Why we shouldn’t forget Larry Elder’s baseless attacks on California recall integrity

The attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom was so thoroughly demolished by voters Tuesday that Larry Elder, the leader of the crowded field gunning to replace Newsom, quietly abandoned his preemptive charges of voter fraud. Perhaps even a provocateur such as Elder lacked the nerve to deny a landslide that was running against the recall by nearly two votes to one.

But before the right-wing radio talker grudgingly conceded his loss in what otherwise sounded like a victory speech, the factual basis of his fraud claims deserved to be dismissed for many reasons — chief among them that they preceded any actual facts.

Elder was vigorously questioning the results well before there were any. Nearly a week before the election crushed his gubernatorial dreams, Elder was making vaguely ominous declarations about “things that have been suspicious” and “shenanigans, as it were.” Also days before the election, he said he had assembled a team of election lawyers to challenge the results, which he refused to accept, while his team encouraged the public to “report election fraud” to the campaign (rather than any number of more appropriate authorities).

In case anyone forgot the provenance of this tactic, Donald Trump helpfully reminded us by picking up where he never left off. The former president was also declaring the recall “rigged” a week before a single vote was counted. On the brink of its resounding defeat Tuesday, Trump reiterated the charge in a disjointed statement that somehow tied the fate of the beleaguered delta smelt to warmed-over fish tales about California robbing him of millions of votes.

At the point that these lies were first leveled, for all anyone knew, Newsom could have been headed for a poll-defying defeat. Having read the polls like everyone else, however, Elder was attempting to cast doubt on a loss that they ultimately underestimated.

The case against the recall’s integrity had no more connection to reality than Trump’s carping over his own election loss. “Rigging” a statewide vote would require an unimaginable conspiracy of county election officials across the political spectrum in a vast and varied state. And as election experts noted in a Sacramento Bee op-ed Tuesday, California maintains multiple layers of safeguards against election security breaches, including voting software and hardware tests, verified paper trails for electronic voting, and automatic post-election audits through hand counts of a portion of every county’s ballots.

Nor is any exotic theory or organized criminality needed to explain why a heavily Democratic electorate might vote to let Newsom finish the term to which voters decisively elected him less than three years ago. On the contrary, it’s a successful gubernatorial recall that would be an extraordinary event, having happened only once in California and twice nationwide in 100 years.

As we should have just finished learning from the Jan. 6 insurrection, unfounded attacks on the legitimate results of elections aren’t just cynical; they’re dangerous. A CNN poll released Wednesday found that more than a third of Americans believe Trump’s disinformation about his defeat, and election workers in conservative parts of California continued to face the consequences Tuesday in the form of unfounded suspicions and taunts. While some in what used to be considered the Republican establishment disavowed such deceit, the state GOP has failed to consistently and forcefully do so.

Fortunately, California voters largely saw through the lies, turning up in relatively large numbers and producing a decisive result. But if every democratic exercise is subjected to baseless distrust, democracy itself can no longer be assured.

This story was originally published September 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.