Change state election officials move aggressively to protect against repeat of 2020 disruptions

(CNN) – In Arizona’s third-most populous county, a Republican supervisor tasked with certifying the results of the November election has argued that other county officials conspired to fabricate his lopsided defeat in the sheriff’s primary, an argument recently dismissed by investigators independent Still, when it came time to sign off on the results during a recent board meeting, Pinal County Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh said he was only voting to do so “under duress.”

In the years since former President Donald Trump and his allies made baseless claims that widespread fraud led to his defeat in 2020, allegations of wild election fraud continue to swirl in key battleground states. Also, have clashes over voting rules and the once low-profile task of formally signing the vote tallies, an act required by state law and what will be a crucial step in certifying the results of the presidential election in next month and the negative vote. contests

But as Election Day nears, state officials say they have moved aggressively to guard against any disruption in what polls show could be another nail-biting election: the battle for the White House between Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. These measures include schooling judges on the tight deadlines election officials face under state and federal laws and, in the most extreme examples, bringing criminal charges against those who refuse to exercise their powers. functions

Election chiefs say they hope the steps will curb any post-election drama.

In Wisconsin, a battleground state where election conspiracy theories took root after President Joe Biden flipped the state in 2020, Ann Jacobs, the chairwoman of the state board of elections, said she believes “anyone will know what you hear will eventually dissipate.”

“I’m learning that there are people prepared to go to prison for long sentences for misguided belief in conspiracy theories about elections,” Jacobs, a Democrat, told reporters during a recent briefing on U.S. election procedures. the state “But I think those people are very few and far between.”

Strong consequences

Skirmishes over election administration and certification have erupted across the country, along with severe consequences for those who flout the rules.

Voting rights and government ethics groups say they are particularly attuned to certification delays that could have a cascading effect and risk states missing the Dec. 11 federal deadline to certify their rolls of presidential electors, paving the way for chaos and confusion.

“The sanctity of our elections is unquestionable, and trying to stop this can and should have serious consequences,” said Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Accountability and Ethics in Washington, who recently issued a report warning of continuing certification threats.

In all, 35 local officials across the country have refused or threatened to refuse to certify election results since the 2020 election, according to the group’s analysis.

That count includes two GOP members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers who briefly called Michigan’s 2020 election results into question when they initially refused to certify the county’s count, which included votes cast for Biden in heavily Democratic Detroit. They gave in hours later.

Partly in response to the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election, voters in Michigan, a presidential swing state, approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 that, among other provisions, reaffirms that election boards have a legal responsibility to certify the results as accounted.

And this year, a top aide to Michigan Secretary of State Joycelyn Benson warned of legal and financial consequences for officials in a small, rural Upper Peninsula county after two members of the Republican board voted against certifying the votes of a local recall election. Board members quickly backed down.

In North Carolina, another hotly contested state in the 2024 battle for the White House, the State Board of Elections last year took the extraordinary step of removing two local election board members who refused to certify the results in his county to protest against the state’s electoral guidelines.

It was the first time North Carolina officials at the state level had exercised their removal powers in a certification dispute.

And in Arizona, a state that has become a hotbed of election conspiracy theories since Biden won the state four years ago, two Republican members of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors are due to go on trial in January for criminal charges for his refusal to certify the results of the 2022 county general election within the legal deadline.

A grand jury indicted GOP officials Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby on felony counts of conspiracy and election interference. They had resisted signing the results because of questions about whether the vote-counting machines had been properly certified. State officials said the machines had been.

Judd and Crosby have pleaded not guilty and both remain on the county’s three-member board of supervisors.

Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who pursued the indictment of Cochise officials, has shown that she is “taking a bit of a hammer” if other officials refuse to do their jobs, the secretary of State of Arizona, Adrian Fontes, Democrat. , he told reporters recently.

Last month, a federal judge blocked Fontes from using what the secretary described as a “nuclear option” he had included in the state’s election procedures manual. It would have allowed him to move forward with certifying the state’s election results, even if a county refused to sign its own results.

But the ruling also pointed to the other tools available to Fontes to ensure compliance, including filing criminal charges against individual supervisors and seeking court orders to compel certification.

Fontes said he and other state officials are “leveraging” their legal strategies to respond to any challenges that arise before, during or after Election Day. In addition, he said, his office is sharing key deadlines with judges to ensure legal disputes are resolved quickly.

In Pennsylvania, another key battleground and where state officials went to court to force three counties to sign off on full results in the 2022 midterms, Secretary of State Al Schmidt said his office is also working closely with the judiciary to ensure that judges remain “aware”. of the electoral calendar”.

Schmidt, a Republican serving in Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, said he will soon end his mission to visit Pennsylvania’s 67 counties before Election Day as part of a push to coordinate with the local election officials and avoid any problems.

He said he doesn’t expect a repeat of the recent certification dramas, but is ready to deal with them.

“The returning officers that I’ve met in red and blue counties and in big cities and rural counties have been very professional and I’m confident that they will live up to their responsibilities in November,” Schmidt told CNN.

Joanna Lydgate, president and CEO of the bipartisan American Democracy Center, noted that despite concerns in pockets of the country, all efforts to derail certification since the 2020 election have failed.

“It’s a ministerial step,” Lydgate told CNN. “This is not the place to address questions or concerns about how the election was run.”

“There is no option to vote no”

In Pinal County, a fast-growing area southeast of Phoenix, Cavanaugh tried to do just that, pushing ahead with claims that his primary loss, by a 2-1 margin, in the Pinal County Sheriff’s race was tainted by fraud.

In a contentious hearing in August on the certification of primary results, Cavanaugh repeatedly tried to raise his allegations of cheating over the objection of fellow Republican Board Chairman Mike Goodman, who slammed his gavel down to silence him. Cavanaugh and at one point threatened to cut him off. off your microphone.

The retired police detective said he became suspicious of the primary election because of what he considered unusually similar patterns in the results of both early voting and Election Day ballots. That has turned into allegations by Cavanaugh that workers and other elected officials conspired to “alter the results” and transfer roughly 35 percent of his vote to his challenger, according to a formal claim he has filed against the county. The notice of claim, which seeks compensation for campaign expenses and attorneys’ fees, serves as a precursor to a possible lawsuit, he said.

Pinal elections have been plagued by problems, including ballot errors and a shortage of ballots in the 2022 midterms.

But county officials have strongly denied Cavanaugh’s allegations and said they are confident in the results of this year’s primary. An independent analysis commissioned by the county and presented to supervisors last week found “no evidence of fraud, data manipulation or other factors that could have affected the election results.”

Cavanaugh remains on the board through the end of the year, giving him a role in certifying November’s election results in this key swing state. He told CNN in an interview earlier this month that he intends to carry out that responsibility, despite his claim that he does not trust how the county administers elections.

“It’s a ministerial duty,” he said, pointing to the Cochise County prosecutions. “We don’t have the option to vote no.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ and © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.