“Election Denial” Is a Lie, a Pernicious Threat to Democracy

What does it mean to be an “election denier”?  Both the New York Times and the Washington Post report that the vast majority of Republican candidates — over 370 out of 550 — on the ballot next Tuesday as candidates for the US House and Senate, and the state offices of governor, secretary of state and attorney general have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 presidential election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  It is crucial that we recognize the deep threat that such election denial poses to our democracy.

Denial of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election is not an error in judgment; it is a lie.  More than sixty court cases instigated by former President Trump and his allies were turned down, several accompanied by severe judicial rebukes to the lawyers for bringing frivolous claims.  The January 6 commission has clearly documented that Trump knew he lost the election and perpetrated the “Stop the Steal” movement as part of an unconstitutional, antidemocratic plot to overthrow the US government and stay in power.

According to Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger (one of two Republican on the January 6 Commission), the vast majority of Republican congressional representatives who espouse the Big Lie, do not in fact believe it themselves.  Kinzinger said,

For all but a handful of members, if you put them on truth serum, they knew that the election was fully legitimate and that Donald Trump was a joke. The vast majority of people get the joke. I think Kevin McCarthy gets the joke.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Republican voters do not get the joke.  Serious statistical attempts to determine Republican voters’ actual beliefs about the 2020 presidential election indicate that less than a third of them believe that President Joe Biden won.

It is a bedrock principle of democracy that voters decide elections and candidates accept results.  Especially in a polarized country, doubt about election results is a pernicious attack on the democratic structure itself.  If citizens harbor doubt about the validity of an election, they cannot commit themselves to the decisions the government makes.

Wide-spread election denial is a new phenomenon in American democracy.  Gracious concession speeches have always been the norm, even in bitter and hard-fought campaigns.  After the 2000 presidential election, in which the Supreme Court’s widely criticized intervention gave the presidency to George W Bush before the Florida recount was complete, Democrat Al Gore immediately accepted the results and pledged to work with the new president-elect.  

Election denial essentially originated with Donald Trump, who actually began his accusations by insisting without evidence in 2012 that Barack Obama had stolen the election.   In 2016 candidate Trump prepared for the possibility that he would lose the election by refusing to commit to accepting the results if he lost and repeating many times that the election was being rigged.  Even after he narrowly won the Electoral College, he continues to falsely claim that he won the popular vote, which he, in reality, lost by three million votes.

Claims of election irregularity and fraud must, of course, be taken seriously and, if necessary, adjudicated through the courts, especially in close elections.  But ultimately a commitment to democracy requires that a losing candidate accept the results and cede the election.  While the mass Republican denial of the 2020 presidential election is the current existential threat, Democrats have not been immune.  The small number of Democrats who refused to concede the 2020 Gore-Bush election and Democrat Stacy Abrams's ongoing refusal to acknowledge her gubernatorial loss in the 2020 Georgia election are also forms of anti-democratic election denial that undermine our constitutional order. Ultimately, losing candidates committed to democracy concede their loss and acknowledge the democratic process.

Many Republican candidates — for instance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin — have “moderated” their election denial by acknowledging Biden’s legitimate election yet saying that “election integrity” is a major problem.  Giving the lie to their claims of moderation, both have recently campaigned on behalf of election deniers.  Such “moderation” should not be allowed to stand; “election integrity” in the 2022 midterms is just a codeword for “election denial.”  

Unfortunately, the meaning of “election integrity” will change after next Tuesday’s election when election deniers will most likely be placed in charge of some state elections in 2024 and the integrity of elections will, indeed, be a legitimate issue.

Let’s be clear: election denial — the assertion that Donald Trump won the 2020 election — is a malicious lie that eats away at the fabric of American democracy.   I fear our democracy cannot withstand the corrosion.