Perhaps not everyone has paid attention to the news from Georgia last Friday that the governor and top elections official have officially certified the election results from one of the key battleground states for Biden victory. What is interesting is that both the Governor and Secretary of State are Republicans and they have been unsurprisingly attacked by Trump and other members of their own party. What are we to take away from this final result?
The Internal Incentive Behind Georgia Election Certification
As always, understanding people incentives is the key to understanding the outcome. In this case, two incentives stood out, one internal and one external. The internal incentive is rooted in these Republican leaders’ good conscience, which helped them to stay truthful to the real ballots, despite their private preference for one candidate against another. This internal incentive should never be ignored or taken for granted. To a certain extent, the solid, strong self conscience possessed by many if not most citizens and leaders is what makes this country strong and solid.
Listen to what Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, a self-described “passionate conservative,” has to say: “Like other Republicans, I’m disappointed our candidate didn’t win Georgia’s electoral vote. Close elections sow distrust. People feel their side was cheated.” “But that said, I want 100 percent of people to have confidence in the results. I’m not gonna like it. And I’m gonna have to take that medicine, just like everyone else in my party will, but it will be an accurate count.”
Do Not Take Integrity for Granted
I applaud his sober thinking during such a heated moment in Georgia and the US history. Leaders like him really deserve our trust, no matter which party you belong. But for exactly the same reason, Trump is trying to force him to resign by “labeling him a RINO in a tweet and amplifying calls from GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler for Raffensperger to resign.” This is exactly why Trump is making the US weaker, not greater, by trying to turn this country into his private empire, not a democratic republic.
We can appreciate guys like Raffensperger more if we are aware of cases pointing to other direction. Tucker Carlson, a conservative Fox news host, had seen quite a drama from Trump supporters, merely after he reported his interaction with Sidney Powell, President Trump’s attorney who has peddled wild conspiracy theories about the 2020 election by saying that “despite his polite requests, Powell had not provided a shred of evidence to support her outlandish claims and had even told him to stop contacting her. Not only had she failed to provide him with evidence, Carlson said, she had also failed to support her claims to others in Trumpworld.” But this entirely normal action of asking for evidences is enough for Trump supporters to call Carlson “Traitor. Globalist. Sellout.”
The External Incentive Behind Georgia Certification
Being an analytic freak, I want to point out the other incentive acting in Georgia, which is mostly external but just as powerful as the internal one. As the top election official, Mr. Raffensperger (and the Governor) is personally responsible for getting the election right in the first place, otherwise people will question his qualification and doubt his overall capability to get anything done right. Having an about-face from recounting would spell a disaster.
For the same reason, we can understand why the Michigan GOP top lawmakers, after meeting Trump himself, had issued statement that “we have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan.” Again, their stake is also high if the recounting proved major errors from the first time. Despite the strong hope for finding the voter fraud that will benefit their party, they cannot afford to make things up just to make Trump happy.
It’s a good thing that the American voting system is diverted to each state, another smart design by the founding fathers!