ARGUMENT

Here’s How the 2020 U.S. Elections

Resemble Those of Fragile
Democracies
A veteran observer of elections in troubled countries describes the undeniable parallels.
BY ERIC BJORNLUND | OCTOBER 24, 2020, 6:00 AM

W
ith an incumbent president attacking the electoral process as rigged and
refusing to commit to accepting the results, the Nov. 3 U.S. elections
increasingly resemble those in struggling democracies and autocratic
countries. I speak from experience, having led or managed some 40 election
observation efforts in 22 countries over more than 30 years.

As the co-founder and president of Democracy International, I now see the United
States exhibiting many of the same kinds of problems with elections that we in the
international election monitoring community have long criticized in countries where
democracy is less established. In genuine, established democracies, political
competitors generally do not attack the rules or the fairness of the process, accuse the
opposing candidate or the election authorities of cheating, intimidate voters, or
threaten them with violence. In less than fully democratic countries, on the other hand,
complaints about fraud and fairness are routine, and violence—or the threat of it—is
often involved. This tends to undermine public confidence in the elections and in
democracy itself.

In the struggling democracies and autocracies where I have observed elections, much of
the argument is about the integrity of the rules and process. Losing candidates
routinely attack the fairness of the electoral process, whether or not they have a basis
for their attacks. In fact, you can tell that a country is not (or not yet) a successful
democracy when the losers of its elections blame fraud for their loss and attack the
legitimacy of the process.
You can tell that a country is not a successful democracy when the
losers of its elections blame fraud and attack the legitimacy of the
process.

The United States can now be compared with Bangladesh: The latter has many of the
hallmarks of a democracy, such as multiparty elections and a functioning parliament,
but in each of the six national elections since the country’s transition away from
authoritarianism in 1991, the losing party has accused the winning party of rigging the
vote. Another example is Egypt, which has missed the opportunity to move toward
genuine democracy since its revolution in 2011, as the integrity of each of a series of
elections has been challenged. In presidential elections in Afghanistan in both 2014 and
2019, candidate Abdullah Abdullah refused to concede to the declared winner,
President Ashraf Ghani, plunging the country into political crisis. In the worst case,
allegations of stolen elections can lead to a paroxysm of violence, as in Kenya in 2007,
where about 1400 people were killed. Although Kenya’s more recent elections have seen
less violence, the losing parties again complained that the elections had been stolen.

Much like political competitors in undemocratic countries, U.S. President Donald

Trump has aggressively questioned the credibility of the election process. During the
Sept. 29 presidential debate, for example, he claimed, without evidence, that there is
“going to be fraud like you’ve never seen.” Even though voting by mail is well
established throughout the country, Trump has repeatedly disparaged absentee
balloting, calling it “horrible” and “corrupt.” He tweeted: “Mail-in ballots are very
dangerous. There’s tremendous fraud involved and tremendous illegality.” In a recent
online video, Donald Trump, Jr. asserted: “The radical left are laying the groundwork to
steal this election … Their plan is to add millions of fraudulent ballots that can cancel
your vote and overturn the election.” Trump has also attacked election administrators.
He called Jocelyn Benson, who oversees elections in Michigan, a “rogue Secretary of
State” and accused her of acting “illegally and without authorization” for implementing
the state’s legally valid policy on absentee ballots. He also threatened “to hold up
funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” If Trump loses the
election and blames fraud, he will join a long tradition of autocrats who have lost their
elections.

Voter intimidation at polling places by unofficial security forces—or by poll watchers

affiliated with political parties—is another practice often seen in less democratic
countries and criticized by international election observers. We do strongly advocate for
legitimate observers from nonpartisan citizen groups and political parties to gain access
to polling stations, but international standards require generally that poll watchers be
accredited and trained—and never allowed to disrupt polling places or harass voters.
During elections in Egypt in 2014 and 2015, we criticized the presence of unidentified
plain-clothed armed personnel at polling stations. In Myanmar in 2015, observers
expressed concern about the recruitment of civilians for an auxiliary police force to be
deployed at the polls. In Venezuela in 2018, ruling-party activists set up red tents
outside voting centers in an apparent effort to pressure voters. The presence of these
kinds of groups seems to go hand-in-hand with an increased risk of violence: In
Bangladesh and Pakistan, for example, armed gangs affiliated with political parties
often show up at polling places to discourage their opponents’ supporters from voting,
and clashes between supporters of opposing parties are not uncommon. In elections in
Afghanistan over the past 15 years, groups opposed to the government or to democracy
in general have aggressively threatened voters with violence.

As with elections in fragile countries around the world, there is

every reason to worry about violence on Election Day.

