Commentary: Yes, Virginia, our elections are secure

If you are worried about American democracy, you have plenty of company. Who your company is, though, depends on your concern.

Progressives worry that people who are entitled to vote might be prevented from doing so. Conservatives worry that some who do vote might not be entitled to. Both worry that the other side is looking for a way to game the counting.

Fortunately, there is an easy cure for these anxieties: serve as an election officer. As I’ve learned from my own experience here in Virginia, volunteering in the service of democracy is both an education in the mechanics of elections and an antidote to conspiracy theories. When I hear rumors and speculation about ballot-stuffing or noncitizens and dead people voting, I know those fearmongers never spent a day working the polls from the inside.

Va. registrars share how they keep rolls accurate, reflect on their role in the democratic process

I got a start as an election officer in a roundabout way. In 2004, I joined hundreds of Virginia lawyers volunteering for election protection in that year’s presidential election, trying to ensure that everyone who registered to vote, regardless of party, had the opportunity to cast their ballot in the presidential race. Afterwards, a number of us convened to talk about the problems we’d seen and to draw up a wish list of state-level reforms that we took to the General Assembly.

We joined forces with a group of cybersecurity experts at Virginia Verified Voting who had a related mission to address the threat to election machines from computer hacking. At the time, most Virginia localities used what were called direct record electronic (DRE) machines. DREs were purpose-built computers with touchscreens. They were mostly easy to use but provided no paper trail, making recounts effectively impossible.

Worse, national experts had shown how easily a malicious actor could access the DRE machines to change votes. A hacker would need to change only a small number of votes to alter the outcome of a close election. In the estimation of one expert, the DREs we were using were the worst voting machines in the country.

The solution offered by the reform coalition was to ditch the DREs in favor of paper ballots that voters feed into an optical-scan ballot counter, with the paper ballots securely stored in case a recount is required. Voting machines are a big investment, making many legislators hesitant, so the lobbying effort took years. Eventually, however, the General Assembly told local registrars they had to move to the paper ballots and scanners that our polling stations use today.

Since then, our legislature has strengthened security protections further to provide for regular audits. Virginia law now lays out precise instructions covering vote counting, ballot and machine security, data storage and routine audits.  As registrars from Norfolk, Henrico, the city of Richmond and Virginia Beach explained to the Virginia Mercury’s team recently, these layers of security measures, together with the presence of election officers from both parties at the polls and during the counting, makes it exceptionally difficult to tamper with vote tallies.

Other elements of our reform coalition’s agenda also made it into law, though that, too, took several more years. Perhaps most important, absentee and early voting have expanded to allow more elderly and disabled citizens to vote, as well as to accommodate workers with inflexible or unpredictable schedules. On the other hand, the battle over whether citizens who lack a government-issued photo ID can vote may never be permanently resolved (currently the answer is yes).

Inside Virginia’s elections: How local officials keep the vote secure and accessible

By that time, I had decided the best way I could help voters would be to serve as an election officer myself. Under state law, any registered voter can volunteer as a poll worker – and believe me, it is work. Election officers must undergo training, show up on Election Day by 5 a.m. and stay until 8 or 9 at night when the counting is over and the machines and ballots have been properly secured. Considering the demands, it is remarkable that the median age of poll workers nationwide is 64.

Seeing the process from the inside is especially instructive for anyone convinced that nefarious actors on a mission to destroy American values might be engaged in illegal shenanigans in our precincts, abetted by insiders from the other party. Frankly, that would be hard. Registering to vote requires documentation including a Social Security number, precinct rules require participation from members of both major political parties, and voting procedures make it extremely difficult for anyone other than a registered voter to cast a ballot.

The kinds of scenarios that most people worry about, typically involving imposters voting in place of dead people and non-citizens trying to cast votes, are vanishingly rare. That shouldn’t be a surprise: casting a fraudulent ballot or voting twice in the same election is a felony offense. The upside potential just isn’t worth jail time.

This is not to say the system is perfect. Every year, citizens are prevented from voting because their names have been improperly purged from the rolls or they moved homes between elections or they didn’t learn that their precinct location changed. I continue to be disappointed by legislators who are more concerned about the theoretical possibility that one person might vote illegally than by the certainty that barriers imposed in the name of election integrity keep actual, legal U.S. citizens from participating.

I’m also disappointed in my fellow citizens who don’t make the effort to vote, especially in the state and local elections where what’s at stake are the policies that most affect our day-to-day lives.

Democracy has been a rare and precious privilege through much of human civilization, yet most Americans today have grown up taking our right to vote for granted. Some of our great-grandmothers won the battle for (most) women’s suffrage over a hundred years ago, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which finally gave teeth to the 15th Amendment, celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.

The right that people marched, fought, were jailed, and even died for is now a bedrock American value. If anyone out there waxes nostalgic for the restrictions in place at our nation’s founding, when the franchise was restricted to white male landowners, they are just bright enough not to say it publicly.

But rights, like muscles, atrophy when they aren’t exercised. In non-presidential elections such as the one coming up in Virginia on November 4th, turnout among registered voters typically averages below 50%. Even the last presidential election saw turnout in our state below 70%. Turnout in primary elections, which in heavily red or blue areas typically determines the winner of the general election, is usually in the single digits. And turnout numbers don’t take into account the more than 25% of voting-age citizens who are unable – or don’t bother – to register.

Secure elections and voting rights protections are both critical to our confidence in Election Day outcomes. Just as important, though, is that citizens take their own responsibility seriously. Preserving democracy doesn’t mean we all have to serve as election officers, though I recommend it. It does, however, require us to educate ourselves about the issues and the candidates – and then show up and vote.

Editor’s note: This column was produced in partnership with Keep Our Republic, a civic education nonprofit.

by Ivy Main, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.