Election legitimacy at risk, even without a November cyberattack

Election legitimacy at risk, even without a November cyberattack

We've heard a lot in recent weeks about the potential for Russian meddling in the presidential election. A lot of circumstantial evidence – and the fact that Russia has the means, motive and opportunity to conduct these attacks – suggests an important Russian role in the leaks of confidential emails from the Democratic National Committee, the release of opposition research on Donald Trump compiled by the DNC and personal contact details of many prominent Democrats. And just this week, news broke that the FBI has found evidence of foreign penetrations of voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois and warned officials in every state to improve the cybersecurity of election-related systems.

Farm team conservatism
Commentary

Farm team conservatism

Erick Erickson

This has been a bad year for conservatives at the ballot box. Washington Republicans and their allies, enabled by chaos in the presidential race, began targeting down-ballot conservatives for defeat. They were highly successful.

Concurrently, the last vestiges of the old tea party movement finally divided between pro-Trump populists and principled conservatives. Unshackled from principle, the populists saw their candidates defeated in elections across the country. Kelli Ward, a hero of pro-Trump populists, went down to defeat in Arizona after her opponents exposed her as a believer in chem-trails.

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