What It's Like Convincing a State Senator to Take Election Security Seriously.

Illustration by Eva Bee

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A note. Some identifying details have been changed to protect the anonymity of the legislators involved. The conversation is composed from details of several real meetings across multiple states. Nothing in it is invented.

I have been making a case to legislators for about a decade. I used to be the one making the meetings. After ten years of showing up, more of them are now making meetings with me.

Most of these meetings happen on neutral ground: a coffee shop that sells incredible baked goods where all the furniture is heavy dark antiques and the floors are covered in old rugs, a campaign HQ that is two folding tables and a printer next to a tattoo shop playing Primus at eleven out of ten. The legislator orders a refill, and we talk about the district for the first ten minutes because the legislator wants to take my measure before the pitch lands.

This one was at a coffee shop she picked, a few blocks from her district office. She got there before me. She stood up when I came in, towered over me, and gave me a 10/10 handshake. She waved me into the seat across from her and said all right, talk to me about elections.

I told her I had something to walk her through, and that I wanted to start with a few yes or no questions to establish the terrain before I got to the bill itself. She said go ahead.

I asked her if she thought Trump had the intent to interfere with free and fair elections. She said yes. I asked her if she thought things were already tilted unfairly toward Republicans at the federal and state levels. She said yes. I asked her if she thought it was getting worse under this administration. She said yes.

At this point we had established the GOP have the ability, capability, and intent to stay in power no matter what, all of it present at the federal level, and we probably needed to do more than hope elections are legitimate and enough. She agreed, and was ready to hear what I had to offer.

I handed her a one sheet that showed everything I was about to tell her, then told her about the bill, which establishes a public red line in advance and an automatic consequence the moment the federal government crosses it. The federal government decertifies state-approved voting equipment, deploys federal forces to polling places against state consent, refuses to certify legitimate state results, or takes any action to cancel, delay, or invalidate the state’s elections, and when that happens, the state orders ninety-day compliance from all employers operating in state to redirect federal tax withholdings into a state escrow account pending restoration of legitimate democratic governance.

They do anything blatantly and undeniably unconstitutional and we respond immediately, peacefully, and authoritatively.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The threat has to exist before the election because a threat made after has already failed. A threat made after the election is reactive and defensive, and it continues the trend of fascists pushing pro-democracy folks at an accelerating pace. The consequence has to be immediate because civil litigation does not work when someone steals an election. What is a judge supposed to say? “Sir, stop your coup please?”

I walked her through the legal framework, nullification, the Supremacy Clause, etc, and told her about the documented case for why this kind of measure is being considered now, which we built here and here, and told her this kind of system has a name in the political science literature, that political scientists who study countries where it has already been built call it competitive authoritarianism, and that we walked through the working version of it here. I told her the bill text and three other pieces of model legislation are here, and the deeper legal framework for the specific mechanism we were discussing is here, and she pulled out her phone and wrote it down.

I haven’t heard any elected official even attempt to make a counter-argument to the question: if they break the constitutional order in blatant and extreme enough terms, then a proportional and immediate response is necessary rather than hoping Alito, Thomas, et al decide to rule in favor of democracy. What is the harm to having a red line?

She loved the idea and said that she was going to talk to a few people in her caucus. She said she wanted to introduce something along these lines next session, but she had to win her election first.

I can’t be mad at a “yes, but next year.” I’m not thrilled about it. But this is the work, it’s the job. She will put me in touch with some of her peers and maybe one of them will say “yes, let’s bring this for a vote as soon as possible.”

Before she left the coffee shop, she laughed and said “By the way, a few hours ago a state house member enthusiastically sent me an article of yours, on this same subject. He had no clue we were about to sit down and discuss it!”

I think that’s a good sign. Ideas are spreading to the right people.

To you, the reader, I have good news. The good news is that even if the next election is stolen at the federal level, the US system of government carries strong, but mostly untapped, resilience at the city, state, and local levels.

Legislators are not going to sign a commitment in the room same day. They may love the bill and sometimes they say maybe next session, or after the primary, or once another state goes first. Even the best ones are difficult to get a commitment from until the final hour. It’s pragmatic on their part, they leave room to change their mind.

The point is that there is genuine enthusiasm in those rooms when they hear good ideas, and that feels like cause for optimism even when the pace is sub-optimal.

I remember watching AOC talk about how you need to get 99 “no’s” to get to one “yes” and that’s ok. It just means you need to ask more people.

I’ve heard similar things from all the most resilient folks I’ve ever known. The tenacious people who keep a good attitude in all conditions will rack up far more “losses” than the average person but over the course of a year or a decade or a lifetime they achieve far more rare and impressive accolades.

The fact is, legislators have finite political capital and in our current political climate only get a handful of ambitious bills in a career, due to corporate and donor class influence standing in the way of progress, this is in addition to balancing caucus leadership and endorsements and reelection math against any single piece of legislation in front of them. They want to know who else is doing this somewhere before they move first. I have met people who spent decades climbing through state politics, and their signature policy goal still gets shot down after they finally make it to state senate majority leader.

Things are only going to change when we take over our state houses and city halls with people who don’t say “not my job.” A city council member can get their constituents healthcare, a state house member can create public housing, and a state AG can investigate and prosecute over evidence we already have publicly available from the Epstein files.

Find these people, advocate, and if they don’t step up then make it very clear your job is to replace them with someone who doesn’t make excuses.

Don’t expect rational or common sense decisions from people who are paid to work against your interest while calling it caution. The only force that consistently overrides the democratic death spiral is pressure clear enough and loud enough that a legislator’s reelection team knows they seriously fucked up.

Be the reason they need to have strategy meetings. Believe me, even a critical reddit post can become a crisis for a politician.

It’s all of our job to end fascism. Nobody has an excuse because ultimately the consequences belong to all of us.

You’re here because you’re an activist and you’re here to make the world a better place, with tenacity and grit.

That’s a gift you are giving to your fellow humans and I encourage you to pat yourself on the back for it. I think the good guys aren’t always great at that, but it’s worth doing.

Final thoughts and some affirmations:

If I can’t make a call or send an email or show up, how can I expect other people to?

But you are stepping up, because you’re here. That’s just the kind of person you must be.

So what next?

If we arm our neighbors with the knowledge and tools for change, then we multiply the movement. Do that enough times and even the most entrenched fascist state can be toppled.

Good or bad, whatever happens in November, this isn’t over.

For more detailed roadmaps check out the links below. If you liked this article then the “Grab Them By The EARR: How to get politicians to do what you want” booklet is a 20 minute read and available for free as a pdf or as a physical booklet and linked below. You might also be interested in the booklet “Becoming Dangerous: Go from Activist to Operative” which is also linked below.

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