infrastructure. i include myself in that. that creates an opening for these bad faith actors to really try to reshape democracy, if you can call it that at the local level. because if donald trump cannot get local canvassers and clerks to bend to his will and find the idea of the 2020 election is a fraud the next best thing is to get people who will bend to his will the next time around. as one michigan democrat put it, these conspiracy theorists are in it for the long haul. they re in it to completely crumble our republic. and they re looking at these election administrator positions. they re playing the long game. jelani cobb is a staff writer at the new yorker who s written about republican attacks on the democratic process in a piece called why republicans are still recounting votes. and david becker is the founder and executive director of the center for local for election innovation research which works to build voter trust in elections and improve the efficiency of our ele