Are American Elections Under Threat?

​The on again-off-again war with Iran is on again, ICE agents are committing civil rights violations across the country, and the costs for American households remain stubbornly high. But rather than address these and other issues important to the American people, Donald Trump delivered a prime-time speech on Thursday night to address his favorite boogeyman, election fraud. In the runup to the speech, Trump had promised a major announcement and “۰۰۰really, really big news”.  What we got was more proof that Donald Trump is the biggest threat to the integrity of U.S. elections and is desperate to divert our attention away from his disastrous war with Iran and the faltering U.S. economy.

​Trump’s Speech: In the speech Trump set out to prove what he has been claiming for years, that the election system is broken, vulnerable to foreign interference and cannot be trusted. According to Trump these vulnerabilities have “۰۰۰for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people.” In support of these claims Trump announced the release of a series of documents, many recently declassified, which can be accessed by the public at whitehouse.gov. The documents fall into four major categories:

• Vulnerabilities in Electronic Voting and Ballot-Counting Systems
• China’s Acquisition and Exploitation of American Voter Data
• Michigan Voter-Registration Investigation
• Noncitizens on State Voter Rolls​

Vulnerabilities in Electronic Voting and Ballot-Counting Systems: According to Trump this set of documents “۰۰۰proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting machines, dishonest, almost all. They're vulnerable and they're easily compromised and people within our government knew it."

Trump’s claims of voting machine vulnerabilities hold no basis in fact, and none of the newly released documents back him up. Electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet and are not vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Nearly all these machines have paper backups, making for easy audits. It was only a few years ago in the aftermath of the 2020 election that Fox News was sued by Dominion Voting Systems for spreading false conspiracy theories about the integrity of their equipment. Fox News paid Dominion nearly $800 million in damages in an out-of-court settlement.  
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for cybersecurity and securing the information technology hardware and software used in voting. After the 2020 election the CISA issued a press release stating, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Director of the agency, Christopher Krebs, called the 2020 election “۰۰۰the most secure in American history.” Trump fired Mr. Krebs for his blasphemy. 

China’s Acquisition and Exploitation of American Voter Data: Trump spent a good deal of time on this section of the speech, intending it to be the big “bombshell” that he had promised.  Here’s what Trump said, “۰۰۰over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history-resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.” Trump went on to claim that “Members of the Deep State in our intelligence agencies worked actively to suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling - covering it up from both the President and the American people. U.S. spy agencies began learning about the compromise of voter registration files in 2020, when they discovered that tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden.”

The fact that China had access to the voter files of millions of Americans might appear shocking, but it is not new information. It was reported to Trump in a National Intelligence Council report in January of 2021. The allegation that China compromised election data by obtaining these voter files is simply not true. Voter files are digital databases on registered voters that each state is legally required to maintain. Most states allow these files to be accessed by anyone for free or a nominal charge. Organizations, businesses, and even foreign entities routinely access these files, often without any restrictions.

Trump’s claim that he was kept in the dark about China’s access to American voter data by “Deep State” agents is laughable. Let’s not forget that Trump was the President during the 2020 election cycle, he oversaw the U.S. intelligence agencies, and he determined which information he received and read. Presidents receive briefings and written reports on top-level intelligence analysis and are often spared the thousands of pages of detail that go into those reports. By many accounts Trump doesn’t even bother to read any of the intelligence reports that are prepared for him. ​

Michigan Voter-Registration Investigation: Trump claims that this set of documents reveals that even when significant evidence of fraud has been detected, it has been buried and covered up. This includes FBI files with evidence of alleged fraud by a large-scale voter registration operation in Michigan. According to Trump the Biden Department of Justice “slow-walked the investigation and killed it.” Trump has directed his FBI to get to the bottom of it.

The events in question took place in 2020 under Trump’s watch when the FBI investigated a “get out the vote” organization in Michigan. It is true that some of the voter registration forms investigated in Michigan were fraudulent, but they had already been flagged by elections officials due to non-existent addresses, invalid phone numbers, or signatures that didn’t match. An investigation by state officials and the FBI concluded that even though fraudulent forms had been submitted, no fraudulent voter registrations were processed, and no ballots were cast as a result. The attempted fraud was conducted by low-level employees of a “get out the vote” organization in an attempt to inflate their registration numbers.

