Trump Has Called for a Protest. Nobody Showed Up. Why Did the GOP’s Protests Fail This Time?

HNewsWire:  On Tuesday afternoon, as voters cast votes mostly without incident, former President Donald Trump resorted to social media to announce that a tiny, already-resolved issue with absentee balloting in Detroit was "REALLY BAD."

Trump has called for a demonstration. Nobody showed up. Why the GOP's protests failed this time.

Just before 2:30 p.m., he typed, "Protest, protest, protest."

Unlike in 2020, when similar appeals from the then-president attracted thousands of supporters into the streets, including to a tabulating plant in Detroit and, eventually, to the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, hardly one turned up this time.

After Trump and his supporters promised for two years that they would flood polls and counting stations with partisan watchers to spot alleged fraud, after unprecedented threats were lodged against election workers, after calls to abandon machines in favor of hand counting, and after postings on internet chat groups called for violent action to stop alleged cheating, a peaceful Election Day drew high turnout and only scattered reports of problems.

Trump also expressed reservations about absentee voting in Detroit. "People are going up to vote just to be informed, "sorry, you have already voted," he tweeted. "This is occurring in significant numbers, elsewhere as well." "Protesting, Protesting, Protesting!"

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, on the other hand, rejected Trump's assertion. "Hello once more," Benson wrote. "This is not correct. Please do not distribute misinformation in an attempt to incite or support political violence in our state. Or someplace else. Thanks.”

On Tuesday afternoon, as voters cast votes mostly without incident, former President Donald Trump resorted to social media to announce that a tiny, already-resolved issue with absentee balloting in Detroit was "REALLY BAD." Just before 2:30 p.m., he tweeted, "Protest, protest, protest."

Unlike in 2020, when similar appeals from the then-president attracted thousands of supporters into the streets, including to a tabulating plant in Detroit and, eventually, to the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, hardly one turned up this time.

After two years of promises from Trump and his supporters that they would flood polls and counting stations with partisan watchers to spot alleged fraud, after unprecedented threats were lodged against election workers, after calls to ditch machines in favor of hand counting, and after postings on internet chat groups called for violent action to stop alleged cheating, a peaceful Election Day drew high turnout and only scattered reports of problems, a peaceful Election Day drew high turnout and only scattered reports of problems.

Election authorities said they felt the relative normality was the result of a coordinated effort on the part of well-prepared poll workers and voters, as well as the reality that some of Trump's most vocal supporters were less powerful than they had claimed. The fundamental mechanics of a midterm election, which always elicit less enthusiasm than presidential races and in which voters do not coalesce around a single candidate, also had a role.

Then there was the Trump issue to consider. The 45th president no longer used the White House megaphone or even Twitter to deliver his message to supporters in real time. And, according to election outcomes, the number of individuals willing to listen to Trump's exhortations has continued to decline after he lost the 2020 election.

"Our democracy is more robust than people give it credit for," said Adam Wit, clerk of Michigan's Harrison township and president of the state's municipal clerks organization.

Wit stated that election officials helped dispel community mistrust by opening their doors before Election Day to explain how the ballot counting system works, utilizing social media to educate voters, and hosting public information sessions. "Clerks did a lot to rebuild trust," he remarked.

Officials also reacted considerably more promptly to disinformation than they did in 2020, utilizing social media to extinguish flames of bogus allegations and rumors before they ignited wildfires.

Within an hour of Trump's remark on the purported difficulty with absentee votes, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) reacted on Twitter, addressing Trump directly.

"This is not correct," she wrote. "Please do not distribute misinformation in an attempt to incite or support political violence in our state. Or someplace else. Thanks."

Pandora Paschal, the election director in Chatham County, North Carolina, said teamwork with the county emergency operations director and increased security helped keep things peaceful on Tuesday.

She said that election administrators, who have frequently been under pressure in the last two years, made an intensive attempt to dispute misleading assertions. According to state authorities, 45 of North Carolina's 100 county election officials have resigned in the previous three years as a result of threats, personal insults, and disinformation from election deniers.

"People are attempting to break us," Paschal explained. "Election managers at every level are resilient individuals who will fight to the final end to guarantee that democracy in America never dies," she continued.

There were a few isolated complaints of issues.

According to authorities, a guy armed with a knife was detained at a polling site in West Bend, Wisconsin, after demanding that they "stop the vote." According to officials, the individual stated that he was aware that the library was a polling venue and that the disruption would result in a police reaction.

They stated that no political motivation had been detected, but that the individual was out on bail following a prior arrest concerning the distribution of pamphlets containing "threatening political and racist statements."

The incident delayed voting at the precinct for nearly 30 minutes, according to authorities.

