Big Lie 2.0

How Democrats Are Staving Off the Big Lie 2.0

The last four years have shown “an increase in risk” for election disinformation—but also a “strengthening of safeguards” against it.

Abby Vesoulis

At a Tuesday panel dedicated to “Protecting the Vote” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, an expert speaker sounded as if he was holding back tears as he explained what motivates him to do the work.

His wife gave birth to a son just two weeks ago, he shared. Suddenly, his job wasn’t just about protecting democracy for the country, but also for his newborn. “I have to fight for his ability to continue to be a respected member of his community and a citizen of his country in a full way,” said Jake Kenswil, director of voter protection at the Democratic National Committee.

“This subject is emotional for us,” said Yvette Lewis, another speaker and the former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. “What we need you to do is to be just as emotional when you’re talking to your communities,” she added, “and get them to feel what we hope we made you feel today—which is the urgency of why this is so very important.”

But there weren’t many people there to hear their pressing message. In a conference room that could have accommodated hundreds, less than 40 people showed; out of two dozen press-reserved seats, only one was filled (mine). The sparsely attended meeting hosted by Democratic legal experts belies the tremendous threat to voter confidence proliferating this cycle: Deepfake videos projecting fictitious messages from seemingly real officials. Disingenuous lawsuits amplifying debunked theories of fraud. Widespread challenges to voter rolls. Stricter laws on voter identification documentation. Plus, a torrent of requests and threats to local election workers trying to hold down the fort through all of the tumult.

“We have a lot of work to do to prepare for early voting, to ensure our elections are secure, [and] to protect the accuracy of our laws,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told me the following day. “And every minute we spend worrying or thinking about planning to protect against these threats is a minute that’s taken away from our ability to do our jobs.”

Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice, has a theory on the event’s low attendance Tuesday: “Lawyers are boring,” she, a lawyer herself, quipped at a separate event on Wednesday. Moreover, elected officials and election security experts have some trust in reforms that have occurred since President Donald Trump’s supporters infamously broke into the Capitol to overthrow the 2020 election on January 6, 2021.

“There is no legitimate loophole through which somebody can steal an election. It is actually illegal to throw out legitimate votes. It is illegal to reject certification. It is illegal to try to thwart a congressional count,” she said, pointing to the 2022 Electoral Count Reform Act, which raised the threshold for members of Congress to challenge the Electoral College and clarified the role of the vice president in election certification.

That being said, with significant progress on protecting the sanctity of elections has come more aggressive tactics to undermine it. “There’s been a strengthening of safeguards,” Weiser said. “There’s also been an increase in risk level.”

In the spring, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump went on conservative cable news channel Newsmax to talk about the GOP’s efforts to ensure her father-in-law, former President Trump, is pleased with the election outcome in November.

“We have lawsuits in 81 states right now,” she said. Late-night television talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel was quick to mock her slip-up on elementary-level geography. “Not just Tennessee, eleven-essee, twelve-essee,” Kimmel joked about the impossible number of states. “West Dakota, South Virginia. Indiana, Out-diana, you name it—they’re suing.”

But as I reported in the September-October issue of Mother Jones, her claim was barely an exaggeration.

The RNC says it is already involved in at least 78 election-related lawsuits in 23 states, often working with white-shoe law firms—including Consovoy McCarthy, which employs multiple former clerks to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who may eventually be called upon to hear the merits of some of the cases. Several of them focus on longtime GOP bugaboos, like signature verification laws and absentee voting protocols. Others are dressed-up versions of Trump’s wilder conspiracies, including his claim that a “tremendous number of dead people” cast ballots in 2020. Importantly, the buckshot legal onslaught is preemptive, not defensive, and appears intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2024 election results. 

Despite the GOP’s claims repeatedly failing in courts, the lawsuits are effective in the sense that they “create smoke” before judges ultimately dismiss them, said Weiser. “They are exploiting a loophole in the system: Courts are slow.”

In our interview, Benson agreed that Republican National Committee lawsuits in Michigan—such as challenges to her state’s voter roll maintenance—are merely “an effort to drive a PR campaign, to drive a public narrative that sows seeds of distrust,” she said. “When the lawsuits ultimately get dismissed, the damage has already been done.”

Lawsuits aren’t the only weapon in the right’s arsenal. Several GOP-led states have enacted stricter voter identification laws that will increase barriers for voters who don’t possess identification for a variety of reasons. Election deniers are also running and winning positions in local election administration. Conservatives in Georgia are pushing for the ability to challenge voter registrations with limited data. And without an ounce of credible evidence, Trump also continues to insinuate there is fraud afoot, especially if he loses.

He maintains that the only way Democrats could win in 2024 is if they cheat. Therefore, he adds, his lead at the ballot box needs to be “too big to rig.” On the question of whether he will accept the 2024 results, Trump said during the June presidential debate: “If it’s a fair and legal and good election.” 

Legal experts on the left are countering Trump’s steady drumbeat of lies with tactics like publishing information about election rules in multiple languages, ensuring Democrat-allied lawyers observe court hearings related to election rules, and building relationships with local election boards to build trust, the panelists explained Tuesday.

At the state level, officials are also implementing new tools to fight the second iteration of the Big Lie.

Benson shared that her office is connecting overwhelmed election officials in her state with organizations that provide free legal support. Under her leadership, Michigan has also launched a “Democracy Ambassadors” program that distributes newsletters disproving election rumors and sharing helpful facts. The state has also emboldened messengers such as religious leaders and athletes to serve as sources of credible election information.

Michigan has also held “tabletop exercises that enable scenario planning and partnership building between law enforcement, first responders and clerks, so that there’s a direct line for them to call if something happens.”

“We at our office have all the information necessary to assure voters that their votes will be safe—their votes will be counted,” she added.

Efforts to fortify trust and stability in the electoral process will hopefully ensure that the vote of Kenswil’s newborn son will also be counted…in 18 years’ time.