Thread by @davidalanlevine

While combating interference from malign actors is a whole-of-society endeavor, government is arguably the most important actor in protecting democracies from them, as the below actions demonstrate. Here are a few more. Thread 🧵

https://twitter.com/SecureDemocracy/status/1387756024707256320

1/As @rickhasen correctly noted in a recent @nytimes op-ed, #election2020 and its aftermath are now leading to efforts by some to try and undermine the integrity of the vote count, itself. Here are a few things Biden should try and do in the next 100 days to counteract this push.

2/Advocate for the fast replacement of any voting system that does not produce a paper record of the vote. Paper trails can ensure that the votes were properly counted and provide more confidence in the voting system, which can be helpful in countering any voting machines lies.

PA and GA used such a system to help show that their #election2020 results were accurate. And U.S. allies like Germany and the Netherlands have already taken such a step to ensure that their elections are protected from interference by authoritarian actors like Russia.

3/Advocate for robust post-election audits for any place that does not already do them. A paper-based voting system, in and of itself, does not ensure the accuracy & integrity of election results. To do that, the paper trail must be used to independently audit the vote count.

Risk-limiting audits are seen by many as ideal b/c they provide strong evidence that the reported winner is the winner and the loser is the loser. But even other kinds of audits, such as % based audits, can help reinforce the accuracy and security of the voting system.

4/Encourage more places to conduct procedural election audits. Unlike post-election audits, this isn't a check on whether the voting system software and hardware worked, but rather a check on the human processes to confirm how well-run the election was. ncsl.org/research/elect…

7/@OttawaElections recently published such a report following its #election2020 that shows where it had great success and where it can improve a bit more to make its systems even better. miottawa.org/Departments/Co…

8/Such audits can both give the public an even closer look at the election process and make it harder for conspiracy theorists hell bent on damaging our democracy from doing so.

My apologies. I accidentally got tripped up on the numbering for this tweet thread. It has 9 separate tweets and goes to "8".