Comment Signs of pressure on the nation’s democratic system intensified Wednesday with less than a week to go before the midterm elections, as President Biden warned that candidates who refuse to accept Tuesday’s results could put the nation on a “path to chaos”. Biden’s grim assessment in a speech Wednesday afternoon came as the FBI and other agencies have predicted that threats of violence from domestic extremists are likely to increase after the election. In Arizona, voters have complained of intimidation by uninvited drop-box monitors — some of them armed — prompting a federal judge to set tough new limits. And the GOP has intensified disputes in several states in an effort to throw out some ballots and expand access for party poll watchers. Speaking at Washington’s Union Station – steps from the US Capitol, which was attacked by a pro-Trump mob in the wake of the nation’s last major election – Biden warned of a continuing assault on American democracy. The president he spoke as a growing number of major Republican candidates have indicated they may follow in the footsteps of former President Donald Trump and refuse to concede if they lose. “It’s unprecedented. It’s illegal. And it’s un-American,” Biden said. “As I’ve said before, you can’t love your country only when you’re winning.” The majority of GOP candidates are in denial or questioning the results of the 2020 election The virtually unprecedented presidential message — a call to Americans to embrace the basic tenets of their democracy — came as millions of voters have already cast ballots or plan to go to the polls on Election Day, and as some election officials expressed confidence that a system that would was holding Biden spoke days after an assailant armed with a hammer broke into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and, according to police and prosecutors, whipped her 82-year-old husband, Paul. Biden opened up about the horrific attack early Friday. “We must, with an overwhelming unified voice, speak as a country and say there is no place, no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America, whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “No place, period. No place, ever.” Last week, several government agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, issued a memo warning that threats from domestic violent extremists would likely increase in the 90-day period after the election, according to a copy of the document obtained by Washington . Position. The memo listed possible scenarios that could spark more violence, including “real or perceived efforts to suppress access to voting.” “After the 2022 midterm elections, perceptions of election-related fraud and dissatisfaction with election results will likely lead to increased threats of violence against a wide range of targets – including ideological opponents and election workers,” the note said. Election officials said they didn’t know what to expect, given promises by various Trump-supporting organizations to flood the polls and counting stations with party observers. Trump’s allies have urged his supporters to file frequent challenges, actions that officials say could derail the process. Biden has been more vocal about the threats Republicans pose to democracy in recent months. While he began hinting at “MAGA Republicans” in the spring — a moniker he uses to distinguish Trump-aligned from more traditional conservatives — Biden tackled the issue in unusually blunt terms at a fundraiser in late August, warning that the GOP is headed for ‘semi-fascism’. On Wednesday night, Biden cast the danger to democracy as part of a continuing attack launched two years ago by Trump and the Republican Party he still leads. The pro-Trump faction of the party, he said, “is trying to succeed where it failed in 2020: to suppress voter disenfranchisement and subvert the electoral system itself.” Before Biden even spoke on Wednesday, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Rona McDaniel issued a statement calling his words “desperate and dishonest.” “Joe Biden promised unity, but instead he demonized and branded Americans while making life more expensive for everyone,” McDaniel said. “While Republicans remain focused on the issues that matter most to voters, Biden and the Democrats are failing.” Wednesday night’s speech was Biden’s most direct address on the threats facing the American democratic system since Sept. 1, when he delivered a speech outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and warned that “too much of what’s going on in the country us today are not normal”. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our democracy,” he said at the time. Shortly after Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, top White House officials began talking about another similar speech about threats to democracy, according to a person familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the file. Biden’s speech on Wednesday had been in the works for several weeks, the person said. But the opening was rewritten to address the attack on Paul Pelosi. Biden also referred to Republicans who have suffered election threats and violence, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Biden urged voters to be patient after the election, noting that rules for counting ballots mean some results may not be immediately clear. “It has always been important for citizens in a democracy to be informed and engaged,” he said. “Now it’s important for citizens to be patient as well.” And he urged citizens to consider the future of democracy when they make their choices on Tuesday, saying they should vote “knowing what we risk becoming”. “In our bones, we know that democracy is at risk,” he said. “We also know this: It is within our power, each one of us, to preserve our democracy.” Unlike their Democratic counterparts, many Republicans locked in key races across the country declined to say whether they would accept the results of Tuesday’s election. “We’ll see what happens,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told reporters in Wisconsin on Tuesday. He is in a close race with Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, his state’s lieutenant governor. “So, will anything happen on election day? Do the Democrats have anything up their sleeves?’ The president’s speech came as developments in the courtroom and beyond underscored concerns about whether next week’s election will go smoothly and whether the results will be widely accepted as legitimate. The Department of Justice said several parts of the expanded law enforcement agency will work to ensure the voting process runs safely and smoothly across the country. The department’s Civil Rights Division, which is charged with enforcing laws related to voting rights, said it will monitor the voting process across the country to ensure jurisdictions comply with federal election laws. The department has not said how many people it will send or where it will send them. On Election Day 2020, it sent observers to 44 jurisdictions, including Gwinnett County in Georgia, Broward County in Florida, and Fairfax County in Virginia. Already, the department has weighed in on an election lawsuit in Arizona supporting a claim by the League of Women Voters of Arizona that ballot surveillance, including videotaping voters casting their ballots, can amount to illegal voter intimidation. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi, who was appointed to the seat by Trump, agreed, issuing a sweeping injunction limiting what the Arizona group Clean Elections USA or its allies can do or say near the polls . The ruling prevents drop-box observers from taking photos or videos of voters and using the footage to spread unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud. Clean Elections USA has been among the groups echoing allegations that “ballot smugglers” illegally filed multiple ballots on ballots ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Bill Gates, chairman of the board that oversees Maricopa County, where most of Arizona’s voters live, said “the rest of the world” will be watching how America conducts elections as truth and misinformation collide. “There is a real concern that something is wrong with our democratic republic … and that Arizona … and Maricopa County is a place where this kind of battle is going on,” said Gates, a Republican. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court told counties not to count mail-in ballots without handwritten dates, but left unanswered key legal questions about the issue, including how to resolve whether top races in the critical state are limited. GOP voters, as well as the state and national parties, had sued over the issue, arguing that state law requires all ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated to be considered invalid. Lawyers for Leigh M. Chapman, the top state elections official in the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf (D), had argued that several courts had previously ruled that undated ballots should be counted and that counties had no way of determining whether the date on a mail folder is “inaccurate”. They argued that a decision not to count those ballots would create confusion and disenfranchise legal voters. The case was part of a flood of lawsuits already filed targeting election practices, legal actions that could increase after Election Day if key races are close. The RNC said it is involved in lawsuits in Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin to expand access for partisan poll watchers and challengers. ONE…
