2022: A year of victories for election integrity Yet there is still more work to be done J.Christian Adams
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/dec/26/2022-year-of-victories-for-election-integrity/
The 2022 elections are over, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that they largely followed the rule of law. Compared with the COVID-19-infected 2020 elections, 2022 was a breeze. Americans woke up to the vulnerabilities in election administration and sought improvements.
After 2020, smart states passed reforms to strengthen election security. Court victories also bolstered the rule of law in elections.
A big win for the rule of law occurred in Delaware. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, blocked the Department of Elections from enforcing mail voting and same-day voter registration.
Mail-in voting and same-day registration conflicted with the Delaware Constitution. The state constitution allows absentee voting only in certain enumerated circumstances, such as being ill. The Delaware Constitution also provides reasonable registration procedures, not walk-up no-verification voting on Election Day.
In legislative debate, Delaware Speaker of the House Peter Schwartzkopf quipped, “I don’t know whether [the law’s] constitutional or not constitutional, and neither do you guys or anybody else in here.” No kidding.
He went further: “The best way to get this thing done is to hear this bill, move forward, and let a challenge go to the courts and let them decide it.”
Decide they did.
Days before ballots were mailed, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that both laws were unconstitutional. This ruling effectively stopped a lawless election in Delaware.
In another major win for the rule of law, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in July that drop boxes would be allowed only at the offices of election clerks. Our friends at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty scored this win for the rule of law. The court said that the Wisconsin Elections Commission does not have the power to enact and change election statutes. That power belongs only to the Wisconsin Legislature.
In addition to victories for the rule of law, there were also victories for transparency in our elections. The Public Interest Legal Foundation won cases in North Carolina and in Pennsylvania to obtain records relating to foreigners registering and voting in our elections.
Foreigners participating in U.S. elections — either through glitches or deliberately — is a story the legacy media don’t want you to hear. But it is happening, and the vast majority of Americans care that it is happening.
Transparency matters. We know how to improve election administration only after we learn where it is breaking down. When Pennsylvania and North Carolina hide the facts about foreigners voting, it is impossible to fix these failures. It is also impossible to judge whether election officials adequately responded to the failures.
These victories were great steps that improved our election process in 2022. There is still much to be done, however, before the 2024 elections.
Many voter rolls across the country still contain thousands of duplicates, people who have moved or have died that need to be removed. We are currently in litigation with Michigan’s secretary of state for failing to remove over 25,000 deceased registrants from the voter roll, even after learning of the problems. Every deceased registrant is a problem, costing money to people who rely on lists and inviting far worse problems, especially in states where mail ballots are automatically mailed to every single registrant.
Voting by mail is the worst way to run an election. And states that allow it must enact safeguards to protect voting rights. This includes requiring some verification, such as requiring the unique voter number or driver’s license number of the registrant.
Vote-by-mail states must also require that all ballots arrive by Election Day. Americans deserve to know election results on election night, not two weeks later.
This year was filled with less chaos, but there is still more work to be done to improve the integrity of our elections.
• J. Christian Adams is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a former Justice Department attorney, and current commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
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