Fighting Republican efforts to rig future elections, with Max Flugrath of Fair Fight

It’s not technically an election year this year, but in this strange new world of creeping authoritarianism there’s really no such thing as an off-year. Republicans know this. They know they have to keep their foot mashed down on the gas pedal if they’re going to overwhelm the system and create the absolute rule they desire.

That’s why the Republican party — from the White House on down to your local representative in the state legislature (and probably even further down than that) — are engaged in widespread efforts to change not just how elections are run, but to make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote. Last week at Rolling Stone, I identified a three-pronged strategy aimed toward the end of elections that aren’t as free and fair as they have been.

The first and biggest cog in this machine is the SAVE Act, which now has to pass the Senate before becoming law. It will make it more difficult for 21 million Americans to register to vote. Second is an executive order issued by Donald Trump in late March. It accomplishes the main provision of the SAVE Act — documentary proof of citizenship, based on the lie that undocumented immigrants are voting en masse in U.S. elections — and contains a slew of other demands rooted in the goals of the election denial movement.

Finally, Republicans in state legislatures across the country have introduced more bills related to election administration than in previous years — doubling down on Trump’s win and cementing election denialism even further into the party’s DNA. So, while this isn’t an election year, now is the time to get involved. Your elected representatives in the U.S. Congress and your state legislatures need to know that many Americans don’t support these efforts. This must be done before it’s too late, and we head into a mid-term election season next year that will look drastically different if all these bills become law.

That’s why today I’m talking with Max Flugrath of Fair Fight. Max and his organization are tracking all of these developments and advising Americans on how they can push back on Republican attempts to gerrymander elections in their favor.

More Doom reporting on threats to free elections

• The stolen election narrative to come, with Max Flugrath

• Nearly 300 local officials across U.S. support Trump's election lies. Here's what you can do about it.

• Pro-Trump swing state election officials poised to deny November’s election results

• Extremists in Georgia have manhandled elections here

• Pennsylvania is teeming with election denial officials

• Election denial activists force rules upon Georgia voters with impunity

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