What to Know About the Looming Election Certification Crisis

The false narrative of a stolen election that inspired hundreds of Americans to storm the U.S.Capitol in 2021 is now fueling a far more sophisticated movement, one that involves local and state election boards across the country.What was once the Stop the Steal movement is now the “voter integrity” movement.

Its aim is to persuade the people who are responsible for certifying local elections of the false notions that widespread fraud is a threat to democracy and that they have the authority and legal duty to do something about it: Deny certification of their local elections.Here are key takeaways from the full magazine investigation into the people who are putting themselves in place to deny election certification.Conspiracy theories are working.People believe the election system is rigged.I talked to election officials in four battleground states.

For many of them, going so far as to block certification wasn’t a partisan strategy; it was a patriotic duty.Though it might technically be illegal, many people felt that they obeyed a higher law.

Over months of reporting, this is what I heard again and again.For all the cynicism involved in the effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, and the groundwork being laid to challenge a possible defeat this year, many officials I spoke to were clearly motivated by a deeply held belief that a grand conspiracy was underway.Deniers are taking over county and state boards that oversee elections.

The post-2020 “voter integrity” movement has many leaders and includes many groups, but among the most important is Cleta Mitchell, who helped on Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia.Mitchell, though her Election Integrity Network, has exhorted allies to get involved in elections at the state and the local level.

“We are going to retake our election system,” she said on her podcast, “one county at a time all over America.” Once in place on local boards and commissions, they could push changes to voting rul...