Six months before the US presidential election, disputes over the 2020 election emerge again

A number of Democratic officials serve as State Secretaries in Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Vermont. In a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, they wrote that allowing such ads will further erode trust in elections and trigger political violence threats against election officials. "Meta is allowing extremists and those who deny elections to further weaken our elections," they wrote.

Also read: Doors Open for Trump

The 2024 US Presidential Election looks set to bring back a contest between former President Donald Trump, a Republican, and incumbent President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Both of them are fighting in the 2020 presidential election.

Disputes surrounding the presidential election held four years ago seemingly are about to resurface. This is evidenced by the reappearance of advertisements related to the 2020 presidential election. These ads once again reveal false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

"When the public believes that elections have been rigged, they tend to lose faith in the system, and this will suppress the number of voters. We want voters to know the truth about elections and feel empowered to participate," said Maine State Secretary Shenna Bellows in an interview on Friday.

Meta spokesperson explained how the company views elections, referring to the plan for the 2022 interim elections. "The company will continue to review content to determine if it violates our community standards, including our policies on elections and voter interference, hate speech, coordination of harmful actions and publicizing crimes, as well as intimidation and harassment," said Meta's statement.

As part of its duties, Meta will also remove election-related content that includes inaccurate information about "dates, locations, times, and methods of voting", as well as calls for violence related to voting or election results.

With this plan, Meta stated that they will reject ads that question the legitimacy of upcoming or ongoing elections. Youtube, the video service owned by Google, announced a similar policy to Meta's last year.

In the 2020 presidential election, Trump, who was running for re-election for a second term, suffered defeat. However, he continued to insist on winning despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

Also read: Trump Angers the Republican Party

At that time, conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and false claims regarding fraud and manipulation of voting machines were rampant. This has continued until now, or four years later.

Due to Trump's claims, reviews, recounts, and audits were carried out in the states where he contested his defeat. However, the results all confirmed Biden's victory. Even Trump's former attorney general stated that there was no fraud on a scale that could influence the presidential election.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Trump falsely claimed he won Wisconsin despite losing to Biden by about 21,000 votes. Trump told the media that he would accept the results of next November's presidential election "if everything is honest."

Election officials

Since the 2020 elections, election officials in several areas in the US have faced threats of murder and harassment. A recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University (NYU) found that 34 percent of local election officials know one or more officials or local election personnel who have left their jobs.

One of the reasons is due to concerns about safety, threats, or intimidation. Such an environment has led to the turnover of election officers throughout the country. Among election officials from the Republican Party, there is also concern that there is still a lack of public trust in the process of vote counting and calculation.

Furthermore, Trump continues to spread doubt about the 2020 presidential election. He also warns his followers, without providing any evidence, that Democrats will try to cheat in the November election.

During his campaign in Michigan this week, Trump repeated the false claim that Democrats cheated in the 2020 elections. "But we will not allow them (Democrats) to cheat in the presidential election (in) 2024," he said.

According to a 2023 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, only 22 percent of Republicans are very confident that votes will be counted accurately next November. A group of Republican election officials sought to defend the election system and election administration officials.

They want to reinforce the message that the election is safe and accurate. According to them, this approach is very important as the US approaches a divisive presidential election.

Also read: Revealing the Truth Behind Election Disputes

The effort began about 18 months ago and was coordinated by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the right-center think tank, the R Street Institute. The goal is to start a conversation about trust in elections, particularly among conservative officials, and to develop a set of principles to achieve this.

"This has never happened before and will never happen specifically regarding Trump. This is about democracy principles at a higher level, what does it mean to be a conservative who believes in democracy, the rule of law?" said Matt Germer, Director of Governance at the R Street Institute.

He added that the meeting is also to establish a structure that supports election officials who may face situations like Georgia State Secretary Brad Raffensperger did in 2020. At that time, he supported Trump but rejected claims of election fraud.

"You can be a Republican and believe in all the ideas of the Republican Party without having to say that the elections were rigged," said Germer.

Prosecutors in Georgia then charged Trump and several other parties with the allegation of planning to overturn the election results. However, Trump pleaded not guilty.

Through the group, there are guiding principles that require Republican Party officials to openly assert the safety and integrity of elections throughout the United States. They are also asked to avoid efforts that would raise doubts about the elections. (AP)