It is reprehensible for Trump to portray this as a coverup. 

Noncitizens on State Voter Rolls: To prove just how vulnerable our elections continue to be, this set of documents reveals the results of a Department of Homeland Security review of state voter rolls and public records. According to Trump, this review has “۰۰۰identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refused to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher."
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The Constitution gives the states authority over how elections are run, and they are under no legal obligation to provide the federal government with any of their voter registration information. The accuracy of Trump’s claims about the 278,000 non-citizens on voting rolls has been disputed by the states, and there is no proof of any non-citizen voting in a recent election. Again, Trump is throwing out a scary number, but it has no impact on election integrity, past or present.   ​

Trump summarized his trashing of the U.S. election system by claiming that his disclosures, “۰۰۰reveal an election system so broken and vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments, our machines and ballot-counting systems are exposed to hacking and manipulation, China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections, evidence of fraud has been buried, hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls-and yet we still have elections with no voter I.D., no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.”

That is certainly a bleak indictment of an election system from a President who oversaw the country during most of the period in question.  If the claims are true every American should be up in arms. But they are not. The documents released may contain some troubling information, but they don’t prove any of Trump’s accusations.

Knowing that the President’s speech would rehash some of his lies and conspiracy theories about a stolen 2020 election, NBC, ABC and CNN chose not to broadcast the speech live on their network broadcasts. Trump called the networks “part of the plot” to keep the election fraud going and threatened to revoke their broadcast licenses.

Trump concluded his primetime speech with an urgent call for the passage of his “SAVE America Act”, which would require a photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register. The act would also severely redistrict the use of mail-in-ballots, which Trump called in his speech “inherently corrupt”.  Trump insists that passage of the act will prevent Democrats from cheating at the polls. 

​Reality Check: Unlike in most countries, American elections are highly decentralized, adding a layer of security against widespread fraud and outside interference. Elections are administered by thousands of state and local officials in over 10,000 election jurisdictions across the country.

In January of 2021 the National Intelligence Council (NIC) provided President Trump a post-election report titled “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections”.  The report states that there are “۰۰۰no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.” The NIC at the time was headed by Trump’s current CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The intelligence report also concluded that “China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.”

The NIC investigation into the 2020 US elections did find that Russia tried to influence the election by denigrating Joe Biden in favor of Donald Trump. But Russia’s involvement was never mentioned in Trump’s speech. The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security also reported in 2021 that they had found no evidence that any foreign government prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit results in a timely manner.
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Even the White House readily admits that many of the “Election Integrity” documents released have been heavily redacted, and none show that any votes were changed due to election meddling from a foreign entity. Furthermore, exhaustive research of millions of documents by White House directed teams found no evidence that alleged vulnerabilities in voting machines resulted in stolen data. So, what was the true purpose of Trump’s speech?

What was Trump’s Speech Attempting to Achieve: Election fraud is not on the list of concerns of most voters, so what were Trump’s motivations behind his speech on Thursday night? There are several things going on. Trump’s poll numbers are in the tank and the war in Iran is going badly, so he is desperate to change the narrative. The speech provided Trump the opportunity to once again roll out his grievances about the stolen 2020 election and to sell the American people on the fiction that the U.S. election system is broken and that he is the champion of free and fair elections. His solution to the problem is for Congress to pass his “SAVE America Act”. Trump is also reminding the American people that he sees a role for the federal government in administering elections, even though none exists.

But perhaps there is something more nefarious at play here. Trump is all too aware that the rest of his presidency will be plagued by congressional investigations into his actions if Democrats win control of Congress. He is determined to prevent that from happening. By painting such a dark picture of the U.S. election system in his speech, Trump is practically telegraphing to the country that nothing short of his direct intervention will be needed to fix it.

​Trump has thrown out nearly every presidential norm, ignored the rule of law, and turned a blind eye to the Constitution, so why wouldn’t he use the vast power of his office to influence the outcome of an election? After all, he tried it before in 2020 and he has convinced millions of his followers that his election lies are true. 

​But all is not lost. The American people are aware of what Trump is capable of doing, and there will be herculean efforts in place to detect and prevent any election shenanigans at the state and local levels. The best defense against any attempt to subvert the upcoming election is to vote and to defeat Trump aligned candidates by overwhelming margins. I am confident that this can be done. 

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Thanks,
Armchair American
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