Here & Now

How 2020 Will Shape the Presidency

Frederica Freyberg:

Our next guest is an expert on the American presidency and election law. UW-Madison Political Science Professor Ken Mayer join us now and thanks very much for doing so.

Ken Mayer:

Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what is your take on whether repeating claims that the election was rigged or stolen or rife with fraud is important discussion or puts our democracy at risk?

Ken Mayer:

Those claims are deeply corrosive because there has never been any credible evidence of fraud, no matter what Senator Johnson says. It’s just not true. And one of the ways that — one of the tells is that even the president’s lawyers and other lawyers when they go into federal court, where there are consequences for misrepresentation, they’re not alleging fraud. And so there just is absolutely no evidence of fraud. There never has been any evidence of fraud. The claims have been debunked time and time again. Even the federal government’s chief cybersecurity official says there’s no evidence of any manipulation or intrusion. It’s all nonsense.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how is it corrosive and how does it put our democracy at risk?

Ken Mayer:

It puts democracy at risk because it undermines the absolute central tenet of any democratic system, which is that periodic elections result in a transfer, a peaceful transfer, of power when the incumbent party loses. And that’s exactly what happened here. And it’s not — the threat is not that these claims are going to work. They are not working. They have never worked. They are not going to work on January 6th when the Electoral College votes are counted. But this establishes the precedent that any loser can continually claim fraud and claim that the election was stolen, again, without a shred of evidence. And it leads to significant percentages of the public believing that there’s something there that the election was stolen.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why do so many people believe that?

Ken Mayer:

Because their candidates and chief party officials are telling them that. And that’s what so deeply irresponsible about this. And that’s why I think Senator Johnson’s hearing was so remarkably irresponsible, is that it just continues to give oxygen, to give voice to these repeatedly discounted claims that judge after judge, including those appointed by the president, have said there’s nothing there. The Supreme Court has rejected lawsuits. There just — there is nothing there. And I have spent a lot of time examining the alleged evidence and it’s just false. I can’t put it any plainer than that. Except in ways that might get you in trouble with the FCC. So it just is really irresponsible to continue these unsupported and false allegations of any type of fraud.

Frederica Freyberg:

Did you imagine that this is how it would go if Donald Trump in fact lost the election?

Ken Mayer:

Well, in a way, yes, because he said he would. He had repeatedly said that he would not accept the loss. He repeatedly said to his supporters that the only way that he would lose would be because the election was rigged. So that part is, frankly, not terribly surprising. What is I think more surprising and disappointing is the number of other elected officials in the Republican Party who have gone along with this and they’ve been either playing coy, that the president needs to have an opportunity to have his complaints heard, or they’ve simply deflected the question. But we are now at a point where there are tens of millions of people who are utterly convinced that the election was stolen, that it was fraudulent because the President of the United States has repeatedly insisting that it was.

Frederica Freyberg:

What will history say, in your mind, about these events in U.S. electoral politics?

Ken Mayer:

That’s a good question. There have been times in the past where election outcomes have been bitterly contested or close. I mean, 2000 is not quite analogous because that involved a single dispute in a single state. And there have been other elections, 1876, 1824, 1800. But I think what history will remember is not the fact that this election was — you know, was disputed in a sense. That’s true because you have one candidate saying that he’s not going to concede. But just the flagrant falsehood of the claims and the fact that it was an intentional effort to undermine the integrity of the electoral, the democratic process, for no other reason than the fact that he lost.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Professor Ken Mayer, thanks very much for your insight.

Ken Mayer:

Good to be with you again.