Rachel Maddow is running the midterms storyline that Republicans expect to lose, so they are building an excuse for Trump to take over elections.
On October 5, she applied it to Georgia:
“Georgia appears to be slipping out of Republicans’ grasp in some important political ways. In Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is running for reelection. Republicans used to think this seat was theirs for the taking. This was their big chance to peel a Senate seat away from the Democrats. That is not happening.
Jon Ossoff, it turns out, is a great candidate. And Republican candidate Mike Collins is turning out to be a real disaster. Politically, it is not going their way. That apparently means they are activating Plan B.
MAGA Republicans have gotten a toehold at the Georgia State Election Board. The executive director of the board is a dyed-in-the-wool election denier, and he has now taken action, writing to the Trump administration saying Georgia’s official State Election Board explicitly requests that Trump’s attorney general and the feds must come into Georgia and take over the elections, intervene there as soon as possible.”
Apparently, “election denier” isn’t scary enough anymore. Now it’s “dyed-in-the-wool election denier.” A week before the election, she’ll upgrade it to “weapons-grade, industrial-strength election denier.”
The letters are real. The alleged “Plan B” is not established by them.
On September 28, the board voted 3–2 to authorize Executive Director James Mills to seek federal assistance concerning voting-system software updates. The resolution also directed him to assist federal inquiries into QR-code tabulation and voter-data sharing.
Mills then sent letters dated September 30 to the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security. According to Votebeat and Georgia Public Broadcasting, the requests included compelling software updates before November, prohibiting QR-code tabulation, setting a six-month transition deadline, and investigating allegations involving election records and data-sharing practices. Early voting starts October 13. Raffensperger’s office criticized the request as injecting chaos at the eleventh hour.
Maddow’s gloss goes further. She calls Mills a “dyed-in-the-wool election denier” and says the board “explicitly requests that Trump’s attorney general and the feds must come into Georgia and take over the elections.”
The reported requests concern equipment changes, a tabulation ban, and investigations. Those are substantial demands for federal intervention. But requesting that intervention does not establish a Republican plot to take over an election because Republicans expect to lose.
She is right that the specific letters were disputed. After noting that two Republican board members said they had not authorized the letter, she continued:
“But authorized or not, this letter could, of course, achieve its goal just by existing, right? If Trump wants to try to seize control of an election—of voting in a state Republicans are likely to lose—well, now this letter provides a convenient pretext for them to do it. This letter inviting them in.”
Board chair John Fervier, a Republican, told Votebeat that members had not reviewed or authorized the letters and that they exceeded the September 28 resolution. Salleigh Grubbs, who voted for the resolution, said she requested advance review but never received the proposed letter, and agreed the letters went beyond what she had approved. Yet the board authorized Mills to seek federal assistance and gave him broad discretion to carry out the resolution.
Maddow then quoted Democratic Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett describing the purpose as:
“Undermining confidence in the elections process so that they can claim any results they don’t like on November 3rd are fraudulent.”
She also quoted Barrett saying:
“This is not about issues with 2020 or with the machines or with whatever nonsense they come up with next. It’s about controlling the outcome of the 2026 and 2028 elections.”
Then she introduced Barrett as her next guest.
Maddow’s story is always the same: the Democrat is great, the Republican is a disaster, and Trump might “seize control of an election” if Republicans can’t win. Then she brings on a Democrat to reinforce everything she just said.
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