Securing elections is a goal we must achieve before 2024

November 22, 2022

"Some of you probably remember the hotly contested and controversial 2000 presidential election that was highlighted by arguments about vote fraud; voter suppression; hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads; changes in who led in vote totals throughout election night; and legal challenges that delayed the decision for over a month. 

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, called a halt to the craziness, leaving Republican George W. Bush, with his 537-vote margin, the winner of Florida’s 25 Electoral Votes, and the victory over Democrat Al Gore.

In 2002, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to address the wide range of issues brought to its attention by state and local officials and others throughout the country. 

Two years later, it was evident that HAVA had not resolved the arguments over state laws requiring voters to provide photo identification that were generating backlash amid claims of disenfranchisement, new concerns about new voting technology that led to fears of counting errors, and worries about growing numbers of absentee and mail ballots that raised concerns about the possibility of fraud.

"In response to these concerns, former President Jimmy Carter [a Democrat] and former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, [a Republican] agreed to co-chair a bipartisan commission, housed at Washington D.C.’s American University, to examine these and other outstanding election reform issues. The final report, titled ‘Building Confidence in U.S. Elections,’ stressed the important role of elections in the nation’s democracy,” according to the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. 

The report made 87 recommendations, including:
o A national system to connect state and local voter registration lists
o Voter identification based on a universally available REAL ID card
o Policies to improve voter access for all communities, as well as innovations like vote centers and voter information lookup sites
o Stronger efforts to combat fraud, especially in absentee voting
o Auditable paper backups for all voting technology

Of the recommendations, the Daily Signal commented: “They called on states to increase voter ID requirements; to be leery of mail-in voting; to halt ballot harvesting; to maintain voter lists, in part to ensure dead people are promptly removed from them; to allow election observers to monitor ballot counting; and to make sure voting machines are working properly. They also wanted the media to refrain from calling elections too early and from touting exit polls.”

“Had Congress and state governments adopted many of the panel’s recommendations, the 2020 post-election mess between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden might have been avoided,” said Carter-Baker Commission member Kay C. James, now the president of The Heritage Foundation, in the Daily Signal report. 

“So many of the problems we’re now hearing about in the aftermath of the 2020 election could have been avoided had states heeded the advice of the Commission on Federal Election Reform,” James continued. “Simple protections against fraud, like voter ID and updated voter registration lists, make perfect sense if we truly believe that every vote must count. Election officials should take another look at the commission’s recommendations and make sure they’re doing everything possible to protect the integrity of our elections,” she said.

Organizations concerned with election security have suggested many ideas for secure voting, which include:
o Voter rolls must be updated and accurate prior to every election.
o Photo IDs will be required, and assistance must be provided to those with difficulties getting IDs made.

o Voting will be in person on Election Day, except when voters will be away on Election Day, or are physically unable to vote in person. In these cases, ballots will be requested and furnished to registered voters, will be signed and verified by signature matching and returned to the designated location. 
o Election Days should be named as holidays, or voting should be accommodated by employers.
o There will be no ballot harvesting.
o Votes are to be made on paper ballots; may be counted by machines that are not online; must be verified by hand-counting done with transparency.
o Post-election audits will be conducted that can verify that outcomes are correct.

The National Election Defense Coalition makes the case for using paper ballots: “Hand Counted Paper Ballots are considered the "Gold Standard" of democratic elections. Only paper ballots provide physical proof of the voter's intent. Paper ballots can be safely recounted in case of a contested result. Counting paper ballots in public provides 100% oversight and transparency. Unlike computer voting systems paper ballots can't break down or malfunction; are not programmed secretly by unaccountable private corporations; and cannot be hacked or rigged.”

We are reminded that every registered citizen has the right to vote, and therefore it should be made convenient and easy. Yes, voting is a right. But it is also extremely important in our country. 

And because of its tremendous importance, convenience in voting must yield to procedures that provide the highest level of security we can achieve. Some inconvenience is a small price to pay for being able to trust that the election process and procedures are as secure as possible, and that every legitimate vote is properly counted.

