Was the 2020 presidential election stolen from President Donald Trump?
U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-Newton) says no. But he thinks that the Republican Party will try to steal the next two presidential elections.
That’s what he told the Foxborough Democratic Town Committee during a Zoom meeting on Monday.
Auchincloss spoke in depth about his desire to expand voting access at the federal level. He said that he supports abolishing the filibuster to make it happen, something which he noted is from the 19th century and not the Founding Fathers.
Auchincloss is a sharp critic of Republicans in Congress who refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. He previously stated that he would not work with Republicans who refused to certify the results of the 2020 election.
However, Auchincloss said that if the federal government does not pass H.R. 1 — the Democrats’ voting bill — then he thinks that Republicans could steal an election in the way that former President Donald Trump claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Auchincloss said:
Unfortunately, we just can’t wait for a few senators to do the right thing when it comes to voting rights. I think we need a White House conference on voting rights and election integrity that brings together, yes, Congress, but also the private sector, nonprofits, state and local activists, and NGOs — because what we’re seeing, I think, is actually the undermining of fair and free elections in some of these states: Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona. If we let this go unchecked in ’24 and ’28, we’re going to see an actual stolen election — not Donald Trump’s figment of an imagination, but an actual stolen election in those states. And we need to bring corporate influence to bear. We need to bring state and local activism to bear to force state officials to do the right thing because we cannot wait just for federal action.
Some of the changes that H.R. 1 would make to voting laws include: nationwide automatic voter registration, requiring states to allow universal mail-in voting, allowing ballots to be counted everywhere even if received 10 days after an election, and allowing convicted felons to vote.
During the event, Auchincloss suggested that in future elections, Republican-controlled states may ignore the results of elections and have their state legislatures pick a slate of electors to support the Republican candidate — even if the Republican candidate lost the election.
“Even the Republicans, largely speaking, did the right thing. Some of them hemmed and hawed a little bit, but they mostly stood up to Trump and said, ‘these were free and fair elections.’ The legislatures, in response, are stripping them of their powers to be umpires of these elections and to call balls and strikes. They’re trying to give it to the state legislatures instead. That is really scary because then you’re gonna see a situation where the Texas legislature or the Arizona legislature is just gonna vote how they want an election to end up. That’s a terrible idea.”
He also said that it’s vital for the federal government to prevent states from, in his opinion, disenfranchising voters. He pointed to the southern states of the United States as an example of where he thinks voter suppression has occurred for more than 150 years.
“I try to be a student of history. I think that’s important in this job. And of the stark lessons of our history is that without muscular federal intervention, the Deep South does not allow black Americans to vote. It sounds like a harsh thing to say, but if you just look at Reconstruction through today, when they have their way — when southern states have their way — they try to prevent black people from voting.”
Auchincloss didn’t elaborate on how states try to prevent black people from voting in 2021.
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