There are many facets to effectively stealing an election. If you are in Belarus, you simply announce your victory and order yourself inaugurated. But in the USA, that would not fly. So it gets more complicated.
Steps include (but are not limited to):
- Complain about a rigged election
- Prevent improvements to allow quick tallying of mail-in ballots
- Cast aspersions on validity of mail-in ballots
- Pretend that the pandemic is no-risk
- Citing 3 & 4, urge your supporters to vote in person
- Suppress the vote in areas prone to vote for your opponent
- Urge your more thuggish supporters to intimidate voters in areas prone to support your opponent
- Anticipate mail-in ballots to favor your opponent
- Slow the counting of mail-in ballots and contest their validity
- Scream about a rigged vote as mail-in votes erase your lead from in-person voting
- In the ensuing chaos, urge states led by your party to appoint electors
- If you get caught, defend yourself with "I told you the election was rigged! Why didn't you believe me?"
Add these steps to long-standing broad voter suppression, and you significantly increase your odds of winning. Close elections in Georgia and Florida in 2018 exemplified how effective just run-of-the-mill voter suppression can be.
When did democracy become a joke?
And if you think I'm joking, read these:
Or listen to the October 1, 2020 episode of Fresh Air.
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Your thoughts are welcome! I'll try not to flinch if there are nasty ones, which I understand are fairly common nowadays.