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Scary exercise about what could happen with this election
Experts Game Out What Might Happen If The Election Goes Off The Rails
July 30, 20204:19 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
4-Minute Listen
<SNIP>
SHAPIRO: Rosa Brooks, who worked in President Obama's Defense Department, is the co-organizer of the Transition Integrity Project. Last month, this bipartisan group of political operatives, academics and former government officials spent a day exploring what might happen if the election goes off the rails. Brooks told me it's fair to say all of them participated out of concern for this fall's election.
ROSA BROOKS: We had about 70 or 80 people. We put them on two teams. We had a Team Trump - a Trump campaign team, a Team Biden. We had GOP and Democratic elected official teams. We had a media team and teams representing sort of career civil servants. And we essentially did a number of exercises where we gave them each a scenario. One of our scenarios was a decisive Biden win. One was a decisive Trump win. One was a narrow Biden win. One was a period of extended uncertainty as in the election of 2000.
In each of our exercises, the Trump campaign team came right out of the gate, tried to stop the counting of mail-in ballots, tried to assert that they were fraudulent, in one case closed the post office to prevent additional ballots from reaching the ballot counters, in another case seized and tried to sequester the ballots to prevent additional counting.
In all of our scenarios, the team that feared an electoral - a ballot count loss attempted to persuade legislators, state-level legislators and governors sympathetic to them to send rival slates of electors to Congress. We had both sides attempting to mobilize street protesters. And I can say that in each of the exercises, the players playing the Trump team were significantly more ruthless and willing to play fast and loose with the truth than the team playing the Biden campaign.
<SNIP>
I think it really shocked people out of that and made them see there's a very real chance that it won't be fine if you all sit back and just assume it won't be fine (laughter). If you want it to be fine - if you want this to be a normal, free and fair election, you need to be thinking right now about how we protect the integrity of the election and the transition.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897345056/experts-game-out-what-might-happen-if-the-election-goes-off-the-rails
July 30, 20204:19 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
4-Minute Listen
<SNIP>
SHAPIRO: Rosa Brooks, who worked in President Obama's Defense Department, is the co-organizer of the Transition Integrity Project. Last month, this bipartisan group of political operatives, academics and former government officials spent a day exploring what might happen if the election goes off the rails. Brooks told me it's fair to say all of them participated out of concern for this fall's election.
ROSA BROOKS: We had about 70 or 80 people. We put them on two teams. We had a Team Trump - a Trump campaign team, a Team Biden. We had GOP and Democratic elected official teams. We had a media team and teams representing sort of career civil servants. And we essentially did a number of exercises where we gave them each a scenario. One of our scenarios was a decisive Biden win. One was a decisive Trump win. One was a narrow Biden win. One was a period of extended uncertainty as in the election of 2000.
In each of our exercises, the Trump campaign team came right out of the gate, tried to stop the counting of mail-in ballots, tried to assert that they were fraudulent, in one case closed the post office to prevent additional ballots from reaching the ballot counters, in another case seized and tried to sequester the ballots to prevent additional counting.
In all of our scenarios, the team that feared an electoral - a ballot count loss attempted to persuade legislators, state-level legislators and governors sympathetic to them to send rival slates of electors to Congress. We had both sides attempting to mobilize street protesters. And I can say that in each of the exercises, the players playing the Trump team were significantly more ruthless and willing to play fast and loose with the truth than the team playing the Biden campaign.
<SNIP>
I think it really shocked people out of that and made them see there's a very real chance that it won't be fine if you all sit back and just assume it won't be fine (laughter). If you want it to be fine - if you want this to be a normal, free and fair election, you need to be thinking right now about how we protect the integrity of the election and the transition.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897345056/experts-game-out-what-might-happen-if-the-election-goes-off-the-rails
Even in a mock scenario where people are concerned about the election going off the rails, Republicans are willing to cheat in order to win. Think of what that means in the real world with people who do not care if the election is considered fair and legitimate. This is frightening.
ETA: There is a full transcript and audio of the interview at the link.