Are You Happy with the Arizona "Audit"?

David Hilfiker

The conspiracy-tinged Arizona recount of the 2020 presidential election has returned its verdict: There was no evidence of fraud.  In fact, President Biden received 360 more votes than had been officially reported.

The results, however, are hardly a cause for celebration among those who already know that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history.  While some Trump supporters undoubtedly thought they would find fraud and even overturn the election and progressives were afraid of fraud in the audit itself, even the benign result sowed further doubt upon the integrity of the American electoral system. 

Any Republican effort to overturn the election, of course, is almost certain to end in defeat.  Won’t that, one might ask, increase confidence in the electoral process?  To a small degree, maybe.  But the real damage was done long ago when the recount was ordered, indicating to the average citizen there was something wrong with the election.  The charges are no longer “fraud” because that’s been discredited multiple times; now the claim is only that there is something “irregular” going on, a charge so vague that it cannot be proven false.

Governor Greg Abbot’s order for a recount in Texas — made within days of Trump’s recent demand — gives some indication of its real intent: Trump won the state, so it’s hard to see any other purpose than to cast doubt on the election process itself.

Wide-spread doubts will have several deleterious results:

• They’ll fuel the Republican efforts to restrict voting rights and write election regulations that discourage Democratic voters from turning out. 
• The doubts will, Republican hopes, spur its base to turn out in high numbers.  (Ironically, the strategy may well backfire: Republicans who believe the false assertions, fearing their vote won’t count, won’t show up while the strategy may anger Democratic voters and energize them to vote.)
• The violence of the January 6 insurrection — inspired by the Big Lie of a stolen election — emphasizes that these growing doubts about elections can have serious real-life consequences for our democracy, including violence.  
• Perhaps the most serious outcome will be to acclimatize the Trump base to the belief that, as Jennifer Rubin writes, “election results are neither final nor inviolate, but merely a prelude to further efforts to overturn election results — by force, if need be.”

The danger should not be underestimated.  An American Enterprise Institute poll shortly after the January 6 insurrection found that three in 10 Americans, including 39% of Republicans, agreed that "if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions."

The Arizona recount has inspired other state recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Texas.  In many other states, bills are passing through legislatures to fund similar efforts.  And still other bills have shifted election responsibilities from governors and nonpartisan local officials to partisan officials and/or state legislatures.  There are even proposals in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri to give the state legislatures control over the results of the election although none of these bills has passed or is even likely to.

A free and fair electoral process is essential to a functioning democracy.  Probably more important, without the confidence that elections are free and fair, the losing sides will not consider the winning side’s government legitimate.  As it is, only 30% of Republican voters have confidence in the electoral process.

Under such circumstances, American democracy is in great peril.