I am sharing the following statement of concern issued in the US by more than 100 academics who are worried about the state of US democracy. We should take note here in the UK. The Tories are following the path that the Republicans are taking:
Statement of Concern
The Threats to American Democracy and the Need for National Voting and Election Administration Standards
STATEMENT
June 1, 2021
We, the undersigned, are scholars of democracy who have watched the recent deterioration of U.S. elections and liberal democracy with growing alarm. Specifically, we have watched with deep concern as Republican-led state legislatures across the country have in recent months proposed or implemented what we consider radical changes to core electoral procedures in response to unproven and intentionally destructive allegations of a stolen election. Collectively, these initiatives are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections. Hence, our entire democracy is now at risk.
When democracy breaks down, it typically takes many years, often decades, to reverse the downward spiral. In the process, violence and corruption typically flourish, and talent and wealth flee to more stable countries, undermining national prosperity. It is not just our venerated institutions and norms that are at risk–it is our future national standing, strength, and ability to compete globally.
Statutory changes in large key electoral battleground states are dangerously politicizing the process of electoral administration, with Republican-controlled legislatures giving themselves the power to override electoral outcomes on unproven allegations should Democrats win more votes. They are seeking to restrict access to the ballot, the most basic principle underlying the right of all adult American citizens to participate in our democracy. They are also putting in place criminal sentences and fines meant to intimidate and scare away poll workers and nonpartisan administrators. State legislatures have advanced initiatives that curtail voting methods now preferred by Democratic-leaning constituencies, such as early voting and mail voting. Republican lawmakers have openly talked about ensuring the “purity” and “quality” of the vote, echoing arguments widely used across the Jim Crow South as reasons for restricting the Black vote.
State legislators supporting these changes have cited the urgency of “electoral integrity” and the need to ensure that elections are secure and free of fraud. But by multiple expert judgments, the 2020 election was extremely secure and free of fraud. The reason that Republican voters have concerns is because many Republican officials, led by former President Donald Trump, have manufactured false claims of fraud, claims that have been repeatedly rejected by courts of law, and which Trump's own lawyers have acknowledged were mere speculation when they testified about them before judges.
In future elections, these laws politicizing the administration and certification of elections could enable some state legislatures or partisan election officials to do what they failed to do in 2020: reverse the outcome of a free and fair election. Further, these laws could entrench extended minority rule, violating the basic and longstanding democratic principle that parties that get the most votes should win elections.
Democracy rests on certain elemental institutional and normative conditions. Elections must be neutrally and fairly administered. They must be free of manipulation. Every citizen who is qualified must have an equal right to vote, unhindered by obstruction. And when they lose elections, political parties and their candidates and supporters must be willing to accept defeat and acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcome. The refusal of prominent Republicans to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, and the anti-democratic laws adopted (or approaching adoption) in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Montana and Texas–and under serious consideration in other Republican-controlled states–violate these principles. More profoundly, these actions call into question whether the United States will remain a democracy. As scholars of democracy, we condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms as a betrayal of our precious democratic heritage.
The most effective remedy for these anti-democratic laws at the state level is federal action to protect equal access of all citizens to the ballot and to guarantee free and fair elections. Just as it ultimately took federal voting rights law to put an end to state-led voter suppression laws throughout the South, so federal law must once again ensure that American citizens' voting rights do not depend on which party or faction happens to be dominant in their state legislature, and that votes are cast and counted equally, regardless of the state or jurisdiction in which a citizen happens to live. This is widely recognized as a fundamental principle of electoral integrity in democracies around the world.
A new voting rights law (such as that proposed in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act) is essential but alone is not enough. True electoral integrity demands a comprehensive set of national standards that ensure the sanctity and independence of election administration, guarantee that all voters can freely exercise their right to vote, prevent partisan gerrymandering from giving dominant parties in the states an unfair advantage in the process of drawing congressional districts, and regulate ethics and money in politics.
It is always far better for major democracy reforms to be bipartisan, to give change the broadest possible legitimacy. However, in the current hyper-polarized political context such broad bipartisan support is sadly lacking. Elected Republican leaders have had numerous opportunities to repudiate Trump and his “Stop the Steal” crusade, which led to the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Each time, they have sidestepped the truth and enabled the lie to spread.
We urge members of Congress to do whatever is necessary–including suspending the filibuster–in order to pass national voting and election administration standards that both guarantee the vote to all Americans equally, and prevent state legislatures from manipulating the rules in order to manufacture the result they want. Our democracy is fundamentally at stake. History will judge what we do at this moment.
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Some of the States are also effectively reversing Roe v. Wade – the abortion laws – even before it is officially overturned by the Supreme Court (it is on a precipice). The Republicans are now the extremist party in the States, there is no doubt about that. They’ve made so many pacts with the Devil over the years.
Biden needs to hold the country together by spending money. Buchanan was right about that – a kind Government (not plying Neo-liberal bullshit) will be a popular Government.
Labour please note.
