Overturn Citizens United

This is a great idea. The terrible Supreme Court decision has given rich people excessive influence on elections and thus on government policies.

BREAKING: We've introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and the irresponsible SCOTUS decisions that came before it.

Unrestricted dark money has no place in our elections or democracy. We need to return power to people. Once and for all. pic.twitter.com/zUoTbMa11k
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 19, 2023

Citizens United was one of the most egregious enablers of special interest money. This would be a great thing for Democracy. https://t.co/js58LK40S5
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) January 19, 2023

"Americans should raise their voices to demand that election winners are chosen by the voters, not the donors," a reader writes in #PostLetters. https://t.co/5SlKzmY7Ve
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) January 19, 2023

Editor Commentary: Want to know how bad Citizens United made things? Outside spending for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat in 2004 was just over $45,000. In 2010, it was $3.5 million. In 2016, it was $54 million. In 2022, it was just shy of $100 million dollars.https://t.co/kERCgQkiHr
— David DeWitt (@DC_DeWitt) April 28, 2024

Eliminate the Electoral College

For all 25 elections in the 1900s, the popular and Electoral College votes aligned.

For two of the six elections in the 2000s, the Electoral College overrode popular vote choices. (Both times Republicans benefitted, just like they did in 1876 and 1888).

It serves no value. Time for it to go.

“The Electoral College now – which has given us five popular-vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone – has become a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people,” Rep. Jamie Raskin said in an interview https://t.co/cZ6T1PxWn0
— CNN (@CNN) December 26, 2022

“We spend hundreds of millions every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that Electoral College that you have, that’s so great, we think we will adopt that too.’”
https://t.co/5DpPZeMfcz
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) December 28, 2022

Republicans are why it takes so long to count votes in PA

It's because of your party:https://t.co/LZal9OqLkG
— Harris Levy (@HarrisL585) October 27, 2022

Reforming the Electoral College is good. Do you expect Trump and his cult to follow new laws when they won’t follow current ones?

I don’t. If the Republican candidate loses in 2024, I don’t expect them to concede and I expect another insurrection. Do you really think Trump or his cult would respect new laws? The best way to prevent another insurrection is to punish people like Trump who incited it, planned it and funded it, not just the folks who stormed the Capitol. The jail time has to be so severe that tey won’t do it again.

As it stands now, Trump and other extremists would just recruit more chumps to replace any that are in jail. Since the leaders haven’t been punished, there’s no reason for them not to do it again.

The Trump cult wants election subversion

“some top Democrats are expressing public concern, worried that moves by Republican state officials — like making election overseers more beholden to political leaders — could set back their party for a generation.” https://t.co/3LTGWsYBGA
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) October 16, 2021

A little scoop with @daithaigilbert:

At this weekend's QAnon conference, a Nevada secretary of state candidate announced he & three Trump-endorsed candidates have formed a coalition to "control the election system."

Mike Lindell is involved.https://t.co/Yp71NBFdMf
— Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) October 27, 2021

The GOP and its acolytes are engaged in a two-prong, systematic effort to takeover election administration:

1. Intimidate non-partisan election officials into resigning;

2. Get MAGA “Big Lie” candidates to replace them.

This is a huge authoritarian threat to US democracy.
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) October 27, 2021

It's a bad sign that elections officials are feeling endangered by threats of violence to the point that some are leaving. Add in that Trumpists are unshackling themselves from any obligation to respect future election outcomes, and it's a combustible mix:https://t.co/cTzSzdw8j8
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 26, 2021

Pretty much every day another story emerges about threats of violence from Trump supporters- @ election officials, school boards, Congress, local govt. GOP (& conserv columnists) determined to ignore, but it's clear Trump has ignited an ongoing threat changing US landscape https://t.co/wgtgbwpd4h
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) October 26, 2021

In three critical battleground states, Democratic governors have blocked efforts by Republican-controlled legislatures to restrict voting rights and undermine the 2020 election. From The New York Times: https://t.co/Rbik1qFyao
— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) October 9, 2021

Washington Monthly's Bill Scher on the precise, stripped-down electoral reform bill that just might get 10 Senate GOP votes and just might save American democracy. https://t.co/2EMs8XhNSt @monthly
— Paul Glastris (@glastris) October 8, 2021

Elections are super-important, particularly right now. But I tried to explain why they can't be the only or dominant factor in our political discourse. https://t.co/aKRixiqtrb
— Perry Bacon Jr. (@perrybaconjr) October 8, 2021

Nearly a dozen states enacted laws this year that could subvert the results of future elections, analysis finds

Election subversion could be real and dangerous

My new one in @washingtonpost on whether Democrats in Congress should try to go it alone on fighting election subversion risk. https://t.co/vR05mxZVpF
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) September 29, 2021

Chilling, but telling, to see all this in one place. Voter suppression is only half the story. Subversion efforts accelerating too in red states. https://t.co/FdxaJHwP1E
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) September 29, 2021

The biggest threat to fair elections

It’s not voter suppression, it’s letting legislatures and judges overturn elections. This is strictly a problem caused by Republicans.

