The United States is at stake in the momentous legislative elections this Tuesday much more than the appointment of hundreds of state, local and federal positions, control of Congress and the Senate, the future of women's reproductive rights or the prospects for the rest of the first term of Joe Biden, which could be amortized halfway.
Above all else, the great battle for the future of the system and the mere survival of the democracy of the world's leading power is being waged at the polls.
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Midterm elections in the United States, live
These are the first elections to be held since the 2020 presidential elections, when Donald Trump was about to blow up the system, with his accusations, which have been proven false over and over again, of electoral fraud.
Those maneuvers fell short, thanks to a handful of brave (Republican) officials, but they spurred the January 6 insurrection, one of the biggest attacks on their democracy in history.
Not only that: its delayed shock wave has defined American politics for the last two years.
They also left behind a deeply divided and suspicious nation: Two-thirds of conservative voters still believe that Biden did not get to the White House cleanly.
The shadow of that doubt is projected over this mid-term appointment, but it will also mark the 2024 presidential elections, to which, everything indicates, Trump plans to run again;
at his last campaign rally in Ohio, held on Monday, he set next Tuesday, November 15, the day he will make a “big announcement”, which will clearly be the confirmation of his third run for the White House.
Biden also threatens to repeat that duel and opt for revalidation, despite the fact that both candidates will then be 78 and 81 years old.
Suspicions of Russian intervention
In the middle of this spring of skepticism, spurred on by suspicions of Russian intervention by social networks, which were unable to stop disinformation in past elections and have not succeeded in this one either, Americans elect dozens of positions, from governors to secretaries of State or general prosecutors, who will be in charge in 2024 of establishing the rules, of ensuring that the elections are held and of certifying the results.
Many of them belong to the tribe of electoral deniers.
More than 370 Republican candidates have expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. There are those who go even further and continue to deny that the Democrats won then.
The most recalcitrant have used their powerful loudspeakers to publicize the documentary
2000 mules
, which supposedly proves the fraud of Biden and his people.
Those mules are the citizens who, their authors maintain without evidence, dedicated themselves to stuffing “false votes” into the polls of Georgia, where Trump left part of the presidency, by a difference of 11,779 ballots.
It is not unreasonable to think that some of the losers this Tuesday will have plans not to accept the results.
Like the candidate for governor of Arizona Kari Lake, a rising star in the most trumpist wing of the party, who has put on the bandage before the injury, stating that only if she wins will she accept the scrutiny.
The polls place her as the winner.
This appointment will also be the first to be held after the enactment of a battery of voting restriction laws: 21 States have approved 42 electoral regulations that make it difficult for minorities to access the polls, according to the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice. , which is the benchmark for voter suppression in the United States.
Of them, 33 are already in force for this Tuesday.
The act of depositing a ballot, the most purely democratic gesture, has thus become another fierce field of battle for the future of the system in the United States between those who advocate making it more accessible and those who doubt the integrity of those that are issued. by mail and in advance.
It is just one more of the deep discrepancies between the two polarization blocs, which do agree on one thing:
70% of Americans, according to the latest polls, think that their democracy is in danger.
They disagree, yes, on the reasons.
Republicans see the sources of the problem as Biden, the institutional media, the federal government, and the mail-in voting system.
Trump is the biggest threat if he asks Democrats, followed by the Supreme Court, the most conservative in eight decades, and election deniers.
International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have produced a report that paints a bleak picture for this event.
The Department of Justice announced on Monday, for its part, the intention to closely monitor the course of the elections in 24 states, six more than in the presidential elections two years ago.
In total, Election Day surveillance will be deployed in 64 cities and counties where complaints have been received, from Chicago to Dallas, and from Detroit to Milwaukee.
The Arizona Dispute
Arizona is also on the list, of course.
It was one of the ground zeros of the 2020 results dispute. There, where Biden narrowly beat Donald Trump, all four major GOP candidates back the big lie theory of election theft.
In Arizona, the first prize also fell for the most worrying stamp among the many that this campaign has left, a campaign in which the debate on the possibility of a new Civil War and the rhetoric of democracy in danger, agitated nonstop by Biden and other Democratic leaders, have been protagonists of the new normal.
In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and is the most populous in the state, several voters reported a week ago that they felt intimidated by the presence of masked men dressed in military gear near a polling place.
Armed, they took photos and videos of those who were going to deposit their ballot in advance.
Meanwhile, Virginia has launched an Electoral Integrity Unit, an initiative of its Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin,
whose name is sounding ever louder as a possible candidate in 2024, and Attorney General Jason Miyares.
In one of his counties, the presence of uniformed officers at the polls was also intimidating on early voting days.
For its defenders, measures like this are just the toll that must be paid to guarantee that the electoral result will be reliable.
Distrust in an imperfect system has become common currency on the American right.
Ultra-conservative organizations across the country have embarked on massive lawsuits in recent weeks to challenge early voting.
This strategy seeks to influence the process by way of chaos, spread suspicion on those who express themselves before election day (who were above all Democrats, even before the pandemic altered habits) and delay the count, which is expected long and complicated.
Contesting tens of thousands of ballots also serves to drain resources and increase the possibility of error by election officials, who, in Georgia, for example, are forced to drop everything to deal with these demands as they come.
That chaos could pave the way for the recount to be challenged.
It has happened in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where thousands of ballots already issued have been discarded due to a last-minute rule, as well as in Texas or Michigan.
There, the Republican candidate for Secretary of State, Kristina Karamo, filed a lawsuit to challenge tens of thousands of early votes in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold.
This Monday, a judge dismissed the lawsuit because he did not find "the slightest evidence."
When the disputed recount begins, all eyes will be on Capitol Hill.
Republicans hope to regain control of the House of Representatives.
Five seats would be enough for them (although polls give them a 20-30 advantage).
The Democrats, for their part, would sign to retain their slim majority in the Senate.
The first would be enough to make the Democratic legislative agenda gangrenous, deactivate many of its initiatives, cancel investigative commissions such as the one on the attack on Capitol Hill, and launch new ones.
On the horizon, the option of an
impeachment also appears
presidential.
They could also end legal problems for Trump, who survived two such impeachment proceedings.
That would mean setting a dangerous precedent of impunity for former presidents in the wounded American democracy.
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