The elections in Israel will be held tomorrow, October 27.
Election Day in the United States is a week from tomorrow, November 3.
Grab your popcorn, and stay near your fallout shelter.
In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu urgently needs the electoral support that an active war would garner for him. Bibi apparently tried to talk Trump into restarting the war in Iran, but Trump wants to delay until after the midterms.
Hmmm. Well, any port in a storm: There was a skirmish in the West Bank last week, and Netanyahu intends to use that as an excuse to light things up. He’s in the process of locking down the entire West Bank and demolishing local buildings.
What did I say: Any war in a storm?
The Iranians, of course, would love to screw around with the Israeli elections. Who knows what they might have planned for election day? Perhaps a relatively small attack on Israel by Iran or its proxies would make Israelis lose confidence in Netanyahu’s recent security achievements? Perhaps some well-coordinated cyber attacks could make transportation impossible on election day? Who knows?
Election Day in America follows one week later. Trump may decide that he needs a war in the next week, too. So far, his advisors have talked him out of starting the Iranian bombing runs in October, but as the polls grow worse, Trump’s need to do something — anything! — to change the discussion may yet prevail. If Trump doesn’t restart the war before November 3, he’s basically promised that he’ll restart it shortly thereafter.
The Iranians, of course, would love to monkey with the American elections just as fiercely as they’d love to disrupt the Israeli ones. I don’t know what Iran might have planned for next weekend, but my advice stands: Grab your popcorn, and stay near your fallout shelter.
Of course, that’s only on the international front. Domestically, things are likely to take longer to play out, but they’re sure to be just as weird.
Trump instructed the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit to prevent certification of the election results in the Alaska Senate race if the Republican loses in a close contest. The DOJ is now concerned that voters will be confused because two guys named “Dan Sullivan” are on the ballot.
Look: File as many lawsuits as you like to challenge ballot access before an election is held (and in state court). Make sure the electorate is choosing from among permissible choices. But don’t hold off on filing ballot-access lawsuits until after an election as a hedge against a result that disappoints you. Once the election has been held, don’t retroactively challenge the names of the candidates.
Can you challenge miscounting? Sure. Fraud? Sure. Other errors in the electoral process? Sure.
But if you want to challenge the names of the people on the ballot, do that before the election is held, so that those issues are resolved at the appropriate time.
That takes us up to a week from Tuesday.
After the elections, Trump will have lost at least one house of Congress, and he’ll feel unrestrained in his new lame duck status.
An unrestrained Donald Trump?
Grab your popcorn …
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.
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