#VoteBlueDownBallot - Or We May Face an Electoral Coup
Republican Politicians Could Choose Our Next President in a "Contingent Election." Why It Could Happen, and What We Can Do About It.
This is an update of an article originally posted regarding the 2022 election. I have retained some of the references to 2022 because the "characters" and dynamics are well-known nationally. But the same principles that applied in 2022 are just as applicable - and even nightmarishly more important - when applied to the 2024 election.
Here is something that has not been explained clearly and thoroughly enough to voters that could save our democracy and our individual personal rights from a subtle “ongoing electoral coup” being attempted by the Trump network: you can counter this coup effort by either voting a FULL Democratic ticket, or if you are a moderate Republican or independent by strategically and SELECTIVELY voting down the ballot if you split your vote. You will need to focus on finding and electing candidates to the few key lower offices (explained later in this article) who will be tasked with honoring the popular vote from your state.
Otherwise, there is a danger that the selection of our next president could be taken out of our hands as voters and put in the control of politicians in a “contingent election” (the possibility, peril and complexity of which hasn’t been fully appreciated — even without a 3rd party candidacy): Danger in Plain Sight: The Risk of Triggering a Contingent Election in 2024. A contingent election could result in such far-flung scenarios as Mike Johnson (or worse) becoming president if things became convoluted enough through manipulation of the multitude of constitutional weak points that could be exploited at multiple levels of our electoral system.
While this message is aimed at independents and moderates, it also applies to Democrats who might be inclined to only vote for candidates at the top of the ticket. Statistics show that over 30% of voters cast incomplete ballots (which also means every vote cast down ballot carries proportionately more weight than a vote at the top of the ticket does and makes it easier to swing races at these lower levels).
As David Axelrod and Mike Murphy wrote for The Big Idea in a 2016 Vox article: “Once voters make an informed decision about [the top of the ticket], they often scan the rest of the ballot only to be confronted with a dizzying array of people they've never heard of, running for offices they didn’t know existed until that moment.”
And for the first time in our lifetimes these “candidates we never heard of running for offices we didn’t know existed" may be what determines the winner at the very pinnacle of the ballot: for the presidency itself in 2024.
It must not just be left to chance that the average citizen will know who these candidates are once alone in the ballot box. The process must be simplified. Short lists of the key offices in each state must be made explicitly apparent (even if voters don’t complete the rest of their ballots apart from these). Just plainly identifying offices such as Secretary of State, state legislators and candidates for attorney/prosecutor and law enforcement/sheriffs offices (without specifically naming each legislator district-by-district or the particular candidates for the attorneys or law enforcement offices) might in most cases be sufficient.
A good rule of thumb regarding this issue would be if in doubt simply vote Democratic and completely down the ballot. But it won’t always be that obvious and easy.
It’s More Complicated Than You Think
A glaring example of the problem arose in the 2022 midterm election in Georgia. The October 15, 2022 PBS News Hour did a special report on that election and focused exclusively on the Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker and the gubernatorial one between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams, but made no mention at all of these lower offices. An average voter could easily not have know that the Georgia state legislature had stripped away Secretary of State Ben Raffensperger’s electoral powers (after Raffensperger famously refused Donald Trump’s request to “find 11,780 votes”) and supplanted them with a “State Board of Elections Chair” chosen by the legislature itself – meaning that a Georgia voter might not have known that her vote for state senator in 2022 could determine who would be elected President of the United States in 2024. A Republican who was happy that Brian Kemp had stood up to Trump alongside Raffensperger regarding certification of Georgia’s 2020 election result might have voted for Kemp and Raffensperger, but also for the Republican state senate candidate with a false sense that he had done his job of “protecting democracy.” Or a Democrat might have vote for Warnock and Abrams but failed to vote further down the ballot with a similar erroneous feeling of complacency.
Even though the Supreme Court struck down the Independent State Legislature Theory and Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act, a myriad of electoral quirks still exist that Republicans will attempt to exploit in 2024.
Watch this Rachel Maddow video below to learn what's been occurring regarding a potential Trump organization electoral coup:
And watch this video to understand how such an electoral coup would work on the county level:
If you didn’t watch the Rachel Maddow video above, please do so in order to comprehend what’s happening.
Far too much emphasis is being put on the top of the ticket to the neglect of the other absolutely vital offices that will play key roles in the constitutional dog fight that is certain to ensue after November 5. And when attention is paid to them, the message is often lost in a dizzying array of information overload.
The importance of voting to uphold democracy on the local level for state legislatures and attorney/prosecutor offices must be made more apparent to voters and simpler for them to understand and do.
Since these offices will primarily be the ones which will often determine whether or not women and doctors will be prosecuted for abortion procedures, there is a potential synergy regarding them and the enthusiasm of “pro-choice” and “pro-democracy” groups. Getting voters to the polls for these lower level offices on the ballot will also translate to more participation for top of the ballot offices. The greater the margins of victory in these races can become, the less effective Trump’s challenges to them will be.