Our states must secure their elections.

Our elections must be made more secure ahead of the mid-terms

An Associated Press review of potential cases of voter fraud in the six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — found fewer than 475 cases. That number would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election, according to an article on apnews.com.

The review was directed toward the six states that were disputed by former President Donald Trump.

Most Americans will likely be pleased with this determination. And while this review found a tiny fraction of the vote fraud needed to prove a stolen election, it also reminds us that the election systems in the 50 states are not fraud-proof, and with the mid-term election coming up in less than a year, we would be smart to examine our election procedures and methods and make them more secure.

By contrast, The Lincoln Institute published a report saying, “the fact of the matter is that the 2020 election had hundreds of thousands of votes counted that should not have been, and the distribution of those votes could have affected the outcome in several closely-decided states.

Many will choose to believe one; many will choose to believe the other. Which one is more accurate?

With tens of millions of people voting in thousands of polling places, and with tens of thousands of election workers in those polling places, it would be a miracle of epic proportions if there weren’t any problems or crimes. Therefore, we can acknowledge, without calling an election stolen, that there is fraud, abuse and carelessness in every election. The only question is, how much?

The AP review focused on only six states and found an average of 79 issues in each state. How many other examples of fraud existed, but were not discovered?

Here are some methods of cheating in elections, according to The Heritage Foundation:

• Forging voter signatures on candidate ballot qualification petitions.

• Voting in someone else’s name in person or through absentee ballots.

• Registering and voting under a false identity or in a district where the individual does not actually reside.

• Submitting fraudulent, altered, or forged absentee ballots.

• Registering in multiple locations within a state or in different states to vote multiple times in the same election.

• People voting even though they’re not eligible because they’re felons or noncitizens.

• Paying, coercing, or intimidating people to vote for certain candidates.

In addition, the U.S. Constitution mandates that election procedures are to be controlled by state legislatures. Officials in four of the battleground states mentioned previously — Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — changed election procedures in the 2020 election by circumventing legislative action. Assuming the best of intentions on the part of the wrongdoers, these changes were nonetheless illegal/unconstitutional. Were any election results — local, state or national — affected by these actions?

In a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 where the Court upheld Indiana’s voter-ID law by a 6-3 margin, Justice John Paul Stevens, who is not a conservative justice, said in the majority opinion that “flagrant examples of such fraud … have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists … that demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”

“Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of vote thieves,” Heritage noted, “because they are the only ballots cast outside the supervision of election officials and outside the observation of poll watchers, destroying the transparency of the election process that is a fundamental hallmark of a healthy democracy.”

Heritage produced the “Election Integrity Scorecard — Assessing the Status of State Election Fairness and Security.” Here are some of the results. Finishing in first place, with a score of 83, is Georgia. Coming in last, with a score of 26, is Hawaii. Virginia scored 67, and placed 15th, while West Virginia placed 30th, with a score of 54.

In its discussion of the condition of our elections, Heritage reported, “In 2012, the Pew Foundation released a report on the voter registration systems maintained by the states. The report found that:

• Approximately 24 million — one in every eight — voter registrations were either no longer valid or significantly inaccurate.

• More than 1.8 million deceased individuals were listed as voters.

• Approximately 2.75 million individuals were registered in more than one state.”

These weaknesses invite fraud, and must be corrected. 

The list of things one cannot do in America without a valid photo-ID is long, and includes: buying alcohol or cigarettes; opening a bank account; applying for food stamps, social security, and many jobs; and get on an airliner. Photo IDs are generally pretty easy to acquire, and every voter should be required to have one.

Elections are too important to have security methods weakened, for example, just to make voting easy. The easier it is to vote, the easier it is to cheat. If Americans have to sacrifice a little convenience in the name of election security, so be it.

Our elections must be made more secure. That is fundamental in a democratic republic like the United States, where the people select those who serve them in all levels of government. We cannot depend upon an honor system to guarantee free and fair elections.