How to destroy America: Cast doubt on elections.

America is in its greatest danger since the Civil War. If the Republican Party has its way, America will cease to exist as a democratic republic and devolve into an agglomeration of individual fighting states and fiefdoms.

Elections are the heart and soul of our democracy. If the people don’t believe an election is honest, a democratic nation disappears.

If you don’t want America to have a democracy or to be the UNITED States of America, Trump’s GOP is the party for you.

Read about the danger here:

Republicans cast doubt on the 2024 election.

By Clara Ence Morse, Derek Hawkins and Carson TerBush
October 23, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Nearly half of Republican candidates for Congress or top state offices have used social media to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2024 election, according to a Washington Post analysis, highlighting a pervasive effort within the GOP to undermine public trust in the vote ahead of Nov. 5.

From Nov. 9, 2022, to Oct. 11, at least 236 Republican candidates posted or amplified a range of falsehoods or misinformation about election malfeasance.

Many candidates baselessly accused Democrats of trying to sway the election through former president Donald Trump’s court cases or by registering noncitizens to vote. Others falsely likened Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination to a “coup” or promoted misinformation about voter fraud.

Of the 48 percent of Republican candidates who have promoted false or misleading information about the 2024 election about two out of three referenced noncitizen voting in connection with 2024 election fraud, about half referenced Trump’s legal troubles, and almost a quarter discussed Harris’s nomination as a coup, undemocratic or disrespectful to the will of primary voters.

The rhetoric, which often parrots Trump’s election-related falsehoods, could help lay the groundwork for Republicans to challenge any election outcome they dislike by alleging the results are tainted or fraudulent.

“Even after the horrific sights of January 6, endorsing Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud had become a litmus test for any Republican who hopes to secure political seats,” said Yotam Ophir, an expert on political misinformation at the University at Buffalo.

“Leaders cannot govern if the public fails to agree on the importance of facts and evidence, and by endorsing Trump’s election falsehoods, Republicans are breaking away from the values and norms of democracy, without which it cannot survive.”

Polling shows that most Americans trust their local and state officials to run fair and reliable elections. But Republican messaging that challenges the legitimacy of elections appears to have resonated with the GOP base, a considerable portion of which wrongly believes that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election because of voter fraud.

Even though voter fraud is rare — due in part to the layers of verification involved in tallying the results — an overwhelming majority of self-identified Trump supporters said they’re concerned there will be fraud this year, according to a NPR/PBS News/Marist poll this month. That’s compared with less than a third among voters who say they support Harris.

A separate poll by Gallup showed trust in the results was sharply divided on party lines, with just 28 percent of Republicans saying they were confident the vote would be counted accurately, compared with 84 percent of Democrats.

Here are the four main ways in which Republican candidates have tried to cast doubt on the 2024 election:

Noncitizen voting
Republicans have long argued that Trump’s criminal and civil cases are a form of election interference orchestrated by Democrats, but as his court proceedings moved to the back burner this year, many turned to noncitizen voting as a way to sow distrust in the election.

Nearly a third of Republican candidates — at least 153 — have explicitly linked noncitizen voting to election fraud, making it the largest category examined, according to The Post’s analysis.

Their posts generally revolve around the unfounded notion that Democrats are allowing undocumented immigrants into the country and registering them to vote.

Trump has made similar baseless accusations in dozens of speeches. Noncitizen voting is illegal in state and federal elections, and research shows it happens rarely.

Posting on the issue spiked over the summer as the House considered the Save Act, a bill that would mandate proof of citizenship when registering to vote (the Biden administration and many Democrats opposed the bill, saying it risked disenfranchising eligible voters without adding meaningful protections against noncitizen voting).

It also coincided with a flurry of posting about noncitizen voting by billionaire Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. His posts were mentioned or retweeted by dozens of candidates.

Notes marked with fact-check provide additional context for the candidates’ social media posts.

Republicans are linking noncitizen voting to election fraud

fact-check There is no evidence to support the suggestion in the three posts below that noncitizen voting is widespread. Independent research and voter roll reviews by state officials have repeatedly shown that noncitizen voting is rare.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, signed a law in 2023 allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, saying it would improve safety on the roads, but there is no credible evidence that Walz or other Democrats are seeking to tilt the election by registering migrants to vote.

Noncitizen voting is illegal in state and federal elections, and many safeguards are in place to prevent it from happening.

Trump’s court cases and ‘election interference’
Trump is running for president while under indictment in two jurisdictions and awaiting sentencing on 34 felony convictions in another.

It’s unprecedented, and about 1 in 4 Republican candidates have baselessly argued in social media posts that his court cases amount to a political sabotage designed to keep him out of office.

