EXCLUSIVE: Pro-Trump swing state election officials poised to deny November’s election results

At least 70 election conspiracists work as election officials in six swing states — and sit ready to carry out Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

In Dec. 2021, I read a Reuters story about Republicans taking over a rural election board here in Georgia. I dug in and was soon deep into a world of lies, conspiracy and political madness that has taken up much of my life over the last two and a half years. 

That journey reaches something of a pinnacle today with the publication of an investigation that has been in the making since that December day. At Rolling Stone and here at American Doom, you can read the results of that investigation: 70 pro-Trump election deniers work as election officials in swing states. They sit poised to aid in Trump’s efforts to call into question — and let’s face it — overturn the November election. Most likely, they’ll do this by refusing to certify election results in their counties, which has become an increasing practice among pro-Trump local election officials like the ones featured in today’s investigation.

From that day in Dec. 2021, I had intended to compile a complete list of all election deniers working as local election officials, but the task turned out to be too much, for now. It has taken these two and a half years to reach the number featured today — 70 conspiracist election officials in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Twenty-two are here in Georgia alone, a state with 159 counties and surely many, many more election deniers working as local election officials.

What began as an attempt to simply chronicle the election officials who support Trump’s election lies has morphed into the tracking of what I’m calling the certification refusal movement — dozens and potentially hundreds or thousands of local election officials who may decide not to certify local results in November, thus prompting vote-counting chaos that will spread outward like a virus into possible violence and unrest.

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This post is behind a paywall because it is the result of years of work investigating local election denial officials. You can support our efforts to expose election deniers, hold right-wing extremists accountable and track other threats to democracy for as little as $5 a month. To show what we’ve been up to, here are some links crucial to understanding American Doom’s work — and why it’s worth your hard-earned money.

• "No way Trump can lose without fraud" - Election officials in the South preview election denial to come

• EXCLUSIVE: Georgia Republicans ram through new election rule at “illegal” meeting with support from top RNC election official

• BREAKING: Republican election official in Nevada paves the way for election certification refusals nationwide

• Election denial officials admit hand recounts don't show fraud

• How election officials in the South have cheered on political violence

• Trump-backed Georgia election official suing to refuse election results has ties to prominent election denial group

• First legal efforts to overturn 2024 election underway in Georgia

That’s all from the last two months, so you can see I’ve been busy around here. If it helps to know that your money is going toward people who hide behind threats to conceal the truth about the election denial movement, here’s a message I received last week in response to my reporting. 

I’m less worried about breathless threats like these and more worried about what will happen in November. That’s because the number of pro-Trump election conspiracists working as election officials exposed today — 70 — is truly just the “tip of the iceberg,” as Democratic lawyer Marc Elias told me recently. With 19 states having some level of local election administration, the true number of Trump zealots who are working right now on his efforts to call November’s election into question is probably in the thousands. Key to their game plan is refusing to certify election results.

For the record, I prefer oat. Now, back to the story.