Republicans are already trying to undermine the 2024 election 

If your coup does not succeed, try, try again. 

Former President Trump and his allies — including the Speaker of the House and members of Congress — are already laying their foundation to claim the 2024 election was stolen. Their claim would be laughable, ignorable even, if Donald Trump had not previously used the same lie to incite a violent attack by an armed mob on the U.S. Capitol only three years ago.  

Unfortunately, this history is repeating itself in real time. 

We are watching the same cast of characters performing from the same script. In 2020, MAGA extremists made false claims that the election was fraudulent and stolen, a carefully crafted narrative that many of our House Majority colleagues participated in. Speaker Mike Johnson even tried to disenfranchise millions of Americans by leading an amicus brief to overturn the free, fair and secure 2020 election. 

Now, the former president and his allies in the House are doubling down on their efforts to undermine the sanctity of our elections, with the false claim that millions of noncitizens are voting in our federal elections. 

Last week, Speaker Johnson stood shoulder-to-shoulder with discredited election deniers on the steps of the Capitol — the very steps that a violent pro-Trump mob overran on Jan. 6, 2021 — and announced the introduction of an unequivocally xenophobic bill that would discourage and even bar eligible American voters from registering to vote. 

Is there any evidence of this massive conspiracy? No. Not even according to Speaker Johnson, who was forced to admit the claim of mass noncitizen voting in federal elections is not “provable.” 

Indeed, independent sources have repeatedly debunked this myth, verifying that noncitizens voting in federal elections is extraordinarily rare and has never been shown to impact the outcome of any election. It is already a federal crime for a noncitizen to vote in federal elections. States have several existing systems in place to deter noncitizen voting and individuals who violate the law face prison time and deportation.  

But former President Trump, Speaker Johnson and their extremist allies in the Republican Conference clearly have contempt for the intelligence of American voters — they think we do not know any better, that we cannot see through this flailing attempt to cling to power by peddling scare tactics and lies. 

Here’s the part they’re not saying out loud: Speaker Johnson and House Republicans are not actually concerned about noncitizens voting in federal elections. They admit they have no evidence to back up their claims. Their real ambition is to lay the groundwork for blame and obfuscation to do violence to the Constitution and deny the people their say in the outcome of this election. 

We have been here before. We cannot ignore the potential for another January 6. 

As the January 6 Select Committee report found, Donald Trump started laying the foundation for his “big lie” months before Election Day, claiming mail-in voting would produce a “rigged” election. He did this in interviews, tweets and even presidential debates. 

Six months out from the 2024 presidential election, we are seeing a hauntingly similar narrative being crafted around alleged noncitizens voting in federal elections, despite Republicans’ knowledge that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and that federal and state law enforcement are adept at enforcing this law. 

We are at a critical moment in our nation’s history and the experiment of American democracy. We must work together as a nation to combat the disinformation and fraud campaign the Republican Party has begun to write about the 2024 election. 

In 2020, many did not foresee the scale and scope of the former president’s desperate and corrupt attempts to stay in power. We now have the advantage of hindsight. 

When tomorrow’s historians write about Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2024 election — and they surely will — they will eviscerate the Speaker’s insidious bill and they will condemn the pitiful actions of House Republican apologists. The record will be clear, and the verdict of history will be harsh. And Americans will remember that congressional Democrats took a stand for truth and democracy. 

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) is the ranking member of the United States House Committee on House Administration, which has jurisdiction over laws related to federal elections.