The “most secure election ever” narrative misled

The GOP had blocked crucial election-security reform, and the Democrats’ loss of 27 out of 27 tossup races warranted scrutiny

By Jennifer Cohn
2/13/22

Chris Krebs (the former director of CISA) and the Democratic party responded to the clear and present danger of Donald Trump’s unfounded claims about his 2020 loss (which almost every poll predicted) with a misleading claim of their own: the notion that the election was the “most secure [US] election ever.” Technically speaking, it may well have been the “most secure US election ever.” But what Krebs and the Democrats didn’t mention was that the bar was low and that there was little reason to trust the integrity of the 27 out of 27 tossup down ballot races lost by the Democrats that year.

Recall that in the runup to the 2020 election, Democrats led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced an election-security bill, the SAFE Act, which would have banned paperless voting machines and internet-connectivity to voting systems (including the wireless modems that voting machine vendor ES&S had installed in swing states beginning in 2015), while requiring robust manual audits for all federal races.

The SAFE Act would have been a significant step toward evidence-based elections (elections where it is possible to prove the legitimacy of electronic results), but the GOP blocked the bill before the election.

Wyden discussed what had transpired with Fast Company:

Fast Company: When you proposed a discussion of your election-security bill today, was it again [Tennessee Republican] senator Blackburn who shut it down for the Republicans?

Senator Ron Wyden: Yes, Marsha Blackburn objected to both Senator Warner’s proposal and my efforts to pass the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act (SAFE), which largely incorporates my earlier bills [requiring] hand-marked paper ballots and [risk-limiting] audits and cybersecurity standards. [Minnesota Democrat] Amy Klobuchar and I are the…