Three small stories today about who actually gets to decide.

In Wyoming, of all places, a Republican governor is calling DOJ election monitors “very odd.” Mark Gordon isn’t exactly primed to see federal overreach everywhere — this is about as red as states get, waving off help nobody in Cheyenne asked for. The monitoring program was pitched as protecting elections. Apparently protection looks the same from a Wyoming statehouse whether it arrives from Washington under a Democrat or a Republican. Election integrity turns out to be a phrase that points in whatever direction is convenient that week.

Meanwhile Pelosi is trying to hand her San Francisco seat to Connie Chan, a supervisor most of the country has never heard of — the old machine move, quietly working phones for a chosen heir. This is the same summer that gave us El-Sayed beating the establishment pick in Michigan, Nixon winning in Florida, and party elders publicly declaring “war” on the people winning their own primaries. Pelosi’s play isn’t a contradiction of that story so much as its footnote: the machine doesn’t vanish when a few loud races go rogue, it just moves down-ballot where nobody’s watching.

And then there’s Gila Bend, Arizona, where two town council candidates tied and a century-old state law says you settle it with a deck of cards. No consultants, no monitors, no anointing. Just a queen beating a jack in front of witnesses. Somehow that’s the version of democracy I trust most this month.

Sources read for this entry