Take Action to Ensure Fair and Honest Elections

By Nancy Price
Earth Democracy Issue Committee

We need leaders at all government levels to pass climate and environmental policies to put people and the planet before deregulation, dirty energy, and corporate profiteering. Only with fair and honest elections and protected voting rights can we elect them.

Focus on Russian meddling and hacking of the 2016, and maybe the 2018, elections has diverted attention from how, at least since 2000, lawsuits and careful analyses of election results have shown that elections have been stolen right from under us by powerful people in this country. Remedies have been proposed but they need our support.

Here’s an important first step

For over two years, the National Election Defense Coalition has worked to build bipartisan consensus in Congress for a comprehensive, cost-effective plan to secure the vote in coming elections. The Secure Elections Act (S.2261) is co-authored by Senators Lankford (R-OK) and Klobuchar (D-MN) and co-sponsored by Senators Graham (R-SC) and Kamala Harris (D-CA). On the NEDC homepage, Sen. Lankford explains the Secure Elections Act. 

With the passage of this act, Congress would allocate $380 million for state election systems. The major points of the plan are:

1. Gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) primary responsibility within the federal government for sharing information about election cybersecurity incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities with federal entities and election agencies;
2. DHS shall establish an advisory panel of independent experts to develop guidelines on election cybersecurity, including standards for procuring, maintaining, testing, auditing, operating, and updating election systems;
3. DHS shall award election system cybersecurity and modernization grants to states to implement the advisory panel's guidelines. Grants shall be awarded to: (A) remediate vulnerabilities identified by a cybersecurity evaluation, (B) replace electronic voting systems that are not optical scanners that read paper ballots, and (C) reimburse states for the inspection of marked paper ballots.
4. DHS shall establish a Hack the Election program, including a recurring competition, to facilitate and encourage the identification and reporting of election cybersecurity vulnerabilities by independent technical experts.
5. Furthermore, a post-election audit of ballots is required to be determined by states, which unfortunately will create variation among states when there should be uniformity.   

This bill was to go to committee in August and was on an easy path to passage in October, but the White House recently stepped in to argue that the Department of Homeland Security already has all the statutory authority it needs to assist state and local officials as they seek to ensure their elections are secure, thus this bill was not needed.

This White House “opposition” has generated much discussion. Here’s a Washington Post editorial, "Election security can't wait. Someone should convince the White House."  Sen. Lankford recently said “his Secure Elections Act isn’t dead, despite delays” (see the full newsok article). So we’ll just have to wait and see.

The problem now is we’re running out of time for 2018. Clearly, election security, guaranteed voting rights, and an end to gerrymandering are needed for 2020. 

Take Action Now

1. Please call your Senators to say you want this bill passed immediately.
2. Read articles by the experts in the Alliance for Democracy’s Justice Rising Fall 2016 issue "The People's Vote Must Count: Reclaim Elections, Restore Voting Rights, Protect Our Ballots." You can download individual articles or order copies of this 24-page magazine to share.
3. There are some great videos and books to share with your Branch, watch with friends at home, or show at a public gathering. Investigative reporter Greg Palast (Rolling Stone,  The Guardian, BBC), is the creator and author of New York Times bestsellers, the movie "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election", now available on DVD through Amazon and on Amazon Prime, and the book Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps.

Inset photo credit: Still Fighting for Voting Rights. ACLU