WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Several states took action to better secure their voting systems in the wake of the contentious 2020 election, but public confidence in America’s elections remains shaky, according to a new report from the U.S. House Election Integrity Caucus.
After opening with some background on the Caucus, the report recommended a trio of federal legislation to restore confidence in elections: the End Zuckerbucks Act to prohibit private technology companies from funding public election operations; the Promoting Free and Fair Elections Act to “prohibit agencies of the government from soliciting or entering into agreements with nongovernmental organizations to conduct voter registration or voter mobilization activities” on agency property; and the American Confidence in Elections Act to “provide states with new tools to boost election integrity, restrict partisan vote harvesting, end same-day voter registration, and require photo voter identification.”
“In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, state legislatures across the country made a slew of last-minute changes to their election processes,” the report says. “These last-minute changes unleashed chaos and confusion on election administration, leading to one error after another. This had a devastating impact on the Nation’s confidence in election administration, leaving the process shrouded in doubt.”
The report gives high marks to Georgia, Texas, and Florida for instituting election reforms – which addressed issues including identification requirements for absentee ballots, better security for ballot drop boxes, empowering poll watchers, ending the mass mailing of unsolicited ballots, and prohibiting political operatives from ballot harvesting – in the wake of 2020 that it says made elections more secure while still facilitating high turnout, smooth election processes, and timely tabulation of results.
By contrast, New York unsuccessfully attempted to implement same-day voter registration and absentee voting for any reason, and California made permanent automatic vote by mail, which had originally been a temporary measure in the name of COVID-19 distancing.
“The most dreaded drop box horror stories have come from California,” the report says. “First, in 2020, a passerby reported smoke billowing out of a ballot drop box. The suspected arson was started by a burning newspaper, and over 200 ballots were damaged. Unfortunately, without security camera surveillance, no one was charged with the crime. And most recently, the keys to an official ballot drop-off box were left inside the lock. Although there was ‘no indication that the box was opened,’ this was a grave lapse in procedure.”
The report concludes with a handful of recommendations for policymakers: time limits for election canvassing and returning ballots (with the resources to meet them), mandatory identification for requesting mail ballots, ensuring voter rolls are accurate and up to date, and passing the aforementioned American Confidence in Elections Act, which the report says “would provide states with tools to boost election integrity, prohibit non-citizens from voting, ban Zuckerbucks, and end Biden’s Executive Order 14019 turning federal agencies into partisan get-out-the-vote operations.”
The 2020 election was marred by allegations of pro-Democrat vote fraud, bolstered by the dramatic expansion of voting by mail in the wake of the pandemic. Twenty-eight states relaxed their mail ballot rules in 2020, contributing to a 17-million increase in voter participation from 2016. In addition to mail ballots generally being less secure than in-person votes, four of those states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — changed their rules without legislative consent. Those four alone composed 56 of President Joe Biden’s electoral votes, more than enough to decide the victor.
The prevailing mainstream media narrative holds that stolen election fears are a “debunked conspiracy theory” on the grounds that legal challenges to the election results failed in court. But while some of the legal briefs filed on behalf of former President Donald Trump were flawed, many others were dismissed over process issues without a judge ever considering their contents.