The 2020 order to seize voting machines was drafted, reviewed, and never signed. The president now calls that a mistake–and has just emptied the agency that certifies the machines.
Glad you concur. I’ve seen him lose his composure in a room full of little old ladies, and have his driver back out of a parking lot when he saw the same faces in the crowd. (I wasn’t there for that one, but I know those faces. 😉)LOL. Yeah, real tough guy.
I’m a volunteer poll worker in AZ for this primary election. A friend who is ALSO scheduled to work the election SAYS SHE IS ACTIVELY AFRAID of what may happen to workers AND voters if ICE starts surrounding polling places. A job (volunteer poll worker), staffed largely by little old ladies who consider their integrity the only thing gravity can’t touch, is now SCARING the non-partisan folks we NEED to conduct ANY election. Congrats, Donnie. Every day, you destroy a little bit more of what has made us an international beacon for the peaceful transfer of power.
Carol...you've nailed down something I MISSED: nobody has to actually send anyone. If the credible possibility empties your roster in July...that costs them nothing and requires no signature.
One thing for your friend...on Feb. 26, DHS's Heather Honey told state election officials ICE would NOT be at polling places this year. Votebeat covered it. Fontes said he did NOT believe her...so take it for what it's worth. But...it's on the record...and she should know it's there.
If you'd ever be willing to talk about what it looks like from inside the room...I'd take that call.
I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of fuss and kerfuffle as compared to 2020 when we had brief printer issues that CONVINCED MANY (with SUBSTANTIAL HELP from the administration) that “Someone” was stealing for their votes.
AZ has rolled out a new policy to help speed up the process of vote counting , thereby helping to restore confidence in the entire electoral system.
Now, when you bring in your mail ballot for drop off, certain Poll workers verify ID, stamp the envelope with their official seal, and then it can be fed directly into the tabulator to be counted that day. The signed, dated, stamped envelopes the ballot came in are saved in case there are questions.
Started as precinct inspector in days of gargantuan voting machines. Installing and securing plates and imprint rolls, moved to precinct clerk. Still very much a volunteer, but committed, public service, starting with your seasonal training.
Hmmm…federal funding threats from the administration who has those funds created by its citizens’ tax dollars. Extortion, basically. There are no longer any adults in the room to keep Donnie from pulling this shit. The toddler who cries “the election is rigged” is the one rigging the election. The states need to be the adults now and push back with lawsuits and barring sticky fingers from taking the voter databases.
That was an eye popping read! The guardrails are getting thin, and you have nothing but yes men to Trump in the room. I know lawsuits will be filed but, the fear is real and that F'ing ape in a suit Mullin is just the thug to deliver the threat. I am working hard to breathe and stay calm over this BS. #Holdfast
Here's the thing to hold onto...and today...we need everything we can find to hold onto: it already happened...and it held.
Al Schmidt got the DOJ letter threatening him with prosecution...answered it around the 14th...and told them Pennsylvania wasn't changing a damn thing. A Republican. Still in the job. The guardrail in that story wasn't a law...it was a guy DECIDING.
The fear...is doing work the threats CAN'T. That's the design. Don't hand it to the win. I know you will NOT.
"Ape in a suit" is likely kinder than what I'd say (and possibly what you'd like to have said)...but it works.
Yes it was kinder than it should have been. That is a good reminder of what to hold on too! Between this and the idiocy about Canada's smoke management it has been a day lol
I think I’ll put in a call to Jeff Jackson’s office (NC’s Democratic AG) and see what plans he has to protect those going to the polls. My district is still red. After the election I’ll have a better idea just how red it still is. I know it’s changed. I just don’t know how much.
The first time we voted after we moved here, when we walked up we were handed “sample” ballots by people under a red tent and walking the area around the entrance. Looked just like a real ballot. They said it was to help us vote. Yeah… help us vote for Republicans. I was shocked but took it.. exchanged pleasantries.. and walked in and voted a straight democratic ticket.
I plan to vote in person again… early. I won’t go alone and I know that won’t protect me… but I will go and I will vote.
Thank you for this, Jack. We need all the information we can get. This is going to get serious… maybe seriously dangerous. We’ll find out.
