Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted that the midterm elections on Tuesday may be the last “halfway fair” contests to take place in the U.S., citing voter registration and I.D. laws.
In an op-ed published Monday night, Krugman said Republicans are unlikely to accept any big losses they may suffer, though he acknowledged that if they maintain enough seats to keep control of both houses of Congress and governorships, the outcome will still damage the election process.
“But ugly as the scene will be if Democrats win, it will be far worse if they lose,” he wrote. “In fact, it’s not hyperbole to say that if the G.O.P. holds the line on Tuesday, it may be the last even halfway fair elections we’ll ever have.”
[Also read: Justice Department to closely monitor potential voter fraud in Tuesday’s midterm elections]
Krugman cited the gubernatorial race in Georgia, where Republican candidate Brian Kemp, who as the current secretary of state is in charge of the election, has overseen the mass removal of names from voter rolls, on the grounds that they were improperly registered, duplicates, or had inaccurate voter ID information, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“There have been similar if less spectacular attempts to rig the vote in Kansas and North Dakota,” Krugman added, “where would-be absentee voters were told that they had to use the right color ink — and were given conflicting information about what color was acceptable.”
The issue over the proper ink color on registration forms in North Dakota was cast by critics as an attempt to diminish the influence of Native American voters in the state, though both blue or black were accepted colors of ink, according to a report in the Times, citing North Dakota’s secretary of state’s office.
Krugman has frequently used his column to say that recent elections, most notably the 2016 election, were to some degree illegitimate.
He has called the 2016 election “rigged” and said in a tweet last month that if Democrats are successful in the midterm elections this year, “[W]e’ll be facing a nightmarish political scene. Republicans will claim that the election was stolen, and deny the majority’s legitimacy.”
If Democrats don’t at least take the House, God help us. But even if they do, we’ll be facing a nightmarish political scene. Republicans will claim that the election was stolen, and deny the majority’s legitimacy 1/ pic.twitter.com/M21pkFiIOw
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 21, 2018
