If you’re going to ask me about 2024 election overthrow antics, I only have one answer for you
The question I get asked second-most often these days is whether Florida is in play (the answer is “not yet”). The question I get asked most often is whether Republicans are going to be able to overthrow the 2024 election. I only have one answer for that question, and it’s not going to change.
Republicans have tried to overthrow every modern election that they’ve lost. The reason they were able to succeed back in 2000 was that the deciding swing state only had a 500 vote margin. The reason they were not able to succeed in 2020 was that the deciding swing state had a 20,000 vote margin. You might not think that makes a difference when it comes to legal challenges, but it absolutely does. Modern history has shown as much.
If you are worried about 2024 election overthrow antics, you should follow and support election super-lawyer Marc Elias and his outfit Democracy Docket. Elias is the one who went into court and won nearly every 2020 election challenge the Republicans tried. In fact the Harris-Walz campaign just hired Elias as counsel the other day, so he can officially fight these battles on behalf of the campaign.
But I’m not an election lawyer, and neither are any of you. We can’t go into court ourselves and fight these battles, so why worry about it? We’ve got people for that. But we do have our own role in this. Our role is to work on voter registration and turnout so that we win the deciding swing state by 20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 votes, not by 500 votes. That way, when Marc Elias goes into court, he’s got an infinitely stronger case to work with.
I can’t stress enough that no one on either side ever has any magic wands when it comes to trying to overthrow an election. It’s always a matter of increments. Republicans can probably steal this election if it comes down to 500 votes. They can’t steal it if we run up the score and the closest swing state comes down to 50,000 votes.
I understand why I’m constantly getting this question, but like I said, my answer isn’t going to change. You should only ask me about election overthrow efforts if you want me to tell you to roll up your sleeves and help Kamala Harris run up the score so that any overthrow efforts won’t succeed.