Susan...calling Jeff Jackson's office is EXACTLY the right instinct; that's what the office is there for...and the more voters who ASK...the more it REGISTERS.
I love the ballot story. They handed you a fake...to steer you...and you took it...smiled... walked in...and voted your conscience STRAIGHT. DOWN. THE. LINE. That's the whole thing in miniature; you can't always stop people from TRYING to work you...but...you can flatly REFUSE to BE worked.
As for how red your district still is: you'll find out...and EITHER way...you showing UP... is part of what moves that number.
On the fear...I won't tell you it's nothing...because you're not wrong to take it seriously. But...going with someone isn't nothing either. There's real steadiness in NOT walking in alone...even if it's just company...and a witness.
Early, in person...not by yourself...that, Susan...is a good plan. Make it.
Thanks, Jack. Yeah, the fake ballot was a first for me. I couldn’t help but wonder though if anyone might have fallen for it. I hope not but there was nothing I could do about it. So I just went in and cast my ballot.
The plan is already in place except for the exact day and he’ll be voting too so I’m set there.
File the date: December 16, 2020. A draft order authorizing the seizure of voting machines by the National Guard. Unsigned.
File the second date: December 17, 2020. A second draft, same purpose, different agency — Homeland Security this time, not Defense. Also unsigned.
File the third date: January 2026. The man both orders were written for, asked directly whether he should have signed one of them, says: I should have.
Historians are trained to notice when a regime stops hiding its intentions. The concealment phase and the confession phase are not the same phase. In the concealment phase, the men around a leader draft the paper quietly and let it die quietly — Cuccinelli says no to Giuliani on the telephone, Rosen says no in the Oval Office, Barr says no for lack of probable cause, and the public never learns any of this until journalists and a congressional committee reconstruct it more than a year later. In the confession phase, the leader says, on the record, to a reporter from the paper of record, that he regrets not doing it. Jack is correct that almost nobody read the second sentence closely enough. The president did not say the order was illegal. He did not say it was wrong. He said he was not sure the National Guard was sophisticated enough to execute it well. This is not regret about the crime. This is regret about the execution.
Note which word disappeared between 2020 and 2026: whether. What remains is how.
Note which agency said no in 2020. Homeland Security, through Cuccinelli, told Giuliani that DHS did not have the authority to seize voting machines. Note which agency, six years later, is threatening the officials who run elections with up to five years in prison for declining to comply with a federal database sweep. Same department. Different men. Note that this is precisely the distinction I have spent a career insisting on: institutions do not protect you. People inside institutions, making individual choices under pressure, protect you — or they don’t. An institution is not a wall. It is a room full of people, and the room only holds if the people in it keep saying no.
Historians of the 1930s spend a great deal of time on a specific mechanism: the normalization of an instrument by using it first for a narrow, defensible purpose, so that its later, broader use meets less resistance. A census becomes a tool for identifying a minority. A public health measure becomes a tool for surveillance. A database built to verify eligibility for government benefits becomes a tool for purging voter rolls. Note that the database Secretary Mullin is deploying against four states — California, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania — is SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system. It was built to check immigration status for benefits eligibility. It was not built, and was not intended, to adjudicate the citizenship of registered voters. Note that a federal judge has already restricted this repurposing. Note that the threat proceeded anyway.
Here is the detail that should not be allowed to pass by quickly. Al Schmidt, the Republican Secretary of State of Pennsylvania, is the official who went looking hardest for noncitizen voting fraud in his state — and found it, in the low hundreds, and reported it honestly, and has said publicly that fears of widespread fraud are overblown. DHS’s preliminary database sweep now claims 14,576 in his state alone, fifty times what the man who actually checked was able to find. Jack is correct to put this comparison at the center of the piece, because it is the whole argument in a single pair of numbers. One number came from an investigation. The other came from a query. They are not the same kind of fact, and the administration is treating them as though they are.
I want to be precise about what historical pattern this resembles, and precise about what it does not resemble.
