Lawsuit Threatens Democracy: MAGA Extremists Seek to Disrupt Local Elections

Here in Loudoun County, new evidence continues to emerge that democracy is on the ballot next week and the only way to preserve our American values is to get out and vote like your life and our nation’s future depends on it.

The latest attack on democratic institutions in Loudoun County comes in the form of a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Loudoun County Circuit Court, by two self-proclaimed “patriots”, who seek to upend our carefully crafted election process.

While failing to offer any evidence at all, Thomas Kasperek and Richard Ryan, who have staged fact-free public attacks on the county Electoral Board since April, ask the court to upend the well-established election process, which even Gov. Glen Younkin declared trustworthy just weeks ago.

The system in use requires voters to fill out paper ballots, which are fed into machines that count the votes while preserving the paper ballots as physical evidence available to later validate the outcome.

“Their entire lawsuit is predicated on the idea that the machines used to tabulate our paper ballots are built in China and therefore, they falsely claim, must be corrupted,” said Lissa Savaglio, chair of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee. “It seems a fantasy that any Court would grant their request to bar state-certified, electronic election machines and require solely hand-counted paper ballots less than a week before Election Day.”

This lawsuit is part of a nationwide effort by Trumpists and election deniers to disrupt American democracy; a desperate, last-minute effort to disrupt Loudoun’s orderly electoral process so they can later find fault and brand all elections as faulty – except those won by their preferred candidates. 

It would be interesting to know who is paying for Kasperek’s and Ryan’s misadventure. Alas, those anti-democracy villains remain anonymous.

Indeed, democracy is on the ballot this year. Town by town, county by county and state by state, they seek to undermine the system of checks and balances established by fair and free elections, making it imperative that we turn out to support American ideals by engaging in the best system of self-rule ever established.

They want a system of “Heads I win; Tails you lose,” in which elections are only respected when they win.

We want a system in which the majority  rules– not the most violent or most devious.