Following the Election Denier Playbook, Trump and his allies are already rejecting the election results before a single vote has been counted. In Nevada, they are trying to discredit voting systems in order to make it harder for people to vote – and essentially, to pick their own voters. Trump Republicans are also discrediting election officials in order to lay the groundwork to question election results if they lose. Finally, these election deniers are calling on their MAGA constituents to harass election workers, spread conspiracies about voting irregularities, and even commit violence to protect the election outcome they want.
Step 1: Refuse to Commit to Accepting Election Results Based on False Allegations of Voting Irregularities, Fraud, and Wild Conspiracy Theories.
In the months before the 2020 election, Trump accused his opponents in Nevada of orchestrating a “stolen election” and preemptively refused to accept the results. And across Nevada, MAGA extremists closely followed in Trump’s footsteps. Before the ballot count was complete, former Trump campaign manager Adam Laxalt alleged that a number of supposedly-illegal voters had cast votes in Clark County and launched lawsuits against the state in an attempt to overturn the election results.
Now, Trump and his allies are looking to convince MAGA Republicans that any Democratic election victories in Nevada are illegitimate or fraudulent by default. Defeated primary candidate Joey Gilbert refused to concede his nearly 11-point loss, spending months in court demanding recounts and promoting outlandish conspiracy theories that voting machines supposedly switched votes. Likewise, Adam Laxalt has once again signaled distrust in the state’s election system and has been planning to file multiple lawsuits to contest the 2022 election results for more than a year, sending mixed signals about recognizing the midterm election results in order to sow further distrust in our voting systems.
Step 2: Make False Claims About Election Security And Demand Changes That Limit Ballot Access.
Trump-aligned figures are relentlessly targeting ballot access in the lead-up to the midterm elections, claiming without evidence that the voting process is fraudulent. Adam Laxalt is urging officials to increase ballot restrictions alongside Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo as election deniers are pushing changes to the election system that would make it more difficult to vote in Nevada – pushing blatant election lies to promote these restrictions. Elsewhere in the state, a group of QAnon-linked activists have been pushing local election officials to ban voting machines and switch to all hand-counted, paper-ballot elections, introducing proposals to commissioners in seven counties across Nevada.
These efforts are designed to damage the credibility of our democratic institutions and undermine trust in the electoral process. In trying to curtail ballot access, MAGA Republicans in Nevada are attacking the electoral process itself ahead of the midterm elections.
Step 3: Discredit Election Officials And Create Chaos, Especially in Areas of High Voter Turnout for Your Opponent.
Trump Republicans are working to delegitimize election processes throughout Nevada, particularly in areas with high turnout against their candidates. In October 2020, right-wing news anchor Tucker Carlson, joined by Trump campaign surrogates, accused Las Vegas-based Clark County officials of enabling so-called voter fraud through signature verification systems.
This year, MAGA Republicans are pursuing the same tactics. As part of a campaign to discredit elections and sow doubt in the process, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo has repeatedly spread lies about Las Vegas elections and the state’s highly-popular mail-in voting system, which he has characterized as “ripe for fraud” in an effort to sow distrust in Democratic-trending mail-in voting. The Republican National Committee is now suing Clark County after the county rejected a public records request for confidential information about the county’s poll workers – including names, addresses, contact information, and political party affiliation.
These MAGA figures represent a larger movement of election deniers working to discredit the entire state’s electoral process before a single vote has been cast or counted.
Step 4: Train Supporters To Become Election Officials and Call on Supporters to Harass Voters and Threaten Election Officials with Violence.
Trump and his allies have spent the past two years training supporters to become election officials, and Trump loyalists serving as county election officials now pose a serious threat to democracy in the state. Esmeralda County refused to certify primary results until completing a time-consuming hand-count, and Nye County’s MAGA clerk and Oath Keeper county commissioner are working tirelessly to maintain a plan to hand-count all election results in November.
Trump Republicans are also fueling a wave of harassment and threats of violence directed at poll workers and officials in the weeks ahead of the midterms. Election supervisors in at least 10 of the state’s 17 counties have now quit, been forced out, or announced their departures. Simultaneously, they are urging election deniers to inundate county elections offices with records requests. Nevada’s two largest counties are dealing with thousands of records requests, prompting state and local officials to bolster security measures to protect poll workers from harassment and placing strain on these election workers who are working to prepare ballots and precincts for Election Day.
Step 5: Reject the Results and Spread Lies About Election Fraud After the Election.
For months, Trump and MAGA Republicans in Nevada have been laying the groundwork to declare that unfavorable election results are supposedly rigged. They are already refusing to accept the results, spreading lies about election security, discrediting Nevada election officials, and calling on their supporters to harass election administrators with threats of violence. As we draw closer to Election Day, Trump and his allies will only continue working to undermine the will of American voters.