It does not resemble 1933. There will be no single decree, no single night, no single instrument that ends American elections. Anyone watching for that will miss what is actually happening, because what is actually happening is administrative, incremental, and langauged in the vocabulary of process — “evidence preservation,” “database verification,” “grant compliance.” The language of bureaucracy is, historically, the language in which the worst things are done. Nobody in the Reich Interior Ministry used the word tyranny. They used the word administration.
It resembles something narrower and, I would argue, more American: the slow conversion of the referees into players. In 2020, the Election Assistance Commission existed, had a quorum, and could act. In July 2026, it has zero members. Trump emptied it days after the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Slaughter, expanded his authority to remove the leadership of independent agencies. Replacements require Senate confirmation; the last confirmation of this kind took roughly nine months. Note the arithmetic. The midterms are four months away. The agency responsible for certifying the machines that will be used in those midterms cannot certify anything, cannot approve anything, cannot act at all, until well after the votes are counted.
This is the through-line Jack is asking readers to hold onto, and it deserves to be stated in its own sentence, separate from everything around it: the mechanism that failed in 2020 was never law. It was conscience. Four men — Barr, Rosen, Cuccinelli, Cipollone — said no, one after another, to a president who wanted the machines seized. Nothing in the Constitution stopped him. Nothing in statute stopped him, in the sense of being invoked and tested. What stopped him were individuals occupying institutional roles who declined, in the moment, to use the power the institution nominally gave them.
Ask, as the historian must always ask, who occupies those roles now. Ask whether Markwayne Mullin is a man who says no. The empirical record, as of Friday afternoon, suggests the opposite. He is not withholding the instrument. He is standing at a podium promising to use it against the very officials whose job is to say no to him.
I will end where Hopkins ends, because the ending is correct and I have no improvement to offer it. Watch the four states. Watch which comply and which sue and how quickly a court intervenes. Watch Al Schmidt, a Republican who has already done the honest version of this work and found a number two orders of magnitude smaller than the one just handed to him. What he does next will tell you more about where this country is than anything said from any podium this week.
Hope is not a mechanism. It never was. Institutions are not self-executing. They require people, and people require the will to refuse. That will was present in December 2020, in four men whose names history will remember mainly for the thing they declined to do. Whether it is present now, in the rooms where these decisions are actually made, is not a question a historian can answer from a desk. It is a question only the people in those rooms can answer, one refusal or one compliance at a time.
Jane...nobody in the Reich Interior Ministry used the word tyranny. They used the word administration. That's the line...and it's the argument my whole piece was reaching for... and didn't get to.
One correction I owe you: "fifty times" was my number...and it was WRONG. Schmidt found 220...168 from the motor-voter glitch...52 by other means. Against 14,576 it's closer to 66x. You inherited my error. That's on ME... and I'm fixing it.
You tend to make Jack’s points in a slightly different and very well written way. I live in PA, and will write or call Schmidt in the morning. Shapiro has had to file several lawsuits against Trump himself because Schmidt didn’t. I will also send this post to an online State newspaper. Thanks for your take on this. 👹
Pamela...bingo: One CONCRETE thing you can do: "reach out to your secretary of state's office and/or your state attorney general and ask what they've got in place for POLL SECURITY this cycle."
Thank you. They're the ones responsible for it...and hearing from constituents tells them people are WATCHING.
We have to be diligent to survive all this. I took my primary ballot to the supervisor of elections office to drop in the drop box. I was a mail in ballot here in Florida. NO hassle , they just asked if I was the one to sign it and I said yes, it was my ballot. I asked if they needed to see my Drivers License for proof of who I was and they said no. Our drivers license have a little star that makes them real ID. I will be doing the same thing in November or earlier if the ballots get sent out early like these.
Teri...thank you for reporting back on this. That's exactly the kind of on-the-ground detail people need!
For anyone wondering why they didn't ask for ID: with a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida... the verification is the signature on the envelope...matched against what's ON FILE with the elections office.
That's why they asked if you signed it yourself. Worth reminding folks to make sure their signature on file is CURRENT; if it's changed since you registered (or since your last update), you can file a NEW ONE... with your supervisor of elections.
That's the thing that trips people up...and lands a ballot in the "cure" pile.
Hand-delivering to the supervisor's office is a solid move...you skip the mail ENTIRELY ...and you can confirm it landed.
