Did the 2022 election have election fraud? | Opinion

The 2022 midterm elections were conducted earlier this month without any widespread fraud. The certification of results is, according to The Associated Press, “going smoothly in most states, with few complaints.” 

Even in Florida, Georgia and Virginia, where Republicans, motivated by unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in 2020, set up special state-level agencies to monitor elections and prosecute fraud, only scattered complaints have been reported, The Associated Press said.

This is significant, if not surprising. American democracy is exceptionally sound. That’s saying something, considering elections are conducted somewhat independently by 3,143 counties or equivalent jurisdictions. Each state sets its own rules regarding voting processes, equipment, eligibility and deadlines, among other things. Counties often are given some leeway, as well.

The 2020 presidential election was a huge stress test of this locally controlled system, with 63 separate lawsuits filed challenging the results. None was successful. 

Only one ruling initially favored former President Donald Trump, who was trying to overturn his loss to Joe Biden. That concerned the timing for voters to provide proper identification if they were voting for the first time in Pennsylvania. But the state Supreme Court later overturned that ruling, and it affected only a small number of ballots.

But allegations of improprieties in 2020 carried over somewhat into the 2022 elections, which is unfortunate. In some races, declared losers have refused to concede. In Arizona, for instance, the losing candidate for governor, Republican Kari Lake, has sued to obtain several documents from the state’s largest county.

That race was exceptionally close, but Lake had said before the election she would accept only a result in her favor.

We hope this current trend of near hysteria over alleged voter fraud is coming to an end. Yes, some politicians would do almost anything to acquire power, and yes, states must have aggressive safeguards in place to ensure the fairness of elections, but the steady drumbeat of accusations is harmful to the republic, and so far it is entirely without merit.

“The whole concept of voter impersonation fraud is such a horribly exaggerated problem,” Paul Smith, senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, told the AP. “It doesn’t change the outcome of the election, it’s a felony, you risk getting put in jail and you have a high possibility of getting caught. It’s a rare phenomena.”

The risk is that public trust in elections will permanently erode. An October poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found only about half of Americans surveyed believed votes would be counted correctly in ’22. Only 9% of adults said democracy is working “extremely” or “very well.”

The truth is it is working exceptionally well, indeed, in the United States, which remains a model for democratic nations worldwide.

Writing for Reason magazine recently, Eric Boehm said, “Preserving American democracy will require what it always has: common sense, good faith, policy reforms that target real problems rather than partisan obsessions, and a willingness to accept that there’s no such thing as a perfect democracy — only a functional, legitimate one.”

The decennial state redistricting process, in which states use the latest census figures to redraw political boundaries, has done much more to influence election outcomes than any recent attempts at ballot fraud. Partisan redistricting can lead to primary elections that favor one party’s candidates over another, which in turn promotes candidates with extreme partisan views.

But the election process itself operates well in this country. So, apparently, does the tradition of placing country over party when a crisis looms.

Boehm wrote that, in the wake of attempts to overturn the 2020 election, “the system survived.”

“For the most part, local officials, governors, courts, state lawmakers, members of Congress, and the vice president did the right things, even against their own political self-interest …” he said.

That, too, is good news. Given the nature of power, it is remarkable. 

Perhaps we can’t count on such behavior always continuing, and perhaps some reforms, such as a bipartisan proposal to amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887, are needed. 

But it’s high time Americans celebrated their own election system for what it is — a remarkably well functioning institution.