COVID
It feels like life is starting to close down again, and it is not just Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio doing the closing. We can read the COVID statistics. Ohio in the past three days: total cases increased by 14,000. Hospitalizations are up 600. And fifty more have died of COVID (Ohio). Our local schools are switching to full online learning Thursday. A statewide “mandatory unenforced” curfew goes into effect Thursday as well, from 10 pm to 5 am. The circle of COVID is closing in.
We are lying low as well, taking care of the dogs, and staying close to home. We seemed to have slipped into a shrunken world of our own. So, to break things up at least a little bit last night we threw all of our rules out the window. I went to pickup a fast-food dinner at Wendy’s!
Nullification
So I was in the Jeep, waiting in the drive-thru line when I heard the news. There is an obscure government committee in Michigan, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. After an election, this four-member group has the task of “balancing the books”. They make sure the precinct totals reported match the actual precinct counts. After an election, they literally cross check the lists by hand.
Like election boards all across the nation, the Wayne County Board is split between representatives of the two major political parties, Republican and Democrat. These are “professional” board of election personnel; it’s their job. But they are divided by Party, because here in America, that’s how we try to guarantee fairness. There’s no pretense of some “apolitical” group of neutral workers. We just assume both Parties have an interest, and will watch each other. And they do.
So it was a routine meeting. The four completed their task; the books were crosschecked and agreed to. The vote was a formality, announcing to the world that one more step in the common election process was concluded. They Wayne County Board of Canvassers would certify the election results to the Michigan State Canvassing Board.
But they didn’t. The two Republican representatives voted against certification. This was despite the books being “balanced”. Their task was completed. They simply refused to acknowledge it. But by voting against “certifying” the votes, it was a two to two tie, and the certification process was stopped.
Disenfranchisement
Wayne County, by the way, contains the single biggest municipality in Michigan: Detroit. Joe Biden won Wayne County by almost 300,000 votes. He won Michigan by 149,000 votes, so if somehow the votes in Wayne County could be “vanished”, that would leave Donald Trump as the winner of Michigan.
The Wayne County vote is 15% of the total votes in the state of Michigan. The thought was breathtaking. These two folks on the Board of Canvassers, could disenfranchise over 800,000 people, and change the results of the election. And they could do it, without legitimacy. As the saying goes, “…they had one job to do”. And they did it, to completion, and agreed on the results. It was only then that they decided to vote against their own conclusions.
And that’s where I felt the rise of just a little bit of panic. If two obscure folks in a dingy office in Detroit could change the course of the election in Michigan, couldn’t that happen in Philadelphia, and Milwaukee, and Atlanta? Is the pressure generated by the Trump-led disinformation campaign so great, that everyday government workers will determine to ignore their own findings, and knuckle-under to illicit pressure?
For just a moment, I saw an America where the votes of millions could be completely ignored. It already happens, legally, with the Electoral College system. Out of the last five Presidential elections, twice the winner of the popular vote has lost the Presidency. But this “vision” was on a whole different scale. This wasn’t some Constitutional peculiarity; this was out and out disenfranchisement on a scale the United States hadn’t seen since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Win At All Cost
And who would be disenfranchised? The Republican Party knows full well that people of color vote overwhelmingly for – not Republicans. So disenfranchising them would allow Republicans to win. The idea that an American political Party, the Party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Earl Warren, would fully embrace the concept that they cannot fully represent the nation is astounding. That the Grand Old Party would then simply say: “don’t count their votes” – well, that’s not my America.
I felt my foundational “Boy Scout” belief in American values tremble.
A couple of hours later, the two Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers changed their mind. Whatever threats they received that made them vote against their own conclusions the first time, paled when threatened by the real possibility that a Michigan Judge might find them in contempt for ignoring their own findings. And the Republican leaders of the Michigan legislature made it clear that “they” weren’t going to overthrow the legitimate decision of the voters of Wayne County.
So the two Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers changed their mind again, and the vote was certified by a four to zero agreement. Sure, they got a “sop”, an agreement that the Michigan Secretary of State (a Democrat) would conduct an “audit” of the Wayne County results. But the process continues in Michigan.
Fail Safe
The entire event shows how close to the knife-edge our Democracy seems to be. There’s a 1964 black and white movie about nuclear war starring Henry Fonda called “Fail Safe”. The story goes that a computer glitch sends bombers to attack Russia, and there’s no way to call them back. It’s a dark, depressing film, as Fonda (the President) tries to convince the Soviet leader that he should not respond by using his nuclear weapons. The rest of humanity went on about their everyday lives, not knowing that the mushroom clouds were just minutes away.
Life is on that edge right now. COVID is closing in. And this little vignette in Detroit should demonstrate how fragile our Democracy really is. There won’t be tanks in the streets, or even Proud Boys with AR-15’s to change our government. It will be obscure officials, making fateful decisions in backrooms.
And then it will be gone.
Light in the Tunnel
I can’t leave this essay here. The Attorney General of Michigan stepped in within minutes to defend the voters. The threat of contempt of court was real, so the judicial system of Michigan was on hand to defend Democracy as well. And the leaders of the Michigan legislature refused to “back” this subversion of the vote.
There is hope. The “process” righted itself. There is “light at the end of the tunnel”, and it’s not the headlight from the 4:35 freight to Chicago or a nuclear blast. But somehow it does feel we need to watch our Democracy closer than ever before. It’s not time to panic, but it is time to keep our eyes open.
Democracy may need our help in the next sixty days.
