When then-President Donald Trump refused to admit that he lost the 2020 presidential election, this publication called out his behavior, writing, “The longer he digs in, the more Trump will undermine faith in our elections and make it harder to unify as a country.”
Now, it is President Joe Biden who is undermining faith in elections and dividing the country. His claim, equally false, is that the 2022 elections will not be legitimate because Democrats failed to pass their partisan voting procedure bills Wednesday night.
Asked directly if he thought the 2022 elections would be illegitimate in that event, Biden said, “I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit. The increase and the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki must have recognized the gravity of Biden’s remarks because she issued a statement Thursday morning attempting to change what Biden had said.
“Let’s be clear,” Psaki tweeted, “POTUS was not casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 election. … He was explaining that the results would be illegitimate if states do what the former president asked them to do after the 2020 election.”
But this is not at all what Biden actually said. He directly linked the Democrats’ bills in Congress with the illegitimacy of the 2022 election. If Psaki wants to say Biden is old or tired and misspoke, that would be one thing. But she cannot pretend he didn’t say exactly what he said.
Even worse for Psaki, both Vice President Kamala Harris and House Majority Whip James Clyburn gave interviews Thursday morning repeating and affirming Biden’s statement that the 2022 elections will not be legitimate because Democrats failed to pass their preferred voting procedure legislation.
CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked Clyburn, “Are you concerned that without these voting rights bills the election results won’t be legitimate?”
Clyburn responded, “I’m absolutely concerned about that.”
So much for Psaki’s walk-back.
The reality is that the 2022 midterm elections are on track to be every bit as fair and free as the 2018 midterm elections, when the Democrats won the House of Representatives. Sure, some states have tweaked their voting laws. In Georgia, for instance, voters must now request an absentee ballot, and they must provide a valid voter identification number (like a driver’s license number) when they submit it. In 2020, all voters were mailed absentee ballots, and no voter identification number was required.
Does this new law make it slightly harder for some people to vote? Well, it does take some effort to request an absentee ballot and to write a voter identification number down on the ballot. Those are two extra steps. But no one has ever considered such requirements to be voter suppression in the past, and the vast majority of voters don’t believe this is voting suppression now. More people say it is too easy to vote than too hard, and a vast majority support voter identification laws in general.
Public trust in elections is the cornerstone of democracy. It was bad for the country when Trump cast doubt on the 2020 elections. It is equally bad when Biden questions the legitimacy of the 2022 elections. This country will be a better place when we have moved on from both of these old men.