Track it afterward...at the state's ballot tracking site...to see it marked received AND accepted.
Good on you for doing it early, Teri... and reporting back.
The older ladies manning the drop off were very kind and being in the facility made it more safe for them. Pinellas county is a very safe area of Florida for the most part. There are the usual hotspots like in St Petersburg and sometimes Largo or Tarpon Springs. Tarpon has a very small area that can be dicey but when you ride the trail on a bike which goes thru that area it is essentially benign, and I never have had any problems a single woman riding anywhere on the trail.
I have to confess….. this kind of stuff makes me nervous…. Things held last time and it was fairly tense. Will they hold this time? Will the people in the positions have the spines and / or cojones to stand firm?
We have a very good Secretary of State here and she is not intimidated easily nor does she suffer fools gladly. She and our AG make a really good pair. The last election there were local election officials that did small educational spots that were aired on tv. They also invited citizens to ask questions, volunteer, come in and learn just how everything worked so they would feel comfortable with and trust the process. It was well received.
Then there’s the fellow in a county partially adjacent to mine….. he’s a ‘Constitutional Sheriff’ and a very colorful fellow, pretty straight out of the wild, Wild West. He and his bunch were involved in messing with election machines (after the fact) and attempted some real shenanigans. It might have made national news? I’m not remembering for certain. The takeaway is he didn’t get away with it. The sad part? He was re-elected. I know, I know….
My county is overall blue, my township leans red. I don’t anticipate trouble and I’m also considering volunteering in some way….. even if it’s just driving people to the polls.
Thanks, Jack. Being forewarned is half the battle. 👍
Deb...your nerves are completely understandable...anyone paying attention feels some version of that.
But...read back what you just wrote: a Secretary of State who doesn't intimidate and doesn't suffer fools...an AG who backs her up...and local officials who went on TV to demystify the WHOLE process...and invited people in to see it for THEMSELVES.
That...is what a healthy system...actually LOOKS LIKE...and it's why the shenanigans in that neighboring county got caught.
The sheriff getting re-elected stings...NO question...BUT he didn't get away with the part that mattered.
As for spine: it tends to show up when people are WATCHING...and your officials clearly know they are. That's where YOU come in.
Driving people to the polls isn't 'just' anything; for someone without a ride, you're the difference between VOTING... and not. DO IT.
Forewarned is half the battle; being USEFUL is the other half.
I'm actually SURPRISED it took them as long as for 12 hours to start trying to INTIMIDATE States into giving their voter information to the government.
trump DESPERATELY NEEDS the SAVE Act to pass.
He HARPS on it ALL the time.... EVERY SINGLE DAY ... EVERY SINGLE speech.
So help me God, I am going to work at the polls. If I see 1 member of the military approach, I am barring the door, I am calling the cops, I am laying on top of the voting machines. I am not giving in, I am not giving up, I am not letting this asshole-in-chief ruin the Republic. #HoldingFast and #MadderthanHell
IMHO, there is no bigger POS on god’s green earth than Markwayne Mullin. He does not deserve an exclamation ❗️from me. MFer
Rae...I agree. This man cannot responsibly engage with emotional control when the stress levels rise.
We've seen it MANY times. He's dangerous...and MFer fits him as good as anything.
-Jack
Glad you concur. I’ve seen him lose his composure in a room full of little old ladies, and have his driver back out of a parking lot when he saw the same faces in the crowd. (I wasn’t there for that one, but I know those faces. 😉)LOL. Yeah, real tough guy.
Classic Napoleon syndrome.
I’m curious. Are you from Oklahoma?
Yes, ma’am.
Sent a DM
I’m a volunteer poll worker in AZ for this primary election. A friend who is ALSO scheduled to work the election SAYS SHE IS ACTIVELY AFRAID of what may happen to workers AND voters if ICE starts surrounding polling places. A job (volunteer poll worker), staffed largely by little old ladies who consider their integrity the only thing gravity can’t touch, is now SCARING the non-partisan folks we NEED to conduct ANY election. Congrats, Donnie. Every day, you destroy a little bit more of what has made us an international beacon for the peaceful transfer of power.
