While everyone is thoroughly distracted by President Donald Trump’s despicable tweet about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, something far more nefarious is afoot. And no, I am not referring to the GOP’s lethal and appalling Trumpcare bill that they’re trying to pass through the Senate at the moment, or even Trump’s recent quixotic speech about the United States attaining energy dominance, as reported by The Hill. No, I am referring specifically to a number of moves the Republicans are taking to ensure their ability to continue to steal elections for years to come.

As independent journalist Greg Palast has thoroughly and engagingly been documenting on his website, Republicans have perfected the science of election theft. In a number of articles and videos, and in a handful of media appearances, Palast has brilliantly documented Republican efforts to use a system called Crosscheck to wipe registered voters from voting rolls in states throughout the country, allowing them to effectively steal elections, including the 2016 presidential race.

As Palast reports, Crosscheck works by matching names between states and wiping people from registration rolls who appear to be double-registered in two or more states. The problem is that the system has been shown to overshoot and wrongly indicate when it matches people. In some cases, people with completely different middle names as those registered in other states have had their registrations wiped. When these people show up to vote, they’re given provisional ballots because their names are not on the official register in their assigned precinct. These provisional ballots go largely uncounted, which is great news for a Republican looking to steal the election in their district.

Looking at the numbers in close states in the 2016 election, it’s easy to surmise the impact Crosscheck had on the election, especially given the fact that, as Palast shows in his research, the purging of registered voters focused largely on voters of color.

From Greg Palast’s website:

Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107

Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922

Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922 Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257

Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824

Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824 Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008

North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393″

The efforts by Donald Trump and the Republicans to engage in tactics that effectively enable them to steal elections is based on unproven paranoia surrounding voter fraud that Trump and others on the right have peddled to scare their supporters into thinking voter fraud is endemic on the left. There is no evidence at all that Democrat voters are engaging in widespread voter fraud. That hasn’t stopped Trump from, among other accusations, alleging that over 3 million people voted illegally in 2016, thereby making his loss of the popular vote in the 2016 election illegitimate, according to the Los Angeles Times.

If all 50 states turn over their voter lists to #KrisKobach, expect an additional 2 million voters, mostly citizens of color, to be purged. pic.twitter.com/r4D4aPx56y — Greg Palast (@Greg_Palast) June 29, 2017

According to The Nation, Republicans are ramping up efforts to steal future elections using a number of tactics that can ensure them votes, despite the fact that their policies are typically unpopular with the majority of Americans.

First, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee recently voted to defund the Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that helps states ensure election integrity by supporting efforts to make sure voting machines can’t be hacked. According to Reuters, 21 state election systems faced attempts by hackers to infiltrate voting machines, making this agency’s services vital to the integrity of future elections. If Republicans aren’t worried, there must be a reason.

The Nation also reports that Trump’s Department of Justice recently sent a letter to states, informing them that they are reviewing voter registrations and demanding an explanation as to how the states will be removing registrations when the time comes. This is a clear indication that Trump’s government is focused on deregistering people, even though, as previously mentioned in this article, there is no viable evidence that voter fraud is a widespread problem.

Donald Trump and Kris Kobach are working hard to steal future elections. [Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]

Third, and perhaps most troubling, is an effort by Kris Kobach, vice chair of the White House’s election integrity commission, to acquire complete voter data from all 50 states, including names, addresses, party affiliations, and voting history. While some states, like New York, are fighting the administration’s attempts to acquire this data, others are being compliant, and there is every indication that the administration will fight tooth and nail to acquire this data that will allow them to purge people from registration rolls and allow them to steal elections, which at this point can be described as a favorite hobby of the Republican Party.

The last point made in the Nation article revolves around the Trump administration’s hiring of Hans von Spakovsky of the right-wing extremist think tank The Heritage Foundation to help with efforts to suppress the vote. According to another article in The Nation, von Spakovsky has a long history of championing voter suppression efforts in states like Georgia, where he aided a push to implement strict voter ID laws in that state. He was also instrumental, as a member of George W. Bush’s Justice Department, in aiding Republican gerrymandering across the United States. Those gerrymandering efforts are still responsible for ensuring countless Republican “safe districts” where district lines have been artificially drawn to make it less likely for urban voters to be represented in Congress.

The bottom line is that it’s clear by their concerted efforts to steal elections that the Republicans are in favor of less democracy, not more.

[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]