Election denialists towards ‘game over’?

US midterm elections end in disappointment for Republicans: The ‘red tide’ predicted by the polls did not manifest itselfDemocrats retained control of the Senate and held their losses in the House of Representatives, now controlled by Republicans with a slim majority.

However, the main losers in this round of elections Rejects the electionI am Election refusers. The term refers to all the Republican candidates, in the wake of Donald Trump, who questioned the regularity and results of the 2020 presidential elections, giving life to a real conspiracy theory with weak foundations.

A conspiracy attempt

Those who were rejected filed nominations of approx 13 major statesTrying to win gubernatorial and post elections State Secretary Or Public Advocate. In the US federal system, these agency officials are responsible for overseeing the smooth conduct of all types of elections, including the counting of votes in presidential elections. For many analysts, the ambition of the denialists is clear: to seize these institutional positions and Trying to change the outcome of the election.

This strategy did not yield the expected results. Dissent announcer in Arizona gubernatorial election Kari Lake She lost to challenger Katie Hobbs by less than twenty-one thousand votes. A self-described former Obama voter, Lake has backed Trump and focused his campaign on issues dear to far-right voters, waging heated battles to ban electronic machines used to tabulate Arizona voters’ votes. , citing the fraud risk posed by their distortion. During votingLake then arose with a curious controversy about the toner cartridges used to print ballots: the low intensity of the ink, according to Lake, would allow poll workers to selectively reject votes for Republican candidates.

A similar fate befell a former army colonel Doug MastrianoOverwhelmed by Demudika Josh Shapiro To the Governors Pennsylvania By a margin of nearly 800,000 votes. On January 6, 2020, Mastriano was involved in an attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Trump, organizing buses to bring as many people as possible to Washington to protest Joe Biden’s certificate of victory. Close to subversive armed groups like Pledge Keepers And particularly active on the far-right social network Cap, Mastriano is considered one of the main representatives of the suffrage movement, whose rhetoric and arguments he has always openly adopted.

Denial won’t win elections, but…

The root of the traumatic failures experienced Rejects the election There are Two main factors. First, the title Defense of Democratic Institutions An unexpectedly large section of the electorate was prompted to express their preference for the DMK. Younger age cohorts such as Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, are particularly receptive to this type of messaging.

Second, there is testimony Completed data analysis From five thirty eight, Refusal Candidates’ quality was considered poor Republican voters themselves have decided to divide their electoral preferences by voting based on a candidate’s ‘acceptability’: in Pennsylvania, many voters of Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Öz’s image are more ‘respectable’ than their party colleagues, instead choosing Democrat Josh Shapiro as a controversial candidate. And wanted more than serious guy Doug Mastriano.

American democratic institutions may heave a sigh of relief, but the phenomenon of suffragettes is still hard to die. Many denial candidates refused to concede defeat to their Dem opponents, including the aforementioned Kari Lake. “Arizonans know bales when they see them.” His caustic tweet, in which he raised the possibility of fraud to harm his election campaign, elicited mixed responses.

Arizonans know BS when they see it.

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) November 15, 2022

There are also ambiguous approaches to the question, which may obscure future dangers. Republican governor of Florida Ron D. SandysFavorite in the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election Election observers were prohibited from going to the polling stations Central Government has decreed. Argument: Their presence is unnecessary because routine monitoring activities of voting are already carried out by observers who report to the local government and the governor’s office.

Cover photo EPA/CAROLINE BREHMAN