Marc Elias, a top Democratic elections lawyer who prevailed in nearly all of the lawsuits filed by Donald Trump’s previous campaign and its supporters contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, issued a warning to Republican county officials who plan to refuse election certification.
On Brian Tyler Cohen’s podcast Democracy Watch, Elias said: “If you’re a Republican county official, do your job. If you’re not prepared to do your job, to administer fair elections, to certify accurate results, now is the time to resign. Get out of office.”
.@marceelias on officials who plan to refuse election certification: "If you're a Republican county official, do your job. If you're not prepared to do your job, to administer fair elections, to certify accurate results, now is the time to resign. Get out of office… But if you… pic.twitter.com/h84iXwrhcz
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) August 1, 2024
Elias added: “But if you stay in this job, if you choose to be in a position to administer elections and to certify the election results, and you don’t do your job, you’re gonna get sued. And you’re gonna lose. And you’re gonna go down in history as one of the villains in American history.”
Elias extended the warning to Republican members of Congress: “If you can’t accept the outcome of free and fair elections, shame on you. Go find another line of work.”
The threat of election disruption lingers despite what the Washington Post characterizes as “more than three years during which claims of fraud have been debunked or discredited and during which no one has stepped forward or been indicted on a charge of having been involved in a broad effort to subvert the election results.”
Still, many Republican lawmakers — notably Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH and the VP nominee), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — have recently refused to confirm that they will accept the 2024 election results as being “free and fair” if Trump loses.
Elias isn’t aiming his warning at phantoms. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also voiced concerns — not party-specific as Elias’s are — about election security, election workers and voter protection.
At a Justice Department Election Threats Task Force meeting in May, Garland said: “We will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who threaten election workers…Protecting the right to vote was a founding purpose of the Justice Department. Today, fulfilling that charge means confronting the full range of threats to our elections.”
The Republican National Committee, co-chaired by the former President’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, has been warning its constituents to expect fraud in November. (Lara Trump and the RNC, like Elias, have also issued warnings that they are ready to litigate on “election integrity.”)
RNC Co-Chair @LaraLeaTrump: The RNC and Trump Campaign are building an unprecedented election integrity program and a ground game unlike anything anyone has ever seen! pic.twitter.com/jABSRrb9qv
— GOP (@GOP) July 3, 2024
The RNC falsely cites the unsupported narrative of the “rigged” and “stolen” 2020 election. In April of this year, the RNC called its members saying “unsecured ballot drop boxes, mass mailing of ballots, and voter rolls chock full of deceased people and non-citizens are just a few examples of the massive fraud that took place [in 2020].” The RNC urged Republicans to doubt any election results that did not show Trump a winner.
BREAKING: RNC Chair Lara Trump has announced that she is building an army of 100,000 POLL WORKERS and over 500 LAWYERS to monitor the 2024 election to STOP THE FRAUD.
— TRUMP ARMY (@TRUMP_ARMY_) June 15, 2024
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