But the particulars of these state and local offices are extraordinarily complicated. As just one (very important) example, the dates on which state legislatures are sworn in differs from state-to-state, so there will be differences regarding whether a legislature existing from 2022 or a new one elected in 2024 will have input into the 2024 election at various stages of the electoral process between November 5 and Inauguration Day. New state legislatures will assume office BEFORE January 6 in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania - while other legislatures will be sworn in after that date. A state could potentially have two different legislative bodies (or other lower level officials) attempting to affect different stages of the electoral process at different times. Voters must be made aware of the importance of these state legislatures and how they might affect a contingent election - as well as the numerous other down-ballot offices which might also play a role.
Readers are encouraged to post additional updates and advice here in the comments section, on their own websites and elsewhere regarding how to give momentum to this undertaking so that the critical offices in play are pinpointed both nationwide and LOCALLY.
Anybody with any kind of social media platform can have an effect by spotlighting this problem and these offices to their readers and viewers. (And if you want to get even more vigorously involved in spreading this message, see the article: “We Are All the Media Now”.)
Initiatives were run by groups such as MoveOn.org, Working America and Democracy Defense Fund or the Democracy Defenders series on MSNBC to counter the existential threat the 2022 election posed to our democracy, but I have not seen much attention given to the importance of these lower level offices in in this election. Perhaps a list of such organizations could be updated, and they could be asked to help zero in on what these critical offices are in 2024. Organizations such as the Lincoln Project and Republicans Against Trumpism should be enlisted in this common cause as well.
The 2024 presidential electoral results will be challenged and the election will be far from over on the night of November 5th - if the worst case scenario develops, we need to be proactively ready for the next phase of the struggle which will begin that evening over who will become President of the United States.
Let’s boost the hashtag and invigorate this cause. Preserving our very constitutional democracy and protecting our individual personal rights by making the outcome of the 2024 election reflect the electoral results of the actual votes cast is too important to let it get lost in the political noise at the end of an election. Get the word out.
Here is an article that contains several lists of the key offices at play which you should focus on to thwart a contingent election. See if candidates for offices in your own locality are on the lists and be sure to vote for candidates to those offices. And help alert others both in and outside of your locality to the need to do the same.
Repost this article on your social media sites and use the hashtag #VoteBlueDownBallot on all of your own posts and comments.
The possibility, danger and complexity of a contingent election hasn’t been fully appreciated. Things could get far worse than what’s presented in this article. The dangers of the ongoing coup and a contingent election and what we can do about them will be further explained in Safeguard.
Below is my answer to two others who commented elsewhere on this article:
First of all, Alexandru, thank you for asking a very important question bluntly, but also with civility and respect.
I actually agree with some of your premises. I am not a Democrat. I also think Biden has been a good president who became unelectable after his debate performance.
You call the replacement of Biden with Harris a “soft coup.” It could indeed be seen as such. I think the larger problem is that Biden won the nomination without a real primary process being allowed by the very Democratic establishment that you say later deposed him in that “soft coup.” Furthermore, he won the nomination in 2020 through a similar process of that Democratic establishment rallying around his candidacy (versus letting a fuller primary process evolve).
Both political parties have become deplorably guilty of this. I wrote an article titled Anointed? https://crisafulli.substack.com/p/anointed in which I argued that Donald Trump’s ascendency to the presidency in 2016 was the reaction of his base of supporters against having their nominees handpicked by the political establishment and donors. Ironically, Trump engineered tight control of the Republican apparatus and won nominated in 2024 without participating in a single debate and shutting down the primary process as quickly as he could (even though the strength and support of his base was stronger than I expected at that time and he won the primaries, anyway).
My argument is that the electoral system of the United States demands different standards than those of political parties. If the Libertarians or Greens want to nominate somebody without participation of their membership, that’s their right – just as it’s the “right” of the Democrats and Republicans to do variations of the same. People have the right to leave political parties under such circumstances and to not vote for candidates who do such things.
But it is not the right of any individual, political party or other institution to override the will of the American people as expressed through the electoral system (even though the electoral system might not reflect the results of the popular vote). People can’t be expected to just renounce their citizenship and “leave” the United States if the electoral system itself is “rigged.”
@Mary Scholl says “that’s the Constitutional process of electing the president if no one gets to 270 [electoral votes].” However, many elements of the electoral process are archaic mechanisms which stem from before the United States evolved into the modern era and the predominantly two party system we have today, and for decades if not centuries they have not been used. It is bad enough if the process which leads to a contingent election happens naturally (for example in a three-way race). It is another thing to purposely engineer an outcome whereby nobody gets to 270 electoral votes by frustrating the counting of votes and thwarting their certification before the process even makes it from the local and state levels to the federal one. Or to attempt to thwart the certification at the federal level as occurred in 2020 and 2021. In 2024 the goal would be to PROVOKE a contingent election that would negate both the popular vote and the electoral one.
That’s why I define it as an “electoral coup by politicians” that differs from whatever political parties might do within the framework of their own institutions.
If the worst does come to pass, then I’m your ace up North America’s sleeve.