BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 23. Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas, Ohio perhaps, Pennsylvania will be the epicenter of disputes in the US midterm elections, Dr. Pippa Norris, a lecturer in comparative politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Founding Director of the Electoral Integrity Project, said during the Foreign Press Center's briefing on US Midterm Elections 2022, Trend reports.
"I mean, it’s the big states which are the most controversial. It’s the purple states where there’s the highest levels of competition. And it’s the states where the governor and the secretary of state are election deniers, if they get elected, and they’re often supported by those who believe in conspiracy theories, and by the grassroots – grassroots Republicans who believe firmly in elections. And the problem, quite simply, in the states is not just about having election deniers in office; it’s the fact that both sides in these disputes believe equally that they’re defending American democracy. So there’s no way out. Republicans honestly believe, genuinely, in election fraud. We know from all the best evidence that hasn’t occurred on a widespread scale sufficient to in any way overcome a result. Democrats believe passionately in voter suppression, particularly for black Americans and for Hispanic Americans and for other minority groups.
And so both sides have dug themselves in. We’re like in the First World War. We’re in the trenches on both sides. There’s no No Man’s Land anybody is willing to come forward on. And if you disagree about economics, that’s fine. If you disagree about social policy, that’s fine. Disagree about foreign policy, that’s legitimate. But when you can’t agree on the rules of the game and when we don’t have an umpire that’s neutral, like an EMB, then you end up in conflict and confrontation and potentially even violence. And as you know, people have been talking about a civil war. I don’t believe that that’s what’s going to happen, but incidences of violence are entirely possible because they’ve already happened. And that to me is a breakdown of how any democracy could actually operate," she explained.