Recent elections have exposed cracks in the system of US elections and the peaceful transfer of power, of which the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol were perhaps the most illustrative. Across 16 chapters, the contributors to Our Nation at Risk address aspects of security related to American elections, with a particular eye toward the post-2016 landscape.
Several contributors look at election security through an institutional lens by examining how increasing polarization and politicization of elections interact with the powers and limitations of each branch of the federal government. For instance, Trevor W. Morrison argues that the US Constitution does not grant presidential power “in the administration of federal elections” (p. 107). As such, executive power over elections has a dynamic quality to it, based upon the administration’s “… willingness … to observe and enforce [the legal limits]” (p. 123). John C. Fortier, in turn, identifies three distinct phases between Election Day and the inauguration in the transfer of presidential power: from Election Day to the day the Electoral College convenes, from the electoral vote count to the Congressional counting of electoral votes in January, and finally from the Congressional count to Inauguration Day on January 20. Fortier contends that Congress and other institutions should tighten the rules around presidential succession in the unlikely event that the winning candidate dies during one of these three phases.
Matthew N. Green argues that Congress “contributes to the sanctity of the voting process” by “setting minimum standards for election security and providing appropriations to meet those standards,” as well as by “[adjudicating] election outcomes and [vouching] for their validity” (p. 127). He suggests that Congress could better use its appropriation power to secure elections at the state and local levels, although Republicans and Democrats today fundamentally disagree on the major problems facing election integrity. By contrast, it wasn’t until the 2000 election that the Supreme Court intervened in the election process, notes Michael Waldman. Previously, the Court had largely used caution in hearing cases related to elections, and Waldman suggests the Court should “once again practice the virtue of judicial restraint” (p. 159).
Several contributors examine key federal policies related to elections and their impacts over time. For instance, Julian E. Zelizer notes the United States’ long history of voter disenfranchisement. His chapter demonstrates that the Voting Rights Act (VRA) previously enjoyed bipartisan support and worked effectively for nearly a decade and a half, before retrenchment measures began to chip away at the law (p. 41). Increasing legal challenges from the right, however, ultimately culminated in the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision, which gutted the VRA’s preclearance requirement and opened the door to widespread electoral effects at the state and local levels. Kareem Crayton shows that since the Shelby decision, the barriers facing Black and young voters have intersected on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Polling places on HBCU campuses have declined substantially, and often, a student ID is not a valid form of voter identification. As Crayton writes, “[w]hose participation is burdened in order to achieve what some view as an appropriately secure election system? … it is the case that, too often, those excluded from this system … are both young and Black” (p. 239).
By contrast, some contributors focus more directly on the administration of elections. Russ Feingold and Lindsay Langholz write about the newly proposed bill, the Electoral Count Reform Act. They argue the Act offers a good start toward clarifying the role of Congress and the Vice President in the counting of electoral votes (i.e., that they have a “ministerial” role only). But they note that states are still under pressure to meet relatively short timelines to send their electoral votes to Congress. Close elections and increasing recounts make this window even tighter. Feingold and Langholz, therefore, propose moving the meeting of the Electoral College closer to Congress’s official reading of the electoral votes. In his chapter, Charles Stewart III examines the literal machinery of US elections by providing a comprehensive yet succinct account of the evolution of voting machines. While modern voting machines have proven to be secure, Stewart argues that US elections should still retain paper-based systems, which are crucial to auditing processes that verify the accuracy of election outcomes. “[B]uilding a verification system that relies on an ancient technology, paper—may seem odd,” Stewart III writes, “but it is necessary if we are to maintain the secret ballot while demanding that the results are correct with a high degree of certainty” (p. 288).
Many contributors provide historical context for the unique situation that characterizes US elections today. For instance, Karen J. Greenberg gives a detailed history of contested presidential elections in the United States—an event that has occurred five times, although 2020 marked the first time the loser of the Electoral College did not concede. Greenberg argues that the US election system has always been vulnerable to challenges, yet Congress has not gone far enough to make the process more resilient. Nicole Hemmer, in turn, traces the roots of the word “disinformation” back to Cold War Russia (p. 73), but suggests that it only became a regular part of American discourse during the 2016 election when the proliferation of conservative media allowed disinformation narratives to become amplified—and organized. As Hemmer notes, “[m]ost deception about elections comes from within the United States, not from foreign actors. There is an information environment that incubates and metastasizes disinformation campaigns, as well as a sizable portion of the electorate that welcomes such deception” (p. 87).
Finally, scholars address interference in American elections as a security issue. Richard L. Hasen offers a cautionary perspective on the fragmented structure of authority in American elections, arguing they can be “bulwarks” against or “facilitators” of election subversion. In turn, Jeremi Suri evocatively demonstrates that the United States has a history of “meddling” in other countries’ elections, while expecting other countries to be hands-off in our own (what Suri calls the “double-standard” on pp. 62–63).
This book contributes to political science scholarship in a few ways. It examines the responsibilities and limitations of each major branch of the federal government in the US elections concurrently. It builds a foundation for our current elections landscape by placing the issues we are facing now within historical patterns—while also clearly explaining what features are unique to these times. And the volume has contributions from well-established scholars and political professionals—all of whom are closely connected to the contributions they provide.
That said, there is a clear voice missing from the volume that is critical to understanding the security of US election systems. While the book generally stays at the federal level and addresses itself to politicized arenas, it does not include a deeper look at the over 8,000 local election officials operating in the realm of public administration in the United States (Natalie Adona, Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, and Sarah Cole call these officials the “stewards of democracy” in a 2019 report for the Democracy Fund.) More could be done to examine the bureaucratic rules, systems, and accountability mechanisms that are built around securing elections and directing the actions of local election officials, as well as the values that drive these public servants, even in the face of restrictive laws.
From a security perspective, local election officials assess who qualifies to vote, ensure that every voter is verified, ensure that voting systems are functioning properly, and test that election results are accurate. Since the contested election of 2020, thousands of elections have taken place across the country that have been handled securely and produced legitimate results, largely due to the administrative professionals who operate in these bureaucratic arenas as neutral arbiters of law. Since the 2000 election in particular, the field of election administration has become more professionalized, which offers evidence of increasing security in elections as well.
In turn, the volume’s focus on the federal layer of election decision-making means that many of the solutions proffered relate to the discretion of Congress and/or the Supreme Court. Yet as many contributors note, these branches of the federal government have become deeply politically divided and, in some cases, lack the political will to enact solutions, such as increased funding for elections. This calls into question how viable these proposed solutions might be, particularly given the sharp polarization that exists in these policy arenas.
The volume begins with the sentence, “[o]ur election system is not secure” (p. 1). This statement is provocative—and without context, it could feed into the very distrust that the authors cite as weakening our elections. Once readers dig into the content of the volume, however, it becomes clear that the editors meant that US election systems are vulnerable because of the country’s history of systematic disenfranchisement, its rising polarization and disinformation narratives, and the influence of foreign actors in recent election cycles.
Overall, we should take seriously the concerns and analyses provided by the scholars included in this volume. The authors give us important questions to consider about modern US elections, as well as hopeful recommendations for how we might reform US democracy to ensure it continues to stand the test of time.