Compare these practices with what is now happening in the United States: Trump has
urged his supporters “to go in to the polls and watch very carefully.” Donald Trump, Jr.
has declared: “We need every able-bodied man and woman to join Army For Trump’s
election security operation … We need you to help us watch them.” The idea is that the
so-called army of supporters will show up at polling places to defend their vote against
supposed fraud by supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden. This rhetoric seems
to encourage vigilante-type confrontation during the elections and thus to increase the
risk of violence. It echoes the president’s attacks on Black Lives Matter demonstrations
around the country and his seeming encouragement to white supremacists and right-
wing militias, as in the Sept. 29 presidential debate when he called on the extremist
Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by,” and when he defended the armed
young Trump supporter charged in the killing of two people at a protest in Wisconsin.
Speaking in August, Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway seemed to welcome
violence before the election: “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence
reigns,” she said, “the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety
and law and order.” It is striking for a U.S. president and those close to him to be calling
for actions or using language that might incite violence or imply its endorsement. Such
language is inherently intimidating, not to mention dangerous. As with elections in
fragile or undemocratic countries around the world, there is every reason to worry
about an escalating confrontation on Election Day and that whichever side loses the
2020 elections in the U.S. will see its supporters take to the streets.

Other problems common to controversial elections in developing countries are also now
prevalent in the United States. International observers, for example, have criticized
authorities in many countries for obstacles to voter registration and balloting, which
may lead to the suppression of specific voter groups. In Myanmar, members of the
Rohingya minority are generally not allowed to vote; in Afghanistan, participating in
elections has been especially difficult for women. Likewise, in Florida, the Republican
establishment has fought to undermine a state constitutional amendment requiring the
restoration of voting rights to citizens with previous felony convictions by passing
legislation and using the courts to limit those rights. In Georgia, in the lead-up to the
2018 midterm elections, Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the state legislature adopted
a so-called exact match system for voter lists that reportedly held up 53,000 voter
registrations, of which 70 percent involved minority voters. In Texas this year, state
authorities have declined to expand the use of absentee balloting despite the ongoing
pandemic, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott has decreed that each county—even
the most populous ones—can have only one drop box for early ballots, thereby making
voting much less accessible and disproportionately affecting urban areas more likely to
vote Democratic. And many critics contend that recent service cuts by the U.S. Postal
Service at the behest of new Postmaster General (and Trump donor) Louis DeJoy seem
calculated to slow delivery of mail-in ballots.

Because of Trump’s attacks on the process, elections in the United

States look more like those we have observed in less-than-
democratic countries.

Similarly, international observers routinely call for the establishment of independent

election authorities to oversee the interpretation and implementation of election laws,
and the administration of the election itself, as official election management bodies
often favor ruling parties. In many respects, this problem is actually worse in the United
States, where there is no national election authority like in most democracies, and
where partisan state and local political officials generally run elections. They
sometimes even run elections in which they themselves are candidates, as happened in
Georgia in 2018, when Kemp oversaw the election in which he was narrowly elected
governor.
During the election itself, international observers almost always urge candidates,
parties, and voters to wait patiently for votes to be tallied and to avoid prematurely
claiming victory or questioning the count, as has happened in dozens of places,
including Afghanistan in 2014, Honduras and Kenya in 2017, and Guyana and Malawi
this year. In the United States this year, AP News has reported that “some Trump allies
say their best bet is to hope that the results look close election night, before some of the
mail-in ballots are counted, allowing Trump to declare victory and have the results
thrown to the courts.” Trump apparently wants the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on
his behalf in any post-election dispute over ballot counting; during the first presidential
debate, he admitted that he wants the Supreme Court “to look at the ballots,” calling for
the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in time for her to
participate in such a case. “I think [the election] will end up in the Supreme Court,” he
said. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”

From experience monitoring elections around the world, we know that what
distinguishes a genuine democracy from a troubled or fake one is that all major
candidates and parties accept the rules and those that lose accept and respect the
results. Legitimacy derives not only from the laws and rules that govern the system but
also from broad acceptance of the rules of the game and the legitimacy of the process.

In large part because of Trump’s attacks on the process, elections in the United States
look more and more like those we have observed in less-than-democratic countries.
These are the kinds of problems that trigger substantial international concern. They
hurt public confidence in the U.S. election process and threaten to undermine the very
legitimacy of the United States’ democracy.

Eric Bjornlund is the president of Democracy International, chair of the Election Reformers Network, and author of
Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy. Twitter: @ebjornlund

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TAGS: AUTHORITARIANISM, DEMOCRACY, ELECTION 2020, ELECTIONS, TRUMP COMMENTS