Carol...you've nailed down something I MISSED: nobody has to actually send anyone. If the credible possibility empties your roster in July...that costs them nothing and requires no signature.
One thing for your friend...on Feb. 26, DHS's Heather Honey told state election officials ICE would NOT be at polling places this year. Votebeat covered it. Fontes said he did NOT believe her...so take it for what it's worth. But...it's on the record...and she should know it's there.
If you'd ever be willing to talk about what it looks like from inside the room...I'd take that call.
-Jack
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Carol
I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of fuss and kerfuffle as compared to 2020 when we had brief printer issues that CONVINCED MANY (with SUBSTANTIAL HELP from the administration) that “Someone” was stealing for their votes.
AZ has rolled out a new policy to help speed up the process of vote counting , thereby helping to restore confidence in the entire electoral system.
If it makes people feel more confident that “We the People” are actually speaking … I’m good with it.
Now, when you bring in your mail ballot for drop off, certain Poll workers verify ID, stamp the envelope with their official seal, and then it can be fed directly into the tabulator to be counted that day. The signed, dated, stamped envelopes the ballot came in are saved in case there are questions.
Started as precinct inspector in days of gargantuan voting machines. Installing and securing plates and imprint rolls, moved to precinct clerk. Still very much a volunteer, but committed, public service, starting with your seasonal training.
Hmmm…federal funding threats from the administration who has those funds created by its citizens’ tax dollars. Extortion, basically. There are no longer any adults in the room to keep Donnie from pulling this shit. The toddler who cries “the election is rigged” is the one rigging the election. The states need to be the adults now and push back with lawsuits and barring sticky fingers from taking the voter databases.
#HOLDFAST #OUTLAST
CC...The most important thing for anyone to remember from your post can be found in two hashtags: #HOLDFAST and #OUTLAST
I love your use of those two...Side. By. Side.
-Jack
That was an eye popping read! The guardrails are getting thin, and you have nothing but yes men to Trump in the room. I know lawsuits will be filed but, the fear is real and that F'ing ape in a suit Mullin is just the thug to deliver the threat. I am working hard to breathe and stay calm over this BS. #Holdfast
Kristine...thank you for reading it.
Here's the thing to hold onto...and today...we need everything we can find to hold onto: it already happened...and it held.
Al Schmidt got the DOJ letter threatening him with prosecution...answered it around the 14th...and told them Pennsylvania wasn't changing a damn thing. A Republican. Still in the job. The guardrail in that story wasn't a law...it was a guy DECIDING.
The fear...is doing work the threats CAN'T. That's the design. Don't hand it to the win. I know you will NOT.
"Ape in a suit" is likely kinder than what I'd say (and possibly what you'd like to have said)...but it works.
#Holdfast
-Jack
Yes it was kinder than it should have been. That is a good reminder of what to hold on too! Between this and the idiocy about Canada's smoke management it has been a day lol
jackass would be another one in a suit.
I think I’ll put in a call to Jeff Jackson’s office (NC’s Democratic AG) and see what plans he has to protect those going to the polls. My district is still red. After the election I’ll have a better idea just how red it still is. I know it’s changed. I just don’t know how much.
The first time we voted after we moved here, when we walked up we were handed “sample” ballots by people under a red tent and walking the area around the entrance. Looked just like a real ballot. They said it was to help us vote. Yeah… help us vote for Republicans. I was shocked but took it.. exchanged pleasantries.. and walked in and voted a straight democratic ticket.
I plan to vote in person again… early. I won’t go alone and I know that won’t protect me… but I will go and I will vote.
Thank you for this, Jack. We need all the information we can get. This is going to get serious… maybe seriously dangerous. We’ll find out.
#Holdfast
~Susan
Susan...calling Jeff Jackson's office is EXACTLY the right instinct; that's what the office is there for...and the more voters who ASK...the more it REGISTERS.
I love the ballot story. They handed you a fake...to steer you...and you took it...smiled... walked in...and voted your conscience STRAIGHT. DOWN. THE. LINE. That's the whole thing in miniature; you can't always stop people from TRYING to work you...but...you can flatly REFUSE to BE worked.
