have done.

State rep @Bolick4AZ has a kick-off event for an “entirely new campaign” on June 21. Social media comments suggest she’ll be running for secretary of state. pic.twitter.com/LhFFToVlYq

— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) June 14, 2021

Rep. Shawna Bolick joins the GQP’s Queen of Voter Suppression, Sen. Michelle Ugenti Rita, and seditious insurrectionist  Rep. Mark Finchem, a leader of “Stop The Steal” in Arizona, in the GQP primary for Secretary of State.

The Three Stooges of voter suppression and sedition.

It is absolutely critical that no Republican be elected to Secretary of State in 2022. This is how they plan to steal the election in 2024. As Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post explains, This is the Republicans’ back-up plan in case they can’t suppress enough votes.