The Conservatives are following the lead of the Republicans in their desire to gerrymander our electoral system through voter ID, etc.
It is equally alarming that Brexit was not an end in itself, but a means whereby the UK could be forced down a similar path to that of the USA.
On this matter, I note the alarm raised in The Guardian this week, that the proposed Australian trade agreement includes proposals for an Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) system, which as we know, sank Obama’s proposed trade deal with the EU.
Under such terms, what value our ” newly-restored national sovereignty”?
Not a lot, I would suggest.
I fear that the horse has already bolted. The group of people who have faith in our social institutions – parliarmentary democracy, BBC, courts, police, science, education, even the NHS, is shrinking. Brexit was a ramifaction of that decline in trust, where uncertainty and fear where corralled by the press and directed at the EU. This year that insecurity is directed towards CV19, health experts and science. Those freedom marches are big, and the make up of the crowd is surprising mixed. The people on these marches fundamentally distrust the systems that we still have faith in. I heard one woman in tears, because she no longer trusts the health system. Maybe faith can be restored, but when we are ruled by flat out liars, it’s going to be an uphill battle.
It is trust in our government which is gone. Not the institutions themselves. We know our government is lying – we know the press is lying – we know the BBC news is broadcasting those lies – there is confusion on what the truth is. And that is what they exploit. That is why they look to remove voting from those who are not in favour of this corruption of our politics or do not just automatically select “Conservative” on the ballot slip. They hope that the population will just “wash their hands of politics” and leave them to reign uncontested. It is a hope and they live in fear that they may have misjudged it – twitching over the trigger to alter course if the population shows sign of rebelling. They are not comfortable in their power propped up as it is by Russian oligarchs, financiers, US and Israel.
Two terms of Obama did ZILCH for Afro American and other non-white ‘citizens’ – they still were killed & jailed more, kept in ghettoes and restricted of opportunities and HOPE. Nothing was done about voting rights, gun control, drugs and deadly endemic racism – TWO WHOLE TERMS.
Biden is just spending Trillions more of magic money but has not announced the institution of a US National Health Service and demise of their Industrial Pharma and Health Insurance Complexes!
At which point do we admit that they come to bury OUR NHS and not to emulate it over there?
The G7 is defunct – it is showing its rusty claws as the 5+1 eyed imperialists mafiosi forum that sends in the violent men when they can’t get their way with ‘contracts’ and offers the RoW ‘can’t refuse’ but do.
I can’t think of any G7 that has ever delivered what was promised – the nearest was the popular grassroots demanded policy of debt cancellation- which got CANCELLED by some ‘unfortunate’ London Bombings.
I ain’t holds big my breath on the US ever having fair and free elections in their country when they happily spend so much time stopping these in the RoW – including in the most advanced and richest nations of Europe, with their ‘’Gauntlets’ and ‘Color Revolutions’.
But, for how long did he have control? Almost no time
And he tried healthcare…
But I agree, he fell far short
I’d rather have had Obama than McCain or Romney, although I’d take either of those in a heartbeat over Trump. Ancient history now, but things could have been very different if a handful of votes had fallen for Al Gore in 2000.
The midterms tend to swing against the incumbent, so Biden needs to get on with things.
My progressive alliance point….
I’ve mentioned Rachel Maddow on your blog before, Richard, with her weeknight show on MSNBC. Nobody covers the corruption of US politics better and for an example of that follow this link for a short segment on the latest Republican related, QAnon inspired, madness, from last weekend. Gems include a participant in one event asking why what’s happened in Myanmar – a military coup – can’t happen in the US, thereby reinstating Trump as president, and the news that Trump is actually telling people he’ll be reinstated as President in August. Oh, and it starts with Russia claiming that the people who are being prosecuted for the attempted insurrection are being persecuted by the Biden administration and Russia is going to protest about this when the Biden/Putin summit takes place. You couldn’t make this up!
There’s also a short segment and interview with Ben Rhodes about his new book on authoritarianism, ‘After the Fall’. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Thanks Ivan
I can understand the basis for the concerns expressed by these ‘scholars of democracy’, but I’m mystified by their apparent failure to grasp how exceptional the US is. Perhaps it’s a trees and wood issue. In the first instance, the US is not a democracy; it’s a Republic. Unlike other countries, where, once universal suffrage was established, all citizens have an automatic right to vote (with very very well-defined exceptions). In the US, citizenship does not automatically confer the right to vote. That right must be established via the application of a political process.
Secondly, unlike almost all other states, the federal government does not have a monopoly on the use of force to maintain public order and safety. In fact the 2nd Amendment proscribes the exercise of that monopoly of government. Individual states, if they so decide, may exercise this monopoly, but this exercise is limited in extent.
And, finally, the political economy and society of the US continue to be polluted, mangled and distorted by the legacy of institutional slavery. Almost all of the other established democracies who in the past institutionalised slavery did so offshore.
When one factors all these exceptional features in to the mix, it’s probably remarkable that the US functions as well as it does.