As for how red your district still is: you'll find out...and EITHER way...you showing UP... is part of what moves that number.
On the fear...I won't tell you it's nothing...because you're not wrong to take it seriously. But...going with someone isn't nothing either. There's real steadiness in NOT walking in alone...even if it's just company...and a witness.
Early, in person...not by yourself...that, Susan...is a good plan. Make it.
Thank YOU, Susan.
Show up and vote...and we'll find out together.
#Holdfast
-Jack
Thanks, Jack. Yeah, the fake ballot was a first for me. I couldn’t help but wonder though if anyone might have fallen for it. I hope not but there was nothing I could do about it. So I just went in and cast my ballot.
The plan is already in place except for the exact day and he’ll be voting too so I’m set there.
Go enjoy your day off. You certainly deserve it.
~Susan
File the date: December 16, 2020. A draft order authorizing the seizure of voting machines by the National Guard. Unsigned.
File the second date: December 17, 2020. A second draft, same purpose, different agency — Homeland Security this time, not Defense. Also unsigned.
File the third date: January 2026. The man both orders were written for, asked directly whether he should have signed one of them, says: I should have.
Historians are trained to notice when a regime stops hiding its intentions. The concealment phase and the confession phase are not the same phase. In the concealment phase, the men around a leader draft the paper quietly and let it die quietly — Cuccinelli says no to Giuliani on the telephone, Rosen says no in the Oval Office, Barr says no for lack of probable cause, and the public never learns any of this until journalists and a congressional committee reconstruct it more than a year later. In the confession phase, the leader says, on the record, to a reporter from the paper of record, that he regrets not doing it. Jack is correct that almost nobody read the second sentence closely enough. The president did not say the order was illegal. He did not say it was wrong. He said he was not sure the National Guard was sophisticated enough to execute it well. This is not regret about the crime. This is regret about the execution.
Note which word disappeared between 2020 and 2026: whether. What remains is how.
Note which agency said no in 2020. Homeland Security, through Cuccinelli, told Giuliani that DHS did not have the authority to seize voting machines. Note which agency, six years later, is threatening the officials who run elections with up to five years in prison for declining to comply with a federal database sweep. Same department. Different men. Note that this is precisely the distinction I have spent a career insisting on: institutions do not protect you. People inside institutions, making individual choices under pressure, protect you — or they don’t. An institution is not a wall. It is a room full of people, and the room only holds if the people in it keep saying no.
Historians of the 1930s spend a great deal of time on a specific mechanism: the normalization of an instrument by using it first for a narrow, defensible purpose, so that its later, broader use meets less resistance. A census becomes a tool for identifying a minority. A public health measure becomes a tool for surveillance. A database built to verify eligibility for government benefits becomes a tool for purging voter rolls. Note that the database Secretary Mullin is deploying against four states — California, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania — is SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system. It was built to check immigration status for benefits eligibility. It was not built, and was not intended, to adjudicate the citizenship of registered voters. Note that a federal judge has already restricted this repurposing. Note that the threat proceeded anyway.
Here is the detail that should not be allowed to pass by quickly. Al Schmidt, the Republican Secretary of State of Pennsylvania, is the official who went looking hardest for noncitizen voting fraud in his state — and found it, in the low hundreds, and reported it honestly, and has said publicly that fears of widespread fraud are overblown. DHS’s preliminary database sweep now claims 14,576 in his state alone, fifty times what the man who actually checked was able to find. Jack is correct to put this comparison at the center of the piece, because it is the whole argument in a single pair of numbers. One number came from an investigation. The other came from a query. They are not the same kind of fact, and the administration is treating them as though they are.
I want to be precise about what historical pattern this resembles, and precise about what it does not resemble.
It does not resemble 1933. There will be no single decree, no single night, no single instrument that ends American elections. Anyone watching for that will miss what is actually happening, because what is actually happening is administrative, incremental, and langauged in the vocabulary of process — “evidence preservation,” “database verification,” “grant compliance.” The language of bureaucracy is, historically, the language in which the worst things are done. Nobody in the Reich Interior Ministry used the word tyranny. They used the word administration.
