Imagine you are a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and worry that certain voters in a state (not your own) may have difficulties casting ballots in the upcoming election. Do you call for expanded voting hours? Federal aid to help ensure polling places are accessible? Volunteers to drive people to the polls? Or would you speak approvingly of setting aside voting and just have the outcome of the presidential contest — the assigning of electors — determined by your own party’s state legislators? If you are U.S. Rep. Andy Harris who represents Maryland’s 1st District and the subject is hurricane-torn North Carolina, that last one is apparently a viable option.

Rest assured, the idea isn’t going very far. Bypassing actual voters is the fevered dream of Donald Trump supporter Ivan Raiklin who spoke about it at an Eastern Shore GOP event last Thursday. He champions the idea of state legislatures assigning electors (presumably to bypass nonexistent voter fraud). Yet at that same event in Talbot County, according to Politico, Harris said it “makes a lot of sense” for North Carolina because voters in Hurricane Helene-disrupted counties may otherwise be “disenfranchised.” Happily, in North Carolina, the idea hasn’t gotten much traction where last week’s start of early voting drew higher than normal turnout.

What kind of politician makes the leap to denying voters their right to vote so quickly? Harris, 67, chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, may have felt the urge to echo the Trump message of distrusting election results, especially in a swing state. The anesthesiologist and former state lawmaker has also touted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who has seriously eroded his own country’s democratic traditions including voting. Thus, it’s fair to wonder exactly how supportive the seven-term congressman is of having citizens cast their ballots. We like to think of it as our most important fundamental right. Shouldn’t he?

It also causes us to worry that 13 years in Congress has not only caused Harris to embrace extremism — the 1st District may be dominated by the Chesapeake Bay, for example, but he routinely scores a “0” in League of Conservation Voters scorecards — but deepening arrogance, too. He’s not the first member of either political party to demonstrate a “we know better for you” attitude but showing so little respect for voting suggests the doctor’s got an especially bad case of it.