Election Defense
MAKING ELECTION MANIPULATION, VIOLENCE AND REPRESSION BACKFIRE
Election years can bring heightened risks of interference, political violence, and repression. We are preparing for those threats before they happen. Election defense means understanding how these tactics work, recognizing them when they appear, and knowing how to respond together. With strategic, nonviolent collective action, we can protect our communities and make sure that authoritarian attempts to undermine elections backfire.
Monitor and expose injustice, including federal overreach
Show solidarity with targets: Black people, immigrants, queer and trans people, women
Tell clear stories of organizing to counter manipulation
People power protects elections, not official channels
Make the movement irresistible and prepare to organize through cycles of intimidation and bribery
REVEAL:
The US Authoritarian Electoral Strategy
Deceive the Public:
Spread mis/disinformation.
Discredit election officials and candidates.
Disrupt the Election:
Suppress the vote by purging voter rolls, eliminating vote-by-mail, SAVE Act, etc.
Break structures and change process.
Deploy military or federal agents to polls.
Threaten or use violence.
Deny or Question Election Legitimacy:
Disqualify votes.
Refuse to certify or seat electeds.
Falsify results.
Install loyalists/ deniers.
Disqualify candidates.
Defund election observers.
All of these actions also intentionally undermine voter participation, but can just as easily inspire MORE participation through collective action.
WHEN WOULD-BE AUTOCRATS DO THIS…
DECEIVE THE PUBLIC.
DISRUPT THE ELECTIONS.
WE CAN MAKE IT BACKFIRE!
UPLIFT PRO-DEMOCRACY ELECTION OFFICIALS & CANDIDATES
PREBUNK AND DEBUNK MISINFO/DISINFO
CONNECT DOTS BETWEEN THE AUTHORITARIAN PLAYBOOK & ELECTION INTERFERENCE
OBSERVE/MONITOR/INFUSE JOY AT THE POLLS
PLAN SOLIDARITY ACTIONS FOR PRO-DEMOCRACY ELECTION OFFICIALS & CANDIDATES
REGISTER VOTERS, VOTE EARLY AND TOGETHER AS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE
How PEOPLE are Already Countering Authoritarianism
“An Election Protection volunteer outside a polling place in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” courtesy Lorie Shaull from St Paul, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
AFTER ELECTIONS
Mobilize strategic, adaptable nonviolent actions that show what freedom looks like, regardless of the outcome of elections
Impose costs on every attempt to deny free and fair elections
ALL BASED ON A STRATEGY OF CIVIL RESISTANCE…
Expand the repertoire of nonviolent tactics.
Shift pillars of power by pulling people toward the movement.
Organize to make repression backfire and maintain nonviolent discipline through cycles of violence.
Enable and sustain widespread participation.
Fight for free, fair, safe, and respected elections starting now.
Win by getting out the vote as an act of resistance.
Prove the results of elections by making them unquestionable.
BACKFIRE FOCUS
Enforce the results by holding the line.
Sustain strategic nonviolent civil resistance.
today
Local backfire actions to federal overreach that build civil resistance momentum
Narrative strategy that connects the dots between authoritarian actions and election manipulation, and aligns on the need for mass noncooperation
Build coordination infrastructure and solidarity between pro-democracy activists across state borders
Practice moving together
When perpetrators try to divert action into official channels, redirect public outrage toward mobilization.
Remember that public or independent investigations tend to work slowly, focus on technical procedures, rely on experts, and give the appearance that justice will be done. This can result in decreased public mobilization, making inquiries less aggressive in pursuing the truth.
Backfire options include:
supporting the process
criticizing the process
making demands of the process
launching a parallel process
using the institutional process as a campaigning tactic
Resist threats and attempts to reward silence about injustice, turning these into catalysts for more backfire.
Attempts to inhibit public concern by threatening, bribing, intimidating, or otherwise co-opting those who speak out or organize against injustice may extend beyond targeted activists—sometimes perpetrators may further try to silence activists’ family, friends, and colleagues.
Anticipating intimidation and rewards, activists can warn their friends, families, and colleagues of such efforts, prepare to document these efforts, and develop strategies to make them backfire if or when they happen.
Being public about the fact that a group is prepared for threats may actually have a deterrent effect on perpetrators, making them aware ahead of time that such tactics will be used against them in “the court of public opinion,” and possibly also even a court of law.