At least 120 candidates have explicitly likened his prosecutions to “election interference,” a term generally used to describe an attempt to alter an election by force, corruption or foreign intervention.

Trump’s federal indictments — one of which has since been thrown out — were secured by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed to avoid conflicts of interest in investigating the former president and handle the case with more independence from the Department of Justice than other federal prosecutors receive. State prosecutors filed Trump’s other cases.

fact-check The following posts falsely suggest that Trump’s federal charges were part of a conspiracy by Democrats to keep him out of office.

Claims that President Biden was involved in a bribery scheme have been discredited, and the FBI informant who raised the allegations has been charged with lying to authorities.

And the judge in Trump’s hush money case only imposed a gag order after Trump publicly criticized prosecutors, witnesses and jurors.

A Harris ‘coup’
Over the summer, when Democrats tapped Harris to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, Trump and a chorus of Republicans began falsely labeling the move a “coup.”

Trump, who until that point boasted that he would coast to victory against Biden, described Harris’s ascent, falsely, as an “overthrow” and evidence of a “rigged” contest.

At least 53 Republican candidates have used similar language about Harris’s nomination, according to The Post’s analysis, alleging that Democrats subverted the will of millions of Americans who voted for Biden in the primaries and, as a result, have unfairly put their thumb on the presidential contest.

fact-check Replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket was lawful and allowed under party rules, contrary to what the following three posts claim. After Biden dropped out, he endorsed Harris for president. Soon after, she gained the nearly unanimous support from delegates to the Democratic National Convention, who were free under party rules to vote for her.

A misinformation grab bag
At least 112 Republican candidates made other false or unsubstantiated claims about election integrity.

Some promoted specific unfounded conspiracy theories popular on the right related to mail ballots or voter roll maintenance.

Others called back to the 2020 or 2022 elections, alleging a pattern of voter fraud they believe will continue in 2024. And many of these candidates used “election interference” as a catchall accusation against the media, technology companies and Democrats.

Other ways Republicans are sowing doubt on the election

Florida U.S. senator Rick Scott: We must protect the integrity of American Democracy and stop left-wing efforts to rig elections so they can pass their radical agenda.

fact-check Sen. Rick Scott links to a website that contains numerous false or misleading claims about voting. None of the Democrat-led voting rights initiatives on the site have been linked to increased fraudulent voting, and claims of vote-rigging have been repeatedly debunked.

Texas U.S. senator Ted Cruz: Google is an enemy of democracy and truth. And now, by covering up news about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Google has become an enemy of reality. This is election interference.

fact-check It is true that Google did not autocomplete some searches related to the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, immediately following the shooting, but there is no evidence that this was related to election interference. Google said the searches were not autocompleted because of protections on searches related to violence.

Running for U.S. Senate in Rhode Island, Patricia Morgan: You’ve gotta be kidding me Rhode Island Deputy Secretary of State won’t admit that the pandemic is over.

Even Joe Biden figured that one out! uring the pandemic, Rhode Island—like many states—introduced these drop-off ballot boxes as a supposedly temporary measure.

Yet, here we are, the pandemic is in fact long over, and yet we are still using them. These drop off boxes aren’t about making voting easier for the average Rhode Islander; no, they’re about greasing the wheels for the left’s underhanded tactics. The left doesn’t believe for a second that they can earn your vote fairly, so they resort to rigging the game with these drop off ballot boxes.

The RI Secretary of State’s office seem to have their priorities twisted. Instead of standing firm to ensure our elections are safe and secure, they’re bending over backward to keep the doors wide open for ballot harvesting operations. It’s not about making elections more accessible; it’s about leaving them wide open to influence and interference.

fact-check Fraud involving mail ballots is rare, and drop box locations take various security measures, such as monitoring boxes with video cameras, to ensure the integrity of the ballots.

The Biden administration and the World Health Organization each declared an end to the public health emergency for the coronavirus pandemic last year, but the virus continues to evolve and periodically surge.

Casting doubt on election integrity is more than just a campaign tactic. If Trump loses in November, he and his allies may use the election misinformation they have spent years promoting to stir protests, fuel litigation, and pressure lawmakers and election certifiers to deliver a result in his favor.

“It will be false, but it is very dangerous,” said Jeff Greenburg, a former county elections director in Pennsylvania, “because it could incite people to harass or threaten election officials, or even worse commit acts of violence — all as a result of believing a totally secure election was stolen.”

Clara Ence Morse is a political data reporter at The Washington Post. She joined The Post as the Investigative Reporting Workshop intern with the Data team, and previously served as the editor in chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator. She lives in Washington, D.C.@ccemorse

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