No, Trump does not have the legal authority or the practical ability to “nationalize” US elections, for all the same reasons he also didn’t when he issued an executive order a few months ago abolishing mail in voting.
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But this is far fetched and almost certainly counter to Trump’s interests, which presumably include not getting himself killed in a coup if he fails. And again, disrupting elections isn’t really essential for this.
@mattblaze Surely some member of the USSS would take their oath to protect the constitution seriously in such a situation? Or am I a hopeless dreamer?
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I could go into detail about what the limits on executive and federal control over US elections are, and what the president could do to exert influence over them, but it would be extremely tedious and irrelevant to the actual reality here, which is that this is a nothing burger.
@mattblaze I’m more worried about people believing he CAN do these things, and disrupting the process that way with the noise and enough precincts possibly following along, or outside pressure like we started to see with counting. General public panic is the weak link, and the logical, legal explanation is a lot less interesting to entertainment media these days
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Scale of US elections:
51 states (and DC), each with its own election laws
Most ballot questions are for state and local offices and initiatives
~ 5000 local election administration jurisdictions (mostly counties and townships), which run election logistics
~ 115,000 local polling places, mostly borrowed for election day
~ 750,000 election day workers
~ 138,000,000 ballots cast in 2016, 82,000,000 of which at local polling places on election day.
@mattblaze maybe I'm missing something here, but the US only has 50 states...
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@mattblaze Yep, just like he can't bom random ass fisherman without congressional approval. How's that working out?
@hellomiakoda @mattblaze Do you really think Trump will order the military to bomb random-ass polling places?
The question isn't whether Trump can proclaim he's above the law. It's whether he can act on it in any particular case. All the mechanism to run elections is in the several states, not in Washington; Trump can't just order obedience and expect to be followed here.
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@mattblaze @dominykas this is my concern too. There's what is legal, and then there's what is permitted.
@hosford42 @mattblaze @dominykas What concrete actions can Trump take to make states obey his unconstitutional election decrees, given that all the mechanism of elections is in the states, not the federal government?
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@mattblaze @diasyy11 i don't have to be an elections expert to understand that if a bunch of guys with guns show up and start beating people up and shutting down the polling station or seizing the machines, that nothing in the law can stop that and in a situation like minneapolis where the cops are outnumbered 5:1 by ICE guys with bigger guns, nothing in local law enforcement can stop it either.
@cryptadamist @mattblaze @diasyy11 How many ICE guys would it take to do that at a majority of polling stations in every blue-majority city, let alone every blue-majority state? What impact would even an attempt to do that have on voters even in red states? Trump has a core of fascist-fanboi supporters but they're nowhere near a majority. Look at the recent special elections.
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@mattblaze @dominykas I mean - think of a scenario where one of the officials in the elections committee in Mariposa county (a Trumpist) insists that there was a miscount?
This will fuel all conspiracists, and Jan 6th would be a walk in the park.
@mkilmo @mattblaze @dominykas But how many such incidents would it take to spoil elections in hundreds of districts (and tens of thousands of polling places) all over the nation?
Remember that the US federal election system is a large, highly-distributed system. A denial-of-service attack such as you describe would require orders of magnitude more resources than Trump has yet deployed on anything, for blatantly unlawful actions that many proper-military people will decline.
I don't say it's utterly impossible but it's a lot harder than the not-so-effective attempts to subdue all opposition in Minneapolis.
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@theklan @mattblaze @blasen You are an idiot, and he does. (Matt is a highly visible public expert on his day job and gets an ENORMOUS amount of abuse: he doesn't need random fools like you telling him to be polite to idiots.)
@cstross @theklan @blasen He does what? I was under impression that the community here was friendly and ready for polite exchange of ideas. But from this and other his threads it look like he really doesn't want interaction. And that's fine, but there is no need for rudeness and sarcasm just because somebody asks something or presents a different opinion.
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No, Trump does not have the legal authority or the practical ability to “nationalize” US elections, for all the same reasons he also didn’t when he issued an executive order a few months ago abolishing mail in voting. Elections are governed by states, and, to a limited extent, Congress. Not the executive branch.
There are plenty of very real, immediate threats to democracy to get worked up about right now. This isn’t one of them.
@mattblaze and saying this is completely disingenuous, misleading, and ignores reality.
He can't deport people illegally. He can't send people to foreign countries to be tortured illegally. He can't rename the Kennedy center illegally.
These are not self-enforcing things. If they are saying they are going to seize control of elections by force, then guess what? They sure as fuck are going to try. And they don't CARE if they screw it up. Screwing it up is the POINT.
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@mattblaze and saying this is completely disingenuous, misleading, and ignores reality.
He can't deport people illegally. He can't send people to foreign countries to be tortured illegally. He can't rename the Kennedy center illegally.