It resembles something narrower and, I would argue, more American: the slow conversion of the referees into players. In 2020, the Election Assistance Commission existed, had a quorum, and could act. In July 2026, it has zero members. Trump emptied it days after the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Slaughter, expanded his authority to remove the leadership of independent agencies. Replacements require Senate confirmation; the last confirmation of this kind took roughly nine months. Note the arithmetic. The midterms are four months away. The agency responsible for certifying the machines that will be used in those midterms cannot certify anything, cannot approve anything, cannot act at all, until well after the votes are counted.
This is the through-line Jack is asking readers to hold onto, and it deserves to be stated in its own sentence, separate from everything around it: the mechanism that failed in 2020 was never law. It was conscience. Four men — Barr, Rosen, Cuccinelli, Cipollone — said no, one after another, to a president who wanted the machines seized. Nothing in the Constitution stopped him. Nothing in statute stopped him, in the sense of being invoked and tested. What stopped him were individuals occupying institutional roles who declined, in the moment, to use the power the institution nominally gave them.
Ask, as the historian must always ask, who occupies those roles now. Ask whether Markwayne Mullin is a man who says no. The empirical record, as of Friday afternoon, suggests the opposite. He is not withholding the instrument. He is standing at a podium promising to use it against the very officials whose job is to say no to him.
I will end where Hopkins ends, because the ending is correct and I have no improvement to offer it. Watch the four states. Watch which comply and which sue and how quickly a court intervenes. Watch Al Schmidt, a Republican who has already done the honest version of this work and found a number two orders of magnitude smaller than the one just handed to him. What he does next will tell you more about where this country is than anything said from any podium this week.
Hope is not a mechanism. It never was. Institutions are not self-executing. They require people, and people require the will to refuse. That will was present in December 2020, in four men whose names history will remember mainly for the thing they declined to do. Whether it is present now, in the rooms where these decisions are actually made, is not a question a historian can answer from a desk. It is a question only the people in those rooms can answer, one refusal or one compliance at a time.
#HOLDFAST
Jane...nobody in the Reich Interior Ministry used the word tyranny. They used the word administration. That's the line...and it's the argument my whole piece was reaching for... and didn't get to.
One correction I owe you: "fifty times" was my number...and it was WRONG. Schmidt found 220...168 from the motor-voter glitch...52 by other means. Against 14,576 it's closer to 66x. You inherited my error. That's on ME... and I'm fixing it.
Well done...as always, Jane!
#HOLDFAST
-Jack
Jack - it’s been an incredibly long week. Thank you for the corrections. I’ll go back a re-read my errors. Thanks again for your time and message.
You tend to make Jack’s points in a slightly different and very well written way. I live in PA, and will write or call Schmidt in the morning. Shapiro has had to file several lawsuits against Trump himself because Schmidt didn’t. I will also send this post to an online State newspaper. Thanks for your take on this. 👹
Please see the corrections by Jack Hopkins. Every once in a while, I’m off course.
Maybe check with your secretary of state and/or attorney general to see what preparations they have to ensure security at the polls.
Pamela...bingo: One CONCRETE thing you can do: "reach out to your secretary of state's office and/or your state attorney general and ask what they've got in place for POLL SECURITY this cycle."
Thank you. They're the ones responsible for it...and hearing from constituents tells them people are WATCHING.
-Jack
We have to be diligent to survive all this. I took my primary ballot to the supervisor of elections office to drop in the drop box. I was a mail in ballot here in Florida. NO hassle , they just asked if I was the one to sign it and I said yes, it was my ballot. I asked if they needed to see my Drivers License for proof of who I was and they said no. Our drivers license have a little star that makes them real ID. I will be doing the same thing in November or earlier if the ballots get sent out early like these.
#HOLDFAST
Teri
Teri...thank you for reporting back on this. That's exactly the kind of on-the-ground detail people need!
For anyone wondering why they didn't ask for ID: with a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida... the verification is the signature on the envelope...matched against what's ON FILE with the elections office.
That's why they asked if you signed it yourself. Worth reminding folks to make sure their signature on file is CURRENT; if it's changed since you registered (or since your last update), you can file a NEW ONE... with your supervisor of elections.
That's the thing that trips people up...and lands a ballot in the "cure" pile.
