The Death of Democracy – Part 3
Is the threat to American democracy real or overblown?
Welcome to the Civic Way journal, our quick take on the relevance of breaking news to America’s future governance. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.
Men … are more disturbed by fear of the unknown than by facing facts. Peace of mind lies in being delivered from all these fears. – Epicurus
Many of us fear the impending death of American democracy. Are these fears warranted?
Let’s start with the polls. They suggest that Americans have been losing faith in their government institutions and democratic processes for many years.
For example, according to the Pew Research Center, only 21 percent of Americans trust the federal government to do right. Our faith in the federal judicial branch is higher, but dropping. Public trust in state and local government is higher, but a vibrant democracy needs universal trust.
A recent CNN/SSRS poll indicates that most Americans lack confidence in the accuracy of US election results. And according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, nearly 60 percent of us believe that our democracy needs a major overhaul. The basis for these beliefs is uncertain.
Americans seem confused or conflicted about democracy’s viability. Nearly half of us, for instance, fear that elected officials will at some time in the future overturn a US election they fail to win. Yet, only 49 percent view the Capitol Coup as an attempted insurrection and only 55 percent regard the former President’s post-2020 election actions as serious threats to democracy. Go figure.
One explanation is that our fears reflect our partisan leanings. For instance, 89 percent of Democrats and less than 20 percent of Republicans regard the former President’s post-election escapades as criminal. While 84 percent of Democrats see the Capitol Coup as an insurrection, most Republicans do not. A 2020 Morning Consult poll indicated that GOP trust in elections fell from 68 to 34 percent.
This partisan divergence is the sad product of years of unfounded charges, reckless scare tactics and brazen lies about our elections. If the goal was to undercut one major party’s faith in democracy, mission accomplished. Despite the quiet dedication of election workers—and steady state and local improvements to election processes, baseless suspicions about elections have proliferated.
The US is not immune to election fraud. It is part of our national story. New York’s Tammany Hall. The 1876 Tilden-Hayes presidential election. The Jim Crow South. Political machines in cities like Chicago (Arvey, Cermak, Daley), Kansas City (Pendergast) and Memphis (Crump) and states like New Jersey (Hague and Norcross). Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 Senate victory (South Texas’ Parr Machine). The 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential election (Illinois and Texas). The 2000 Bush-Gore presidential election (Florida). The 2008 ACORN voter registration fraud case (Seattle).
The reality is that our concerted bipartisan efforts to improve election systems in recent decades have made voter fraud an anomaly. Fraud still occurs, but its incidence is microscopic compared to the 19th and 20th centuries. The documented incidence of voter fraud now ranges from 0.0003 to 0.0025 percent of votes cast. And voting by mail (once dominated by GOP voters) has a pristine reputation, especially in states like Colorado, Utah and Washington where it is the dominant voting process.
Since state and local election officials understand that small-scale voter fraud can materially affect the outcome of a close election, they remain vigilant about improving election security. To that end, all citizens must support investments in open, fair and honest elections.
However, acknowledging the need for election security is no excuse for discrediting elections altogether. The cost is too high.
Attacking election results is not a new tactic. Self-serving, dishonorable politicians have used it for years to challenge their losses. Some politicians, for example, falsely claimed that illegal votes cost them the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. Former President Trump first used the Stop the steal! phrase after losing the Colorado caucuses to Senator Cruz in April 2016.
Making reckless election fraud charges is a tried-and-true therapy for sore losers. Regrettably, the rest of us have to endure the incessant whining and lying. Worse yet, some of us actually believe the charges.
What is new about the recent rash of electoral fraud claims is not that they are misleading (which they are), but rather that they are so coordinated and partisan. They have become the spear of a unified and orchestrated campaign to undermine our faith in elections—and democracy.
The rhetoric surrounding the election fraud campaign solemnly cites concerns about election security. However, the campaign (thus far) has been long on accusations and short on solutions. The campaign’s proposed reforms involve such incongruent and anti-democratic ideas as hindering voter registration, outlawing mail-in voting, discarding ballots not tallied within one day and overturning elections altogether.
Given this dissonance, the partisan election fraud campaign probably has another purpose in mind. Instead of a sincere effort to improve election security, it looks more and more like a callous scheme to discredit a vital civic institution—our election system—and undermine our faith in democracy.
Given the obvious dishonesty of these attacks on election integrity—and their tenacity—Americans would be foolish to assume that they are only (or even primarily) about election security.
Instead, if we truly care about preserving our democracy, we should try to answer some hard questions about the Stop the Steal campaign.
What if the partisan election fraud allegations are less about one politician than seizing political power? What if they are part of a broader campaign to upend our democracy and suppressing political competition?
Coming to terms with such questions won’t be easy. It may require us to confront our fears of the unknown and face unpleasant facts about our nation. But, if we don’t try, the consequences could be devastating and irrevocable.