• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. election integrity>

Cross-partisan study labels ongoing election audits an 'existential threat'

Sara Swann
https://twitter.com/saramswann?lang=en
July 09, 2021
Arizona election review

Pro-Trump organizers recount the ballots in Maricopa County, Ariz.

Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

The continuing efforts to subvert the 2020 election results on behalf of former President Donald Trump, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud, are damaging to democracy and costly to taxpayers, a new report found.

The so-called audits being organized by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists in several battleground states have "severe deficiencies in basic security, accuracy, reliability and transparency," according to a 30-page report, released Thursday.

Rather than being a partisan attempt to attack the audits, this report is the result of a cross-partisan collaboration between the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, center-right R Street Institute and nonpartisan Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian watchdog.


The ongoing partisan election review in Maricopa, Arizona's most populous county, follows on the heels of a hand-recount of all ballots cast there and multiple investigations of the voting machines — none of which found any signs of fraud.

While the Arizona audit has received national attention, it's not an isolated incident. Similar efforts are also being conducted in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Researchers at the Brennan Center, Protect Democracy and R Street found that these partisan reviews fail to meet all or some of the following basic standards of objectivity.

  • Transparency: public audit plans, processes and records.
  • Objectivity: auditors who are, and appear to be, independent and free of conflicts of interest.
  • Pre-written, comprehensive procedures: standardized and consistently implemented processes designed to achieve accuracy.
  • Competence: conducted by election administration experts.
  • Security: ballots and equipment remain in election official control.

"The five so-called 'audits' are dressed up as fact-finding missions, but they are meant to create evidence that doesn't exist — fake proof of the myth that the 2020 election was somehow wrongly decided and false validation for the restrictions on the vote now sweeping the country," said Gowri Ramachandran, counsel in the Brennan Center's Election Reform Program and one of the authors of the report.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

These partisan efforts "stand in stark contrast," the report states, to the formal audits that election officials in the five states have already conducted, which confirmed Joe Biden's presidential victory and found no evidence of voter malfeasance.

"Despite these facts, Trump supporters continue to make false claims of fraud in support of these endeavors to transfer federal election materials to inexperienced, political actors for review," the report states.

Matthew Germer, a fellow in the Governance Program at the R Street Institute and one of the authors, said the findings highlight the need for election audits to be conducted by "trustworthy, nonpartisan professionals." The report also "lays out in stark relief just how unreliable and dangerous the partisan 'audits' sweeping the country really are," he said.

These partisan election reviews are also coming at a high cost for taxpayers, literally. The Arizona audit alone has racked up $2.4 million in expenses so far, mostly due to the fact that Maricopa County will need to replace all of its voting machines that have been compromised by this interference.

Wisconsin's review is estimated to cost more than $63,000, Pennsylvania's is estimated at $25,000 and Michigan's is estimated at just over $5,000. The cost of Georgia's review is not yet clear.

"While these so-called audits cost taxpayers money, their real cost is the damage they do to the health of our democracy," said Sara Chimene-Weiss, counsel at Protect Democracy and one of the authors. "These so-called 'audits' are not legitimate reviews, but instead are taxpayer-funded disinformation campaigns aimed at weakening Americans' faith in democracy."

The bottom line, per the report, is that these partisan efforts pose "an existential threat to our democracy."

"If every election continues to be litigated and relitigated without end, even where there is no evidence of fraud and multiple audits have confirmed the results, there is a serious threat voters will lose faith in our democratic process and will refuse to accept results they do not like," the report concludes.

From Your Site Articles
  • Trump allies eye top election official spots in key states - The Fulcrum ›
  • Ariz. vote count fight misses point about election integrity - The ... ›
  • Wisconsin GOP orders wholesale audit of 2020 election - The Fulcrum ›
  • The competing existential crises of our time - The Fulcrum ›
  • Trump allies eye top election official spots in key states - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Arizona election audit: Judge questions secrecy of Cyber Ninja ... ›
  • Fact check: False claim Arizona audit found evidence of election fraud ›
  • Not just Arizona: Republicans push more partisan election 'audits' ›
  • How Arizona's Ballot Audit Is A Disinformation Exercise : NPR ›
  • I watched the GOP's Arizona election audit. It was worse than you ... ›
election integrity

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Debilyn Molineaux
21h

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Our Staff
22h

Facebookopoly

Seth David Radwell
22h

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Lynn Schmidt
07 February

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Samantha Close
07 February

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
06 February
Videos

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Our Staff

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Our Staff
22h

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
06 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February
Recommended
Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Big Picture
Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Podcasts
Facebookopoly

Facebookopoly

Big Picture
Does partisanship impact happiness?

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Big Picture
Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Business & Democracy
Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?