In case you don’t know who Jim Marchant is, it is best to be taught shortly. He’s a former assemblyman and, extra importantly, a conspiracy theorist who’s operating for secretary of state in Nevada.
You will have heard his identify in 2020, when he ran for Congress and misplaced to Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV). Like Donald Trump, he challenged the lead to courts, misplaced his lawsuit, and blamed his loss on “widespread coordinated election fraud.” He’s, he mentioned, “a sufferer of election fraud.”
Poor man.
I by no means paid shut consideration to secretary of state races. However Trump’s try and overturn the final election confirmed me how necessary they’re. Nevada’s secretary of state oversees the elections in our state. In different phrases, she or he is in control of ensuring our democracy runs easily. Too usually, we take it without any consideration, however Marchant reveals us why we shouldn’t.
Marchant says he’s obsessed with “election integrity” and vows to “repair” our election system. Whereas no system is ideal, Marchant doesn’t need to institute substantive enhancements a lot as he desires to make it more durable for Nevadans to vote and more durable for individuals like him to lose. There’s a phrase for this: rigging.
In keeping with an NPR evaluation of secretary of state races this yr, at the least 20 candidates have embraced Trump’s Huge Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen.” No shock, Marchant is considered one of them.
On Steve Bannon’s podcast final June, Marchant mentioned that George Soros was interfering in Nevada’s elections. It’s unlucky that Marchant’s conspiracy theories overlap with the workplace he’s looking for.
Marchant additionally mentioned that if he had been Nevada’s secretary of state in 2020, he wouldn’t have licensed Joe Biden’s victory. Even worse, he accredited of the concept of sending an alternate slate of Trump electors to Congress. The Guardian requested him if he would achieve this once more in 2024. His reply? “That could be very potential, sure,” he mentioned.
Marchant isn’t enthusiastic about making our elections safer. He’s enthusiastic about ensuring he and his most well-liked candidates win them, even when by means of illegitimate means.
He thinks he can do that by eliminating digital voting machines and mail-in ballots, though there’s no proof that both is rife with fraud. He desires to decertify Dominion Voting machines, which had been utilized in 16 of Nevada’s 17 counties within the 2020 election, and says we must always use paper ballots as a substitute. However one thing tells me that if we did swap to paper ballots and Marchant nonetheless misplaced, he would need to ban them, too. In any case, paper ballots didn’t cease QAnon followers who alleged there was election fraud in Arizona.
Talking of QAnon, Marchant additionally has ties to the QAnon motion. In case you’re unfamiliar, this motion is a group of conspiracy theories, not the least of which is that sure politicians are operating a secret little one intercourse trafficking ring. Final yr, Marchant spoke at an occasion known as Patriot Double Down in Las Vegas. It was hosted by the Patriot Voice, a gaggle carefully linked to QAnon. Marchant, although, claimed he didn’t know what QAnon was. “I don’t know what it’s,” he mentioned, implausibly, in an e mail to the Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal. If he really doesn’t know what QAnon is, he hasn’t achieved a lot studying previously two years.
Requested who was manipulating the voting machines which might be the supply of a lot mischief, Marchant mentioned, “I don’t know truly. I believe it’s a worldwide factor. The individuals in energy need to keep their energy.”
Which, in fact, is unnecessary.
However making sense is just not Marchant’s sturdy swimsuit. Spreading conspiracy theories, nevertheless, is.
In January, he mentioned — or relatively, admitted — that he had fashioned a “coalition of America First secretary of state candidates across the nation” that’s working “behind the scenes to attempt to repair 2020 like President Trump mentioned.” He mentioned he desires to forestall what occurred in 2020 from occurring in 2022. In different phrases, he desires to forestall a free and honest election.
Marchant’s lunacy doesn’t finish with the 2020 election, although. At a debate in February, he mentioned, “Your vote hasn’t counted for many years. You haven’t elected anyone. The individuals which might be in workplace have been chosen. You haven’t had a selection.”
The earlier month, he mentioned one thing comparable. “We haven’t in Nevada elected anyone since 2006. They’ve been put in by the deep state cabal. I name them the cabal.”
This isn’t simply improper. It’s irresponsible, particularly coming from somebody who desires to supervise elections in our state.
Our subsequent secretary of state may have immense tasks. With a background like this, Marchant has confirmed himself unfit to discharge them.
Hyla Winters is a retired educational administrator on the Faculty of Southern Nevada and a former Republican who lives in Las Vegas.
