EDITORIAL: Trust that the legitimate winner’s hand will be on the Bible

A third of the country’s registered voters are not confident that votes in presidential elections were accurately counted, according to a new survey by the MIT Election Data + Science Lab.

This gauge of trust in election integrity has been worsening since the 2016 presidential election, when charges of voter fraud became a political staple. Claims that illegal voting determined the election outcome reached a crescendo in 2020 and are still loud as this year’s nationwide vote approaches.

The aftermath of the 2020 election, with the attempts to change the election result by proving voter fraud in a number of states, including Wisconsin, was a trying time, but it had a positive outcome. The recounts, audits, investigations and lawsuits, none of which found evidence that the election was influenced by voter fraud, were a confirmation that voting can be trusted.

“There’s still not been a shred of evidence brought to any court in the country that would indicate that there was a problem with the 2020 election, so we know the results are accurate,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovations & Research, a nonpartisan organization that monitors U.S. elections.

In an interview published by CNN, Becker, who spearheaded the development of the Electronic Registration Information Center that is used by almost all of the states to update millions of voter records, also said, “Our elections right now are as secure, transparent and verifiable as they ever have been.”

One reason for that voting security, which may come as a surprise to many, is that almost all of the votes in the coming election will be on paper ballots.

“Paper ballots are a best practice,” Becker said. “They’re auditable, they’re recountable, they’re verifiable by voters, and well over 95% of all voters will be voting on paper in 2024.”

A federal law requires every person who registers to vote to provide identification with various specified documents, but there is no national voting law that sets uniform standards for voting in the states. Both Democrats and Republicans have pushed for such a law, but those efforts have been rebuffed by the argument that having 50 different voting systems is a safeguard against voting fraud.

Becker explained, “Decentralization is a security feature of our system. It is impossible to rig a national election, largely due to decentralization.”

Comforting words, but there still is that significant percentage of the nation’s voters who do not trust elections. Those doubts were fueled by the relentless crusade to overturn the 2020 election and amplified by the distortions, lies and conspiracy theories dispensed by the opinion manipulators of social media. In a number of reported instances, this led to harassment of local election workers, including threats of physical violence to them and their families.

Even for those who are angered by the defeat of their preferred candidate and are convinced it was caused by fraudulent voting, the notion that the election clerks in their cities, villages and towns committed crimes as part of a conspiracy to change the outcome of a national election is a bizarre expression of ignorance.

On a hopeful note, the MIT poll, the same survey that reported a third of Americans doubt the accuracy of vote counting nationwide in past presidential elections, found strong confidence by voters in the honesty of election workers in their communities and their states.

More than 89% of respondents said they were confident the votes in their voting places were counted properly; 85% said the same about voting in their state.

About the imminent presidential election, Becker, the election watchdog, had this to say: “If we’re worried about whether the system is strong enough to prevent a losing candidate from somehow seizing power against the will of the voters, I am 100% confident that our system is strong enough that the winner of the election, the actual winner, will have their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20.”