‌‌‌‌‌ The ‘Constitutional Sheriffs’ Who Want Access To Voting Machines

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Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy. Add your name to help us fight back.

Hello readers!

There’s a far-right sheriffs movement coming for your voting machines. Don’t worry, they’re just interested in election integrity… 

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Alright, let’s dig in.

The Sheriff, His Posse, And Your Election Machines

I reported last week on the so-called “constitutional sheriffs” movement, which holds that sheriffs have supreme law enforcement authority in their counties — above that of state and federal law enforcement — and also that sheriffs can basically ignore laws they deem unconstitutional. 
 

Normally, this group is obsessed with combatting gun reform and, more recently, COVID-19 public health measures. But in a call with me last week, movement leader Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, said the group was all-in on election investigations, and that he would have supported sheriffs seizing voting machines nationwide in 2020.

My article focused on Dar Leaf, the sheriff in Barry County, MICHIGAN, who’s been investigating the 2020 election basically since it happened. The effort now appears to have involved the seizure of a local voting machine but, we should say, it has turned up no “evidence” of note. Leaf now says that state police — whose authority he doesn’t recognize — are investigating his own investigation. 
 

In an interview on Mack’s show Tuesday, Mack’s co-host asked Leaf what Americans would have left if they no longer have faith in their elections. “Posses. Militias,” Leaf responded.

John Eastman Was Cool With Violence To Steal Election 

I usually don’t touch investigations directly relating to Donald Trump in this newsletter, because we cover those on our our website and in other newsletters. But I do think one quote from the Jan. 6 Committee’s hearing Thursday has flown under the radar, and it may well come up again in the future. 
 

In a deposition, White House attorney Eric Herschmann recalled telling John Eastman, Donald Trump’s top election theft legal advisor, that if the plan to steal Trump a second term was successful, there would be rioting in the streets from the tens of millions of Americans whose votes had been canceled.

Eastman responded, according to Herschmann: “There’s been violence in the history of our country to protect democracy or protect the republic.”

Well then! Obviously, Trump himself relied on violence in his effort to steal power — he called his supporters to Washington, D.C. for a “wild” time on Jan. 6, after two previous rallies in the city in November and December turned violent as well.

But to hear this account of Eastman basically asserting that violence would be necessary to “protect the republic” is jarring: Violence was the strategy. And as far as we know, it still is. 

Around The States

SPONSORED MESSAGE FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN*

Franchise readers, Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for voting rights: whether we beat back far-right attacks on the freedom to vote could determine the future of our democracy. Add your name to help us fight back.

One out of every eight ballots in rural ALASKA was thrown out in that state’s at-large special primary election to fill the end of the late Rep. Don Young’s (R-AK) term, and the rejection rate varies widely by community.

An ARIZONA judge rejected (and then harshly criticized) an attempt by the state’s Republican attorney general to force Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) to make changes to the state’s election manual. The AG, Mark Brnovich, is running in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, and Hobbs is running for governor as a Democrat.
 

A federal judge shot down LOUISIANA legislative Republicans’ request for more time to draw a second majority-Black congressional district in the state. An appeals court had briefly put a stay on an order from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick to draw the second district, but lifted the stay last week. 
 

As AP notes, the judge is not messing around: “At one point Dick asked the speaker [of the Louisiana House] why he should not be held in contempt of court because he filed a bill that mirrors the current map, not one with a second majority-Black district that the judge has ordered.” Nonetheless, the legislature adjourned Saturday without passing a new map. 
 

A federal judge rejected former MICHIGAN Republican gubernatorial candidate Perry Johnson’s request to force the state to put him on the ballot. Johnson and others were kept off of the ballot after submitting thousands of fraudulent signatures on nominating petitions. 
 

“The [Michigan Board of Elections] staff employed eminently reasonable procedures to give Johnson’s petition a fair and particularized review while operating on a tight timeline to advance important and compelling state interests,” U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith wrote.
 

The Republican candidate for secretary of state in NEVADA is a Big Liar who says he would not have certified Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. 
 

A spike in evictions — and the ID and proof-of-address difficulties that follow — could depress turnout in this year’s midterms, TENNESSEE Lookout reports. 

The Latest In Election Sabotage

ARIZONA’s Republican secretary of state candidates split on whether public officials should be allowed to just decide who wins elections. 
 

A NEBRASKA man pleaded guilty to making threats on an Instagram page associated with an election official, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
 

A NEW MEXICO County Commission — one that includes the Jan. 6 defendant and “Cowboys for Trump” founder Cuoy Griffin — finally certified the results of several elections in the county after delaying for days, claiming to have vague concerns about election machines and earning a state Supreme Court order requiring them to certify the races. (Griffin was the lone vote against certification, “based on my gut feeling,” he said.) 
 

The same county commission pursued a politicized “audit” of the 2020 results and voted recently to do away with voting machines entirely.

WISCONSIN’s Trumpy election fraud “investigator” could now face professional scrutiny for aggressive, sexist comments he made during a hearing in a public records lawsuit — and that’s on top of a $2,000-per-day fine for the public records violations.

LA Times: Inside the MAGA world scramble to produce findings suggesting the 2020 election was stolen
 

ProPublica: ‘Big Lie’ Vigilantism Is On The Rise. Big Tech Is Failing To Respond.
 

WaPo: There’s an election integrity crisis. But not the one Republicans claim.
 

Daily Beast: Subpoenas Probe GOP Mission to Breach Georgia Voting System
 

WaPo: GOP spends millions on election volunteers to search for fraud
 

KSAT: Juneteenth coalition sounds alarm on mail-in ballot rejection spike under new Texas law

*Paid for by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Wisdems.org. Not authorized by any candidate’s campaign or committee. Donations to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin are not tax deductible.

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