The November 2020 elections were a mess.
But they did provide an awakening on the vulnerabilities in our election system. This was overdue. For too long, the issues in our election process had been overlooked. States have done a negligent job of keeping their voter rolls accurate.
Fortunately, 2021 was a year full of victories for election integrity.
Georgia enacted a voter ID law for absentee ballots. The right to vote is protected when a mail ballot ensures only the true voter cast the ballot. States such as Arizona, Florida, and Georgia banned private funding of election offices. In 2022, Mark Zuckerberg won’t be allowed to pump money into election offices in some states. In 2020, these “Zuckbucks” poured in blue areas to fuel urban turnout.
There were also legal victories that much of the media have ignored.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation scored a big win in a lawsuit with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. A settlement resulted in removing over 20,000 deceased registrants from the voter rolls, including ones who voted after they were dead. Election integrity also had a key victory before the nation’s highest court. In DNC v. Brnovich, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona’s ballot harvesting ban and requirement to vote in your own precinct does not violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This landmark ruling made clear that states retain the power to manage their own elections. It rejected weak arguments that racial animus was the reason for state rules.
Still, we still have a long way to go.
Many states retain thousands of deceased and duplicate registrants on their voter rolls. More states still need to pass laws banning Zuckbucks and enforcing voter ID requirements.
The 2022 midterm elections will be more secure than the 2020 elections. Let’s ensure the 2024 elections are more secure than the 2022 elections.
J. Christian Adams is the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a former Justice Department Voting Section attorney, and a current commissioner on the United States Commission for Civil Rights.
