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Thom Reilly, Arizona State University
(THE CONVERSATION) As the U.S. moves closer to the 2022 midterm elections, a sizable number of Americans express a lack of confidence in the accuracy of the vote count.
That distrust is built largely on the widespread – and false – assertion that Donald Trump was re-elected in the 2020 presidential election, and that Joe Biden’s win was based on fraud. Despite the 2020 election being the most secure in American history, and the courts and U.S. Department of Justice uncovering no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome, consistently about 70% of Republican voters suspect election fraud, and overall mistrust in the neutrality of the election process remains high.
In some states, this has prompted the passage of voting restrictions and legislation aimed at interfering with the administration of elections. Legislation passed in various states has changed rules on how voters cast ballots, reduced the role of state chief election officials and shifted some aspects of election administration to partisan bodies.
As a scholar of public governance and a former local government official, I believe that there’s trouble ahead for the bedrock institution of U.S. democracy: elections. U.S. elections long relied on the good faith of the public, the nonpartisan behavior of election officials, as well as a two-party...
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