A possibly more serious issue developed early in Maricopa County, Ariz., which is home to more than 60% of the state's voters. According to county officials, tabulators at approximately a fifth of the county's 223 voting stations had problems. They said that a remedy for the bug had brought many computers back up by the end of the day. Meanwhile, voters were allowed to cast votes in safe boxes. According to officials, no voters were disenfranchised as a result of the issue.

Maricopa County Board Chair Bill Gates (R) stated on Wednesday that county officials were perplexed by the anomalies, which originated from printers that created ballots with ink that was too light to be seen by vote-counting machines. He stated that the printers were utilized without problem throughout the primary.

Because of the malfunction, a court denied a plea by Republican candidates and the national party to extend voting hours. As more ballots are tabulated and statewide elections tighten, the issues might become important to prospective legal challenges.

Other election administrators were relieved that zealous fraud-hunting amateurs appeared to be few and few between, despite threats by popular speakers in the MAGA movement to flood polling stations with activists and station monitors within sight of ballot drop boxes.

In Milwaukee, an army of poll workers stationed at tables in a massive conference room meticulously tallied more than 60,000 absentee votes in front of election monitors from both parties, journalists, and international observers. At the conclusion of the night, elections director Claire Woodall-Vogg and witnesses from each major political party walked from voting tabulator to voting tabulator, removing flash discs with results and sealing them in packets to be sent to the county clerk.

When Woodall-Vogg opened a panel on one tabulator, she bumped the power wire and mistakenly unplugged it, a brief tense conversation ensued. She jotted down what happened and the time.

"I documented that the machine was unplugged," she declared. "You disconnected it," responded one spectator.

However, the moment passed soon as the observer and his companions guaranteed that everything was captured on videotape.

In an interview on Wednesday, Woodall-Vogg said she couldn't see how the observer thought disconnecting the computer would assist her or a candidate. "I believe he's just a live representation of what we're up against," she explained. "There is no winning answer."

Overall, she added, Election Day went well, owing to adequate training, especially on how to de-escalate tensions. "No one was insulted when they answered questions," she claimed. "I didn't mind if others were photographing stuff. Simply said, the more clear the better."

In Santa Fe County, New Mexico, county clerk Katharine Clark reported increasing interest from both parties in poll observation or challenge. Some of the challengers were "a bit excited," she said.

"We just go through the guidelines again," she explained, detailing how personnel dealt with any issues.

According to election officials around the country, fewer party challenges stepped up than they expected, despite pre-election bluster from people such as former Trump strategist and prominent podcaster Steve Bannon, who bragged of a large new network of "election integrity" activists. ("We'll be there to enforce those rules, and we'll dispute any vote, any ballot, and you're going to have to live with it, okay?" he remarked on a recent edition of his show.)

According to Nathan Savidge, county clerk in Republican-dominated Northumberland County, Pa., there were around 50 vote monitors scattered over 74 precincts, about double the number in 2020. A local group struggled to locate enough volunteers to monitor the county's drop boxes in Ottawa County, Mich., a largely Republican county west of Grand Rapids where election denialism was rampant.

"With techniques like these, sometimes the narrative becomes the intimidation," says Suzanne Almeida, director of state operations for the watchdog group Common Cause. "It's about making a movement appear larger than it is... about making a fringe concept feel extremely mainstream and omnipresent."

Bannon stated in a text message that he thought his tactics had been effective. "I believe people were fully deployed, which is why difficulties in Pennsylvania and Michigan were detected and resolved," he stated. He said that the deployment of poll observers in Arizona "saved the day," assuring a speedy reaction to concerns with tabulators rejecting votes.

Michigan state Sen. Ed McBroom (R), who was re-elected Tuesday, said the election confirmed the system for people who were suspicious of it in 2020, in part because some of those critics took part in the process this year. In 2021, McBroom issued a legislative report concluding that significant fraud did not define the 2020 Michigan election, which was attacked by Trump and his backers.

"I believe we had a significant number of those folks that wanted to volunteer and be a part of this after 2020," he added. "They needed to learn the norms and procedures. They made the effort. They received training. And, in the end, they didn't see much of what troubled them on Election Day."

However, several key figures in the election-denier movement have hinted that their efforts in the run-up to the midterm elections are only getting started. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who counseled Trump on seeking to overturn the 2020 election, claimed in a podcast Wednesday that a nonprofit she controls will "reclaim America's elections" by modifying rules to limit absentee voting and make it easier to delete voter registers.

Paschal said that in North Carolina, it was election workers that prevented political challengers from breaching the rules.

"We made it clear that we would not allow it," she stated.

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