Election Integrity Wins: 2024 vs. 2020 Elections

Election Integrity Wins That Upset the Left (full series)
SAVE Act | 2024 vs. 2020 Elections | Noncitizen Voting
Winning in Court | Texas vs. Big Tech

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2024 vs. 2020 Elections

The 2022 midterm elections for the most part had few of the administrative problems that plagued the 2020 election, with the exception of printing malfunctions in Maricopa County, Arizona, the state’s largest jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, polling shows that voters in both parties lack trust and view U.S. democracy as “threatened.” However, it’s very likely each side has a differing view of that threat.

An exit poll by Edison Research on the day of the 2022 election found 72 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans thought democracy was under threat. However, the same polls found about two-thirds of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats where confident elections were being conducted fairly in their own state.

So, what happens in 2024? Are elections safer than in 2020?

“It really depends on which state you live in,” said Snead of the Honest Elections Project. “Florida, Ohio Georgia, and Arizona are in a better spot than they were in 2020. Michigan and Nevada have a host of new laws that could make matters worse.”

Snead also noted that the Mississippi legislature passed a bill giving the state’s secretary of state’s office the authority to audit election returns in the state’s 82 counties and to improve verification of citizenship and voter registration lists maintenance.

He noted that California and the swing state of Nevada have moved to all-mail ballots. After the Wisconsin state Supreme Court determined drop boxes were illegal, a new majority on the state Supreme Court overturned the verdict to bring back drop boxes.

Meanwhile, in the battleground state of Michigan, state officials have implemented the voter-approved “Promote the Vote” ballot initiatives from 2018 and 2022. These sweeping changes amended the Michigan constitution to:

• Provide at least nine days for early voting;
• Allow use of an affidavit—if an ID is not available—before voting;
• Establish a constitutional right to request an absentee ballot; Require the state to fund ballot drop boxes; and
• Allow local election offices to accept private money to administer elections.

“Michigan replaced its entire election code with a constitutional amendment in 2022,” Snead noted.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, wrote, “Overall, many parts of the country will be in better shape in 2024 than they were in 2020 when it comes to the security of their elections.”

Even on the left, Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, and head of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, has predicted that 2024 could proceed more smoothly.

In Politico, Hasen wrote that bipartisan changes in Congress to the Electoral Count Act would prevent alternative slates of electors:

Most other advanced democracies do not go through what the United States does each election season: legislatures changing voting rules to make voting harder or easier for partisan advantage; a cycle of litigation over those rules; and incendiary rhetoric about voter fraud and vote suppression.

However, Hasen neglected to mention that most European counterparts have strict voter ID laws, while the United States has only a state-by-state patchwork, and European counterparts do not allow mass mail-in elections as many U.S. states do.

“Zuck Buck” Bans

In the lead up to the 2020 election, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative—a nonprofit group of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan—spent about $400 million on election offices, funneled primarily through the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL). This money dumped on elections was heavily criticized and has been derided as “Zuck bucks” or “Zuckerbucks.” The Capital Research Center was among the first to expose the hundreds of millions of dollars in “Zuck bucks” flowing to election offices.

In 2022, Wisconsin Special Counsel Michael Gableman issued his final report that determined that Zuckerberg-funded grants going to five heavily Democrat cities constituted an illegal get-out-the-vote campaign.

In October 2023, Louisiana voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to ban private funding of election administration. To date, at least 28 states (including Louisiana) have enacted similar bans or restrictions on “Zuck bucks.”

After a controversy, Zuckerberg pledged to refrain from future election funding.

However, CTCL started a tech-heavy funded U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence to continue distributing private dollars and “best practices training” for election offices.

The alliance selected jurisdictions in several battleground states, including Clark County, Nevada; Dekalb County, Georgia; Madison, Wisconsin; and Coconino County, Arizona. But the alliance has also doled out cash to counties in non-battleground states, such as California, Connecticut, Illinois, and Missouri.

Despite a state ban, the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence still gave $2 million to DeKalb County, Georgia. A loophole in the law allowed the money to go into a county’s general treasury, but not the election office. In May 2023, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation closing loophole’s to the state’s Zuck bucks ban.

In October 2023, the North Carolina state legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 747, which prevented private individuals or organizations from funding North Carolina election operation.

Institute for Responsive Government

The Institute for Responsive Government opposes nearly all election integrity efforts such as voter ID laws. As a member of the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, the institute opposes bans on private interests dumping money into election offices.

The institute was established in 2022 as a fiscally sponsored by the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the for-profit Arabella Advisors.

One member of the institute’s advisory board is Tiana Epps-Johnson, the founder and executive director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which doled out most of the Mark Zuckerberg election grants in 2020. The CTCL later founded the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence and partnered with other left-leaning groups.

The institute issued a 2024 “Election Policy Progress Report,” which graded each states election policies. Broadly speaking the scores were predictable. Blue states that take little or no action to secure the vote were given high scores, while red states that took bold action to secure elections received low scores.

Still, the institute argues its goal is to “promote greater confidence in government and democracy.” With some exceptions, states that get dinged by the IRG are likely doing something right. The institute argues for more funding to local election offices and for online voter registration.

The 2024 report gave Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico an A+, praising them for adopting laws on “Secure Automatic Voter Registration,” which would include signing up voters through Medicaid and the Department of Corrections in each state. Notably, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver told the House Administration Committee that she doesn’t believe voter ID will improve election security.

The group also praised Michigan for adding state prisoners to the voting rolls automatically. The institute praised the “Promote the Vote“ state constitutional amendment in Michigan.

However, the organization seemed to weep that two of the bluest states—California and Illinois—didn’t act to boost automatic voter registration. Illinois dropped from an A- the previous year to a B in the 2024 report.

The institute gave the California only a C since it failed to pass legislation updating automatic voter registration for the third year in a row. It said this left more than 4.5 million eligible voters unregistered. Even as many red states have been pulling out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the institute ridiculed California for not joining ERIC.

The institute gave two states—North Carolina and South Dakota—a failing grade. The organization attacked South Dakota for banning ballot drop boxes and establishing a 30-day residency requirement to vote in the state. The institute went after the North Carolina legislature for twice overriding Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto to pass new election laws. Senate Bill 749 changed the makeup of the county’s board of election by removing the governor’s appointee, leaving the board with only four members, evenly split between the two major party.

The institute also lashed out at the North Carolina legislature for passing Senate Bill 747, which banned private bankrolling of elections, or a “Zuck bucks” ban. The legislation also requires voters to have their address verified if they use same-day voter registration during early voting.

Interestingly, the institute gave Bs scores to red states Kentucky and South Carolina. The institute also grave Kentucky a B for staying in ERIC despite a push to exit the group. The institute further gave South Carolina a B for securing funds for local election offices, even though it didn’t pass any sweeping legislation.

The IRG is run by executive director Sam Oliker-Friedland. He was previously a voting rights lawyer at the Department of Justice during the Obama administration as well as the Trump administration. He is also the chief counsel to the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, which is also aligned with the New Venture Fund.

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In the next installment, the Left’s effort to recruit noncitizen voters is part of a larger effort to lower the voting age and allow prisoners to vote.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/election-integrity-wins-part-2/