This is the realm of election reform that Congress hasn't touched on yet. HR1/HR4 deal with *casting* votes but 2020 reveals vulnerabilities in the system of *counting* and certifying votes. Experts identify them to @BenjySarlin and propose safeguards.https://t.co/UH1Ex4A6Uw
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 6, 2021

Maybe you could convince me the chances of the GOP subverting the election in 2024 are overrated—but it's not just a 2024 issue. If a whole generation of Republican elected officials believe in the Big Lie (or vouch for it for utilitarian reasons) you've got a long term problem.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 8, 2021

Agree state subversion seems more plausible than Congress overturning a result itself. And the fact that we're debating how exactly election subversion might take place underscores the threat. Not likely or certain, but unacceptably high. https://t.co/Boz5HZS3ES
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) June 8, 2021

Right. As elections experts have outlined it, you'd need a *much closer* scenario for this to work. Here's one scenario from one such expert:

(cc @DouthatNYT @Nate_Cohn)https://t.co/0MuOzRfDuO pic.twitter.com/VralypOfEU
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 8, 2021

"Seven months after Election Day, former President Donald Trump’s supporters are still auditing ballots in Arizona’s largest county and may revive legislation that would make it easier for judges in Texas to overturn election results."https://t.co/mjhNtc7LjM
— Julie Pace (@jpaceDC) June 3, 2021

The Right has moved on from talking about winning elections.

The discussion has turned to how to rig elections, how to overturn them, how to steer the country in the direction of Russia and Hungary and bypass the will of the people altogether.

They’re playing a different game.
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) August 8, 2021

.@JohnAvlon tells @JohnJHarwood and @donlemon that election subversion is not over and what we need to keep paying attention. Scary. pic.twitter.com/iNpwCYNQsK
— Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) August 12, 2021

Great tweet thread by by Nate Cohn on the limits of election reform

One theme in my replies yesterday is an assumption that plausible reforms under consideration–ending gerrymandering, DC/PR, HR1, etc.–would so fundamentally change the electoral incentives that the GOP would have no choice but to moderate
I don't think that's clear at all
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) May 28, 2021

Trump could win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote again in 2020

This is a very real possibility. I don’t care about national popular vote polls as much as polls in swing states that will determine the election.

Analysis: Hillary Clinton got 2.9M more votes than Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but Trump comfortably prevailed in the Electoral College.

It's possible in 2020 that he could win 5M fewer votes than his opponent — and still win a second term. https://t.co/4qqY0wjr4d
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 19, 2019

i still think folks are underestimating the danger of this outcome and the real threat it poses to american democracy. https://t.co/RUxWCVfMks
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) July 19, 2019

A world where Dems win their 2016 states plus MI and PA is one where they have 268 EVs. They either need to win a third red state OR win both Maine’s 2nd District (the part of the state that isn’t the SE coast) and Nebraska’s 2nd District (Omaha and part of its suburbs). https://t.co/xt4Q12YJmL
— Justin Slaughter (@JBSDC) July 19, 2019

And not incidentally on that front how country will react if Trump or future Republican nominee wins EC but loses popular vote by 6 or 7 million votes, not 2 or so. How far can that rubber band stretch without consequence? https://t.co/HvxH9uvhlP
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) July 16, 2019

I think DEM would really be shooting themselves in the foot if they allowed CA to keep Trump off the ballot due to tax returns. If Trump won the EC and lost the popular vote just like that time, it would be easier for the GOP to use the state as a scapegoat for justifying the EC.
— Election Maps Co. (@ElectionMapsCo) July 19, 2019

I'd probably lean no. I certainly think Trump could win an election where he loses the popular vote by 3 points or even slightly more. That's basically what he did in 2016. (He won WI, the tipping-point state, with ~1 point to spare.) But I'm skeptical that he'd be the favorite. https://t.co/wh83h4sAUy
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 20, 2019

Translation: the 2020 Dem nominee might need to beat Trump by at least ~4% in the popular vote to defeat him in the Electoral College. https://t.co/Lxkx4Tzrlo
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) July 20, 2019

It’s amazing how many defenses of the Electoral College are based on plainly misdescribing how it works.

The senate over-represents the low-density states. The EC just over-represents whichever states happen to be close in any given year. https://t.co/UEAvS8s9SN
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 20, 2019

in 2016, Trump won 306 EVs to HRC’s 232

Morning Consult polling shows Trump w/net negative job approval in 8 states he won, totalling 107 EVs

if Trump loses just the 4 states where his net disapproval is 9 points or more (PA/MI/WI/IA), Dem would win w/284 EVs https://t.co/bf0auRPUbU
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) July 20, 2019

Campaign finance and dark money

Important investigative report: in essence conservatives have intimidated the IRS into not enforcing campaign finance laws- enabling an explosion of secret influence buying. https://t.co/e0KuW93s8x
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) April 21, 2019