Party control over election certification poses risks to the future of elections

With concerns rising over partisan meddling in the post-election process, The Fulcrum covers a groundbreaking ERN report on election certification:

“Partisan machinations have increasingly shaken the faith in the integrity of the election process. Election deniers were just the start, but things have escalated to the point where some election administrators – loyal to their party – have refused to certify election results for political reasons.

New analysis from the Election Reformers Network warns of the growing danger and chaos that will arise as a result of parties having too much control over who certifies elections – and how they do it – as polarization spirals out of control.

‘Already, we’re seeing efforts by U.S. partisans to exploit certification,” writes ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson.’ In 2020, Republican party representatives in Wayne County, the largest in Michigan, refused for several hours to certify results of the presidential election, briefly throwing the contest in a key swing state into turmoil. One of their counterparts at the state level board — the same panel that last week drew charges of political bias when it rejected, on party lines, a proposed ballot measure to protect reproductive rights — threatened to do likewise.”

(Read our research on certification here.)

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