These are not self-enforcing things. If they are saying they are going to seize control of elections by force, then guess what? They sure as fuck are going to try. And they don't CARE if they screw it up. Screwing it up is the POINT.
@mattblaze they are more than willing to storm into every election office with Gestapo thugs and guns, which they already have in Georgia.
They will make up some justification - what it is, if it's believable, doesn't matter. Their cult will go along with it no matter what. "Proving" it "doesn't work" so they must take control.
And that's that. Unless somebody actually fucking stops them (and not with court orders they just ignore,) and soon, that is what they will do.
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I could go into detail about what the limits on executive and federal control over US elections are, and what the president could do to exert influence over them, but it would be extremely tedious and irrelevant to the actual reality here, which is that this is a nothing burger.
@mattblaze Honest question:
What are the practical limits on these powers if Congress, the Supreme Court, and the entire Executive Branch is all aboard Trump's extralegal agenda?
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I dread when Trump makes these proclamations, because it’s a denial of service attack against me and every other election expert with better things to do than explain why this is BS over and over. But other than that, it’s just empty, meaningless blather.
@mattblaze Are you concerned that he will simply "make it happen," as he has with other illegal orders he's made over the last year? Apparently the Constitution and the law have no force against his will.
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@theklan @mattblaze @blasen You are an idiot, and he does. (Matt is a highly visible public expert on his day job and gets an ENORMOUS amount of abuse: he doesn't need random fools like you telling him to be polite to idiots.)
@cstross @theklan @mattblaze @blasen
Matt is an expert in cryptography, not in predicting what authoritarians will do, or whether they will get away with it.
Is he right that Trump has as much chance of circumventing election laws as he does changing the laws of thermodynamics? No, Trump has much better odds of doing one over the other. Will Trumo get away with it? No, likely not. But the fact that it is is something on his mind is itself a ramping of authoritarianism.
Any cryptographer on earth should be capable of seeing that very clearly.
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I dread when Trump makes these proclamations, because it’s a denial of service attack against me and every other election expert with better things to do than explain why this is BS over and over. But other than that, it’s just empty, meaningless blather.
@mattblaze reminder.
Nobody took Johnson's blabbering about "brexit", either, when his group of chuds *suggested* a non binding referendum about it. And ::motions at UK::
Law is only what people make of it, and only valid if they are willing to enforce and defend.
MAGAty trial balloons are dangerous.
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He incited Jan 6 without having to face any consequences, might he think he can incite something similar during elections? ( i.e. Violence from third parties incited by him but not part of any formal structure governed by him? )
If this was done in specific places as a form of voter suppression?
@FediThing @mattblaze They don't need to disrupt the vote. Just the counting like they tried last time.
This was in Detroit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLLMjud_Zf8From Jack Smith's investigation:
A co-conspirator wanted reasons to throw out Biden votes. When told it would risk creating a “Brooks Brothers Riot” — the co-conspirator responded, “Make them riot’,” and “Do it!!!,” the filing stated.
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@mattblaze Are you concerned that he will simply "make it happen," as he has with other illegal orders he's made over the last year? Apparently the Constitution and the law have no force against his will.
@jonkl no, for the various reasons I mentioned.
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But this is far fetched and almost certainly counter to Trump’s interests, which presumably include not getting himself killed in a coup if he fails. And again, disrupting elections isn’t really essential for this.
@mattblaze A vaguely related topic and question: how theoretically and practically possible is it for a state to leave the USA and become not united with the rest of USA?
I compare that UK left EU (I live in Sweden, EU).
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@inquiline @mattblaze @me_valentijn totally magic eight ball vibes
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@mattblaze the "practical ability" thing is the one I'm most curious about here.
He's broken laws (has he not?) so far, and people complied? Is that being mis-represented in [social] media? e.g. there's lawsuits around tariffs? People told Trump "you can't do it, it's illegal", and yet he still did it, and his goons followed through? Why wouldn't the same work with elections, given he still has a compliant base of supporters, incl. among officials?
@dominykas @mattblaze POTUS has nominal authority over tariffs and immigration enforcement, as those are defined in the Constitution as Federal concerns. He ultimately controls the government structures doing those things.
Elections in the US are explicitly reserved (not 'delegated') to the States, which further delegate authority to counties and municipalities. No one in that hierarchy answers to POTUS.
His "demand" that states provide voter data to Federal authorities has so far failed. -
@mattblaze
It aeems to me that his "power" across the board (that is, irrespective of which elections & where they occur) appears to be theatrical declarations to the press & on social media — which do affect many people when they hear/read them — and the general ability to create chaos and more intimidation by, for example, putting any sort of "enforcement" agents on streets & around polling places. Those could be ICE, National Guard, regular military, et al., legal or not.Correct assumption?
Yup, Trump is a fucking chaos monkey.
