To endure, democracy requires public confidence in voting systems and election results.
Given yesterday’s troubling report from the US Senate Intelligence Committee, I am especially gratified that, as a result of legislation that I worked on this session with the League of Women Voters of Maine and the Democracy Partnership, Maine’s own state elections division is already considering ways to assure greater transparency and accountability in voting processes and election results.
Fortunately, with Maine’s greatly decentralized elections system and consistent hard record of paper ballots, there is no evidence anywhere of election tampering or fraud.
The state’s traditionally high rate of voting turnout is further evidence that Mainers maintain confidence that their votes matter.
But it is deeply sobering to learn that foreign agents have probed systems in all fifty states continuing to seek ways to disrupt that confidence.
- Russians likely targeted election systems in all 50 states, Senate report says, Press Herald, 25 Jul 2019