Swing State Election Officials Talk Election Security During Ash Center Webinar | News

Four election officials from the battleground states of North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania discussed how to maintain election security and fairness in their states ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election as part of a Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation can webinar Tuesday afternoon.

The webinar, moderated by Ash Center Director Archon Fung, included Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes; Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State, and Karen Brinson-Bell, Executive Director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

The event follows growing concerns about election security as former President Donald Trump – who filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election – fights for a return to the White House.

During the conversation, the officials said a key priority ahead of November is making the election process more visible and open to public scrutiny to curb misinformation about election security.

Fontes said Arizona needs “radical transparency” to restore public trust in the election process, adding that the state has already implemented live-stream vote counting processes in several centers and is now public observation of ballot counting in several centers , including in Phoenix and Flagstaff.

“Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” Fontes said.

Brinson-Bell added that in North Carolina, she has focused on increasing voter confidence through a website and social media posts that detail how elections work.

“We have taken extraordinary measures with our website, with social media and with press availability to try to tell our stories and ensure that there are not only live video broadcasts but also other opportunities for people to understand how elections work ” she said.

Officials acknowledged that this election cycle will continue to be politically charged and could be fueled by misinformation on social media.

“What I think is keeping most of us up at night at this moment is the potential for violence on Election Day,” Benson said. “And we hope that that doesn’t happen in our preparations to ensure that in the rare event that that does happen, we are there to provide remedial action and, frankly, to seek consequences for those who would interfere with our election .”

Schmidt acknowledged that there were numerous legal challenges to vote certification in his state during the last election cycle, but said they gave him and his office experience navigating such litigation should they arise in 2024.

“Unfortunately, two years ago we had three counties in Pennsylvania deny certification,” Schimdt said. “Fortunately, this gives you a bit of experience dealing with situations like this.”

Schmidt added that in 2020, Pennsylvania took counties to court to order them to “perform their ministerial duties, as expressly described in the law, to certify election results” – a legal measure he said the state took in the year I will take it again in 2024 without hesitation.

“We won’t need days or weeks to go to the courts for a court order,” Schimdt said. “It will be 12:01 a.m. the next morning if they fail to fulfill their legal obligations under the law.”

Fontes was more optimistic about the likelihood of legal challenges to the vote count, saying that while he recognized the presence of election deniers in Arizona, he thought their influence was “dwindling.”

“If you ask the entire state of Arizona what they think, they think that elections should not be denied – not only because it is a corruption or erosion of the civic faith that we as Americans should have toward one another, but also because it is is bad for business,” Fontes said.

Fontes added that the state’s decision to charge county executives who chose not to certify the 2022 election created a persistent “threat of criminal prosecution” that he expects will curb election challenges this year becomes.

The officials said accuracy is a top priority and that while official election certifications will take time to complete, they are committed to ensuring the security of the 2024 election.

“The key for any election official is to be as accurate as possible, and that is the goal when we report the unofficial and official results,” Brinson-Bell said.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.