After former President Donald Trump won the election in a landslide, President Joe Biden claimed election integrity is an issue of the past. Election integrity advocates beg to differ.
“I hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electorate system. It is honest, it is fair and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose,” Biden said on Nov. 7 according to The Hill.
Legacy media outlets have been pushing a similar message. The New York Times claimed yesterday that “After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent” (“election deniers” is the press’s propaganda term for election integrity advocates).
But that is false. Integrity advocates took immediate action to address issues when they rose on election night, keeping them from developing into a bigger problem. Trump’s massive turnout truly did make this election “too big to rig,” but that does not mean it was free from bad actors trying to rig it.
Election Night
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officials found broken security seals on multiple tabulators before polls closed, causing officials to recount 31,000 ballots, as The Federalist previously reported. The issue affected 13 tabulators. A Republican poll observer told The Federalist at the time that officials were using “stalling tactics,” adding that “it appears that they are trying to figure out what they need to win.”
But the issue gained attention, and, at the very least, drew oversight from election integrity advocates. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson went to Milwaukee’s Central Count location to monitor the problem, and the Republican National Committee was also keeping tabs on it.
In Pennsylvania, multiple counties turned away Republican poll watchers on Election Day, as The Federalist reported. But the RNC intervened, and the poll watchers gained access.
In Cambria and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania, poll problems — including a ballot-scanning glitch — caused long delays to vote, but officials agreed to extend voting hours to compensate, The Federalist reported. And in Centre County, officials were planning to stop counting ballots overnight but reversed course when the RNC sued, Chairman Michael Whatley posted on X.
Other issues cropped up throughout the day and into the night, such as bomb threats targeting election offices in Georgia and Pennsylvania. But for the most part, where issues occurred, election integrity advocates tried to respond. This election did not lay issues of integrity “to rest,” as Biden suggested, nor did integrity advocates go “suddenly silent” because Trump was winning, as The New York Times claimed.
Still Seeking Integrity
The NYT targeted lawyer Cleta Mitchell, chair of the Election Integrity Network, while making this claim. The outlet has smeared her and the EIN in the past for supposedly pushing “Trump’s election lies.”
“They are liars,” Mitchell told The Federalist. “They have never bothered to understand anything about the election integrity movement. They hate us.”
Mitchell said the NYT is pushing a “false narrative.” She said it has worked to “insult, attack, demean, and defame” her and “every other integrity leader and volunteer” for more than three years.
“Why would anyone listen to the likes of them now?” Mitchell asked.
Mitchell said the election went smoothly due to the work of election integrity advocates, not due to the absence of bad actors. She said election integrity activists “built an infrastructure” with people learning about election code and procedures, and lawyers on standby, to catch issues when they arose.
“We kept small issues from becoming huge issues. AND because they knew there were many, many eyes on the process, they could NOT think about planning big manipulation efforts,” Mitchell said. “They just could not do again anything like what was done in 2020.”
Patrice Johnson, chair of the nonprofit Michigan Fair Elections, said there were integrity issues in Michigan elections. She said many new registrants within the past two weeks voted without verifying residency, identity, or citizenship, and that Detroit challengers did not have immediate access to a screen with the qualified voter file as they did in 2020.
“EI [election integrity] advocates were trained and educated on the law. They spotted issues early and resolved them according to published procedures and policies,” Johnson said.
Johnson called the NYT’s claim that integrity activists stood down for Trump “baloney.” She said that “much remains to be done.”
“We are not standing down,” Johnson said. “This election did go much more smoothly though, because of the professionalism of the citizens and the transparency that was generally provided. Transparency is the best disinfectant.”
Mitchell agreed about the need for more election integrity work, emphasizing the need to adjust the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). She said advocates are still working to make election laws more secure.
“We are working on model state legislation for legislators to fix the problems in their election codes,” Mitchell said. “Now we are going to make sure that we have proposed remedies for legislatures and Congress.”
Mitchell said her group aims to “fix these problems permanently” going forward.
Ken Cuccinelli, chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, told The Federalist that the election still dragging on, with counting continuing in Arizona and Nevada, is a “problem.” Cuccinelli served as acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security from 2019 to 2021.
“This ‘weeks past election day’ nature of the election really is a problem,” Cuccinelli said. “It’s a security problem, it’s a transparency problem, it’s a perception of our own system problem.”
He said this election seemed more straightforward overall because it was a “landslide.” Still, Cuccinelli said election integrity advocates need to focus on cleaning voter rolls, passing the SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship to vote, and requiring voter ID — including for overseas voting.
He echoed Johnson’s and Mitchell’s point that election integrity advocates are continuing their work — and not stopping just because Trump won, as The New York Times claims.
“There is an absolute commitment in the election integrity movement to keep working,” Cuccinelli said. “We ain’t done yet.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is originally from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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