• Editor’s note: Voter nullification is not something that comprises a functioning democracy. These stories below in recent days highlight how we must be aware that Republican state legislatures are enacting voter suppression/nullification laws where they may not certify future Democratic wins. This is not some distant hypothetical – the threat IS real!
• From Stephen Richer: The Republican who unseated a Democrat last year to become Maricopa County, AZ. Recorder responded to Trump’s charge that the entire voter database had been deleted, “Wow. This is unhinged. I’m literally looking at our voter registration database on my other screen. Right now. We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country.”

+ Washington Monthly by David Atkins: What Happens When Republicans Simply Refuse to Certify Democratic Wins? It’s something we need to start preparing for now.

“So what happens in 2024 if President Biden or Vice President Harris win the Electoral College, but local Republicans on county boards with majority Democratic votes refuse to certify the election; when state legislatures who have seized control of certification refuse to certify their state tallies; when a potential Republican majority in the House of Representatives refuses to certify the Electoral College tally? What happens when they refuse to certify Democratic wins in purple state Senate races, throwing control of the Upper Chamber into limbo and chaos? What happens if Biden/Harris wins the popular vote by 8 million votes and 30 electoral college votes, only to see Republicans in states like Georgia and Wisconsin decide that their GOP legislatures will send electors for Trump or Tucker Carlson or Josh Hawley instead? What happens if Democrats legitimately add to their lead in the Senate, only to see Republicans refuse to certify those tallies as well, keeping GOP Senators in place for the next session?” Read more

+ NYU’s Jay Rosen on Twitter: If you think these are distant hypotheticals, you’re not paying close enough attention. I know it’s hard. But the threat is real.

+ MSNBC Opinion by Richard W. Painter: Trump committed crimes in office that no indictment can remedy

“The former president was told he could do anything he wanted. It’s no surprise that he listened. The crimes that Trump allegedly committed in office are the greater danger to our republic.

“We still don’t know if, when and where Trump will be indicted and if so for what crimes, but he surely has a lot of legal exposure.

“At some point, we need to decide if we really do embrace a notion of presidential power under the Constitution that allows a president to fire anybody for any reason, even to obstruct justice; that allows a president to conduct foreign policy any way he or she wants, even if to coerce a foreign power to interfere in the next U.S. election; that allows a president to use control of the military any way he or she wants, even if to “redo” a lost election; and finally, that allows a president, if unsuccessful in all of these things, to incite followers to stage an insurrection at the Capitol.

“What’s most troubling is that throughout Trump’s presidency, he believed himself to be immune from criminal prosecution and that the powers of the presidency entitled him to do anything he wanted to do. The same president who Vance suspects of violating the law in conducting the business of the Trump Organization was also running the presidency like a criminal enterprise.”

“If criminal law can define no limits to presidential power, our president will be more akin to a mafia don than to the head of a democratic republic. That is not the Constitution I believe in and I doubt it is the Constitution our forbearers believed in when they drafted and ratified it more than 230 years ago. In the America most of us believe in, no person is above the law, even the president.” Read more