The most significant threat to fair elections in America

Most Americans don’t realize how razor thin the margins are when it comes to who wins or loses a national election. Most polls have a margin of error of 4 percent; in 2020, every single swing state had a margin of victory of less than 2 percent, with several of the margins coming in at less than half of a percent. With the danger of partisanship tilting the outcome of such slim margins, can Americans be sure their votes will be counted?

When my company was hired in 2020 by former President Donald Trump’s campaign to analyze the presidential election for voter fraud, we found nothing that would change the election results. But today, we face a bigger threat than voter fraud: The influence of partisanship on our election processes. It is the most significant threat to our democracy.

Some of those in charge of our elections are more than just partisan, but openly willing to conduct elections in a manner that favors their ideological side. This is not just about partisan rules and regulations designed to make voting difficult, such as strict ID laws, voter roll purges and targeted polling place closures. It's about election officials performing their duties in a way that unfairly benefits their party's candidates. It's about election officials taking actions that could disregard the outcome of the vote count. Or worse of all, taking actions that could manipulate the vote count, potentially altering the course of our democracy.

The operation of our elections is becoming dangerously partisan. We should all be worried about election tampering by the very people we count on to be fair and honest: our elected and appointed election officials.

We have already seen a preview of what is coming in 2024. In 2022, in Otero County, New Mexico, election officials refused to certify the election results and were compelled to do so under court order. In Cochise County, Arizona, a court forced election officials to certify the 2022 election results after those officials refused to do so based on flimsy grounds.

This is lawless behavior. A few county election officials refused to certify election results in 2022 not because they had hard evidence of a problem but instead because they wanted to deliver a “political message.” Holding democracy hostage to deliver a political message delivers just one message: The sender is not fit to serve.

Once election officials feel emboldened to behave lawlessly, the next logical step is to cancel the votes of those with whom they disagree politically. This would not be difficult.

Mail ballots are the most likely target for partisan election officials who want to invalidate the votes of their political opponents. Every mail ballot cast has to be examined by election officials to ensure that the person who sent the ballot is the registered voter who cast the vote. It opens up the possibility for deeply partisan election officials to invalidate more mail ballots cast by their political enemies than their friends. If attempted, this would represent the starkest attempt ever to steal an election.

This is the danger of mixing partisanship and the operation of our elections. Voters need to know that our elections are being conducted impartially to have confidence in them. At this time, we have never been farther away from having impartial elections in our country.

While election watchdogs will look out for partisan election officials doing bad things, you can also help. Elections in our country require volunteers. Lots of volunteers. Donate your time on Election Day to assist with our elections' impartial conduct. Go online to Vote.org or USA.gov and make sure you are registered to vote. Getting involved in our elections is not just necessary for a fair and free democracy — it’s patriotic.

The fix for all of this will take time. It will also require partisan lawmakers in Congress to pass new, impartial election laws that solve the biggest problems with how we conduct our elections. These issues include gerrymandering, voter registration data problems, rules that can yield different outcomes for the same situation in other states, ballot harvesting, wild differences in how states and counties handle mail ballots, and, of course, trying to remove partisanship from the operation of our elections.

Regardless of who wins this election, come Jan. 21, 2025, we must get serious about reforming how elections work in America.

Ken Block is an election data expert, owner of Simpatico Software Systems, and author of “Disproven — My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data That Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections,” an account of his voter fraud investigations for the Trump campaign.