Election steal, Part I: What is planned and how far along is it?

I almost postponed this planned topic because it will be controversial. But not after the brazen steps the Trump Administration took just this past week to further rig 2026 and future elections.

We must know what is planned and being implemented now if we are to hold onto our democracy after November of this year – a mere seven months from now. Democracy can hold its leaders responsible to the national interest and the rule of law. It can self-correct. If our elections become sham elections, authoritarianism will have won – and we become subjects, not citizens.

It is not just one man and one presidential Administration. I watched as, 25 years ago, the GOP began to realize demographics were dooming them as a national electoral majority. They could either change their ideology or change the voters. Now, as policy the GOP openly suppresses voting in and sabotages implementation of every national election. They refuse to concede defeat and turn on the propaganda firehose and endless litigation.

Still, I’m tired. Then this week these things happened.

1. President Trump tried ordering the GOP Congress to attach the SAVE Act to the Homeland Security funding bill as a condition of negotiating an end to the partial shutdown of DHS.

(The SAVE Act would require all voters to show picture ID and proof of citizenship at the polls. So? How about asking why? To solve what problem? Also, half of voters lack passports and ID/birth certificate names don’t match for millions of married women. SAVE would restrict by-mail voting and require all states to turn over their voting rolls to the Feds to be “screened” for undocumented immigrants – using a program that in one study had a 14% false-positive rate.)

2, Trump signed an executive order to create a national voter database (or maybe more; it is badly written). The Post Office could only send mail ballots to those on the list. Democrats are suing because the Constitution gives the president no authority over state elections. Besides, what else would this crowd do with a national voter database?

3. Add to these efforts literally dozens of major actions the Right has undertaken in the last 15-20 years (often using lies about illegal immigrant vote fraud) to shrink the electorate. They have passed laws, appointed allies to key state-level positions, and used other methods to try to suppress Democratic Party votes.

So, CivCon will do this topic on April 13, as per the paper schedule. Election subversion is one of the most critical issues we face. Yet the news media fails utterly to cover it prominently. We exist to learn about/debate important changes to our culture, society, economy, and politics that receive little attention from elite media. Sadly, this is one of them.

Our topic after this one will have little or nothing to do with politics. But later this year we will do a Part II on election stealing.

Optional Backgrounders –

Why and how?
o They have committed too many crimes to risk losing.
o Demographic changes mean GOP cannot win free/fair natl elections.
o Stealing 2026 requires five steps. Just Security, 3/26. Recommended. Or, shorter Guardian, 2/26.

SAVE Act:
o Newer versions are little better and still would disenfranchise millions. Brennan Center for Justice. Recommended.
o They may pass it just before election if they are going to lose.

EO: Trump’s new Executive Order on voting is weak sauce, mainly for show/obviously illegal. But some of his advisors wanted much, much worse.

Violence before election: Can troops be sent to the polls in November? Not legally.

After the vote is key. They will try to block certification.

KEY NOTES:
1. The real action is at the state-level, under the media radar. David's intro will focus on those.
2. Democrats have plans to fight all this. They just don't talk much about it.