WILL THERE BE MINI-INSURRECTIONS THIS YEAR? (updated)

The New York Times is trying to warn its readers that election truthers are getting close to power in many potential 2024 battleground states:

As the halfway point nears of a midterm year that is vastly friendlier to Republicans, the party’s voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy.

... it is possible that 2023 will bring newly installed far-right officials willing to wield their influence to affect election outcomes....

Names are named, among them Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, as well as a winner of a primary yesterday, Nevada secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant. Clearly we should be worried about election theft in 2024. But this also jumped out at me:

In Arizona, the leading Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, has said that Gov. Doug Ducey, a fellow Republican who is term-limited, should not have certified Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory in the state and has predicted the 2022 general election will also be rigged against Republicans. “I think we’re going to have to win by a mile to maybe eke out a win,” she told The Times earlier this year.

There hasn't been much polling of the general election in Arizona, but a February poll shows Lake leading Katie Hobbs, the favorite for the Democratic nomination, by 1 point. In Pennsylvania, a new poll shows Doug Mastriano trailing the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Josh Shapiro, by 4 points.

Lake and Mastriano are among the loudest and angriest denialists. What happens if candidates like this lose tight races, when they're already telling us that they believe they're "going to have to win by a mile to maybe eke out a win"?

We should be preparing for the possibility of mini-1/6 insurrections in the states between November and January. We should be ready to defend election results in the states the way they were defended in the 2020 presidential election. The denialists don't just pose a threat to democracy in the future -- they might also pose a threat to democracy this year.

*****

UPDATE: And this is how unrest in the states could begin:

Votes in a New Mexico community are at risk of not counting after a Republican-led commission refused to approve primary election results over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines.

Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the three-member Otero County commission to certify June 7 primary election results to ensure voters are not disenfranchised and that political candidates have access to the general election ballot in November.

On Monday, the commission in its role as a county canvassing board voted unanimously against certifying the results of the primary without raising specific concerns about discrepancies, over the objection of the county clerk.

“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” said Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt on Monday. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”

These people have no specific complaints, but things just don't seem right! Facts need to care about their feelings!

The commission has a celebrity member:

The commission’s members include Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who ascribes to unsubstantiated claims that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and is scheduled for sentencing later this month.

Griffin is a racist and a COVID truther who's repeatedly said that his enemies deserve the death penalty for treason, as I explain here. His sentencing in his January 6 case is scheduled for Friday. Meanwhile, he has a say in whether an election is certified. As I often say, democracy isn't just in danger two years from now -- it's under siege right now.