The Coming Crisis of Legitimacy - The Atlantic - 0 views
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The prospect that Trump will lose but try to remain in office has spooked analysts. The question on their mind is how many Americans would go along with such a blatant attack on democratic institutions.
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A clear majority of Americans, including six out of every 10 Republicans, said they were confident that “votes for president in November will be counted fairly, accurately and securely.” But, crucially, confidence in the election is strongly conditional on its outcome.
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Only one in three Americans who plan to vote for Trump said that if Joe Biden is declared the victor, that would be “because he receives more votes than Donald Trump.” More than two in five said it would be “because voting systems are rigged and voter fraud is committed.”
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Just one in five Biden supporters said that a win by Trump would be because he received more votes than Biden; nearly two in three said it would be due to “voter suppression and foreign interference.”
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Whether Biden or Trump emerges as the winner, millions of Americans will likely believe that their candidate was robbed.
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Given this reality, how can Americans know if the outcome is free and fair? And how can they distinguish between an election tarnished by imperfections and one that has been so compromised, its outcome is illegitimate?
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They also advised voters to distinguish between ordinary forms of electoral malfunction and an extraordinary attack.
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Daniel Ziblatt, a government professor at Harvard and a co-author of How Democracies Die, stressed that voters should rely on data and impartial umpires, not anecdotes and partisan activists:
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Jess Marsden, a counsel at Protect Democracy who specializes in election law, agreed. “The average election official has worked seven previous elections. These people aren’t partisan hacks; they’re serious professionals working at the state and local level. If they say the results are legitimate, that means a lot.”
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The final piece of advice is perhaps the most important: Look at the totality of the evidence rather than focusing on a few specific issues. “It really comes down to common sense,”
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Shimer emphasized that any concerted attempt to rig the election would likely produce a clear trail of evidence.
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No matter who wins the election, millions of Americans are likely to doubt that its outcome is fair. Less than two months from now, American democracy could face one of the biggest tests of its legitimacy in living memory.