Wisconsin voters line up at a polling place in Milwaukee on November 5. Eric Hovde, candidate for the US Senate in Wisconsin, is among the Republican politicians who cast doubt on the integrity of this year’s elections. (Andy Manis/Getty Images)
President-elect Donald Trump may have silenced his lies about widespread voter fraud after his victory earlier this month, but the impact of his efforts to sow doubt about the integrity of America’s elections continues to linger.
While this post-election period has been noticeably quieter than the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, there have been isolated flare-ups of Republican candidates borrowing a page from Trump’s playbook to argue that unsatisfactory election results were illegitimate.
In Wisconsin, Republican U.S. Senate challenger Eric Hovde spread baseless rumors about “last-minute” absentee ballots in Milwaukee that he said would flip the outcome of the race. Although he conceded to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin nearly two weeks after the election, his rhetoric sparked a spike in online conspiracy theories. The Milwaukee Election Commission disputed his claims, saying they “lack any merit.”
In North Carolina, Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger told reporters last week that he feared the process for counting votes for a seat on the state Supreme Court had been rigged for Democrats. Karen Brinson Bell, the head of the State Board of Elections, took Berger to task for his comments, saying they could incite violence.
And in Arizona, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, who spent two years contesting her defeat in the 2022 gubernatorial race, has not acknowledged her Senate loss. While she thanked her supporters in a video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, she did not concede to Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Republicans’ disinformation campaigns have eroded American confidence in elections and exposed local election officials to threats and intimidation. Some observers worry about a return of the Republican Party’s destructive rhetoric the next time they lose.
“We must reject this rhetoric,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy for Common Cause, a voting rights group. “This continued attack on this institution cannot happen.”
Yet many politicians who denied the 2020 election results or criticized their local voting process won the elections. In Arizona, for example, voters chose state Rep. Justin Heap, a Republican, to lead the elections office in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and the largest jurisdiction in the critical swing state. Heap used a “voter confidence” platform, suggesting at a Trump rally that the Maricopa elections office is a “national laughingstock.”
Trump tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice. Bondi, a Republican, served as Trump’s attorney as he challenged the results in 2020. She could use her position as U.S. attorney general to prosecute election officials involved in that election, as Trump promised in an X-post in September.
While the rhetoric surrounding a stolen election has moderated somewhat among Republican ranks since Trump’s victory, conservatives sought to flip the script of “election denial” on Democrats in at least one race.
We must reject this rhetoric.
– Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy at Common Cause
In Pennsylvania, Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey refused to concede defeat until last Thursday, two weeks after The Associated Press called the race for Republican challenger David McCormick. Casey lost by fewer than 16,000 votes, less than half a percentage point.
Casey said he wanted to see the results of an automatic recount and several lawsuits filed on his behalf, but Republicans took advantage of his refusal to give up quickly.
Last week, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who resisted Trump’s push to “find” votes in 2020 after losing the state, blasted Casey for not conceding the Senate race.
“Election denial must end now,” Raffensperger wrote in a statement. “We are a country of laws and principles, not of men and personalities. Do your job! Follow the law. Accept the election results or you will lose your country.”
Even as Republicans largely toned down their rhetoric this year, some left-wing social media accounts repeated a debunked conspiracy theory that Starlink, the Internet service provider of billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk, had changed the vote count.
However, these messages are not comparable to election denial by the Republican Party, according to the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, which combats strategic disinformation.
“While the claims are similar, the rumor dynamics on the left are clearly different due to the lack of support or amplification by left-wing influencers, candidates or party elites,” the center wrote last week.
Common Cause’s Young said it’s clear that election disinformation of any kind is having a devastating impact on local officials charged with administering elections.
Threats to election workers continued even after Election Day. Bomb threats were made to election offices in California, Minnesota, Oregon and other states, forcing evacuations as workers counted ballots.
But this was only part of the onslaught many officials have faced over the past four years. Local election officials need the resources to strengthen how they combat disinformation and physical attacks, Young said.
“We should do better,” he said.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Scott S. Greenberger: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
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