How concerned should you be about a stolen election in 2026 ? ⚖️

Attention people, politicians write the laws that govern elections, the same people who are on the ballot!

It is kind of a paradox that elected officials write the laws that govern how candidates get on the ballot, how they win election and ultimately serve in office. Politics has an incumbent bias, it tends to favor electing people who either are or look a lot like the people who are currently in office.

People have this view that governing is an exact representation of the public’s will, though this is rarely the case. It’s not to say that politicians aren’t responsive to public sentiment and don’t fear getting voted out of office, but also remember that all politics and governance is focused on a lens that protects incumbency as those who are in office as those who write the laws that say in future years choose who will be in office.

The truth is in close elections, whoever wins is a coin flip, sometimes defined by who wrote the election law with an eye towards incumbency protection. But not all elections are close, and indeed even long-term incumbents, once popular and well liked do go down as the ground shifts. I’ve been many times when a popular politician has been in office for decades, only to loose when the world moves on and people’s views shift over time.

Can President Trump and Republican-controlled Congress and Legislatures put their thumb on the scale? Of course they can, and it would be foolish to think won’t tried to do that. Democrats do the same thing too. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the public decides in a resounding margin who they want as their representatives. If it’s close, it’s mostly a coin toss, partially biased by the laws set up by incumbents, but not always. Voters are hardly predictable beasts, and often mischievous when it comes to their actions behind the privacy curtain.

Trump is free to put his finger on the scale within the constraints of his power. Courts are also free to review the law and see if executive actions and other laws are consistent with the constitution. Trump can seed doubt, claim the election is rigged. But as they say, ultimately it’s up to a judge to decide who actually won the election if challenged. The best things parties on both sides of the aisle can do is be vigorous defendents of both their candidates and their parties.

The biggest threats to democracy are an apathetic public and parties and candidates who do not vigorously fight for their positions. However if anything, Trump is getting people fired up and running to defend what they believe in and that’s good for democracy. Trump is free to believe what he believes, true or otherwise, make policy that may or may not benefit his party within the constraints of the law and courts. However, that does not mean democracy is dead. If anything, a motivated to vote public and parties who guard is raised against fraud and abuse means democracy is only going to get stronger.