Do Democrats still support paper ballots?
The PAVE Act would’ve ended electronic voting in all 50 states
Shortly after Election Day, November, 2020, accusations that the voting machines were rigged began pouring in. The two main voting machine software companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, would respond with lawsuits against lawyers and media outlets such as FOX for airing these accusations. Those who questioned whether the voting machines might have been hacked, tampered with, manipulated by foreign powers, or that the machines were online would be smeared as conspiracy theorists. This charge would accompany the Democrats own conspiracy theory as their mouth-pieces in the media would routinely insinuate that any such criticism was part of an agenda of a right-wing fringe. Those attacks, including the lawsuits, provide a prime example of the situational ethics of the left as when the shoe was on the other foot it was quite fashionable for liberals and Democrats to make the same claims.
My own Massachusetts Democratic Senator, Elizabeth Warren, as recently as May 15, 2019, co-sponsored a bill called the PAVE Act, Protecting American Votes and Protections Act. This act would: protect American elections from foreign interference by mandating hand-marked paper ballots and setting new cybersecurity standards for all federal elections. The PAVE Act would require paper ballots and statistically rigorous audits for all federal elections in all 50 states. This act was crafted in response to the Mueller Report which discovered that Russia had interfered in American elections through electronic hacking operations. With her usual high moral posturing, Warren posted on her congressional website: Elections are at the heart of our democracy. We must strengthen our election systems to limit their vulnerability to hackers and foreign interference. This bill takes important steps to maintain the integrity of our democracy by updating aging election infrastructure and mandating the use of paper ballots and post-election audits to protect against cyberattacks.
The PAVE Act was endorsed by leading cybersecurity experts and a constellation of prominent liberal advocacy groups including the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Brennan Center for Justice, Protect Democracy, National Election Defense Coalition, Fair Fight Action and American Statistical Association. The PAVE Act was co-sponsored by a gallery of liberal Senators including Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and by Georgia voting activist Stacy Abrams who stated: Unfortunately, across the country and in Georgia, too many voters must depend on unreliable, hackable voting machines to try to make their voices heard.
At every opportunity, we ought to ask these Senators and these special interest groups whether they still support hand-marked paper ballots for all 50 states and, if not, why not.
Charles Moscowitz new book The American Reichstag Fire, is scheduled for a September release.
Charles Moscowitz Author Page / Charles Moscowitz Rumble Channel