Hand-delivering to the supervisor's office is a solid move...you skip the mail ENTIRELY ...and you can confirm it landed.
Track it afterward...at the state's ballot tracking site...to see it marked received AND accepted.
Good on you for doing it early, Teri... and reporting back.
#HOLDFAST
-Jack
The older ladies manning the drop off were very kind and being in the facility made it more safe for them. Pinellas county is a very safe area of Florida for the most part. There are the usual hotspots like in St Petersburg and sometimes Largo or Tarpon Springs. Tarpon has a very small area that can be dicey but when you ride the trail on a bike which goes thru that area it is essentially benign, and I never have had any problems a single woman riding anywhere on the trail.
I have to confess….. this kind of stuff makes me nervous…. Things held last time and it was fairly tense. Will they hold this time? Will the people in the positions have the spines and / or cojones to stand firm?
We have a very good Secretary of State here and she is not intimidated easily nor does she suffer fools gladly. She and our AG make a really good pair. The last election there were local election officials that did small educational spots that were aired on tv. They also invited citizens to ask questions, volunteer, come in and learn just how everything worked so they would feel comfortable with and trust the process. It was well received.
Then there’s the fellow in a county partially adjacent to mine….. he’s a ‘Constitutional Sheriff’ and a very colorful fellow, pretty straight out of the wild, Wild West. He and his bunch were involved in messing with election machines (after the fact) and attempted some real shenanigans. It might have made national news? I’m not remembering for certain. The takeaway is he didn’t get away with it. The sad part? He was re-elected. I know, I know….
My county is overall blue, my township leans red. I don’t anticipate trouble and I’m also considering volunteering in some way….. even if it’s just driving people to the polls.
Thanks, Jack. Being forewarned is half the battle. 👍
Deb...your nerves are completely understandable...anyone paying attention feels some version of that.
But...read back what you just wrote: a Secretary of State who doesn't intimidate and doesn't suffer fools...an AG who backs her up...and local officials who went on TV to demystify the WHOLE process...and invited people in to see it for THEMSELVES.
That...is what a healthy system...actually LOOKS LIKE...and it's why the shenanigans in that neighboring county got caught.
The sheriff getting re-elected stings...NO question...BUT he didn't get away with the part that mattered.
As for spine: it tends to show up when people are WATCHING...and your officials clearly know they are. That's where YOU come in.
Driving people to the polls isn't 'just' anything; for someone without a ride, you're the difference between VOTING... and not. DO IT.
Forewarned is half the battle; being USEFUL is the other half.
You're on it, Deb!
-Jack
You good Jack. Yes, I’m still here. I quietly read everything.
John...never doubted it for a minute!
Quiet counts...just as much.
Have a good weekend, John Close.
-Jack
TGIF to you and your readers, Jack, another good article this evening. Thank you and will reStack ASAP 💯 👍
Thank you...Karen Scofield.
The reStack is always appreciated! (and...so important...THANK YOU!)
-Jack
Yes he’s the instrument & a blunt one.
John...VERY blunt.
We certainly have work to do. No question about it.
Thanks for being here!
-Jack
I volunteered to work the polls for the midterms here...
And I'm wearing my shit kicker boots that day!
WE ARE NOT INTIMIDATED!!
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER!!
I'm actually SURPRISED it took them as long as for 12 hours to start trying to INTIMIDATE States into giving their voter information to the government.
trump DESPERATELY NEEDS the SAVE Act to pass.
He HARPS on it ALL the time.... EVERY SINGLE DAY ... EVERY SINGLE speech.
Because...the SAVE Act ONLY saves trump!!
Damnit. DAMNIT. And here CNN and msnow called it another nothingburger and, hell, fox morning show didn't talk about it. Too embarrassed?
That's why I subscribe to you, Jack.
So.
I'm in Texas.
What am I looking for, what do I do, how can I help who?
So help me God, I am going to work at the polls. If I see 1 member of the military approach, I am barring the door, I am calling the cops, I am laying on top of the voting machines. I am not giving in, I am not giving up, I am not letting this asshole-in-chief ruin the Republic. #HoldingFast and #MadderthanHell