Thread by @DanWeiner329

Despite what some continue to argue on this website and elsewhere, the #FreedomToVoteAct (which the Senate is poised to start debating) offers an extremely robust response to the growing threat of election subversion.

The concerns being expressed focus on the risk of manipulating the electoral college count. That's important to address, but as many others have said, its just one facet of a much bigger problem, which the #FreedomToVoteAct confronts head on.

One of the biggest threats is that partisans will directly take control of the machinery of election administration and then use their power to manipulate vote counting--for example by trying to throw out some or all mail ballots.

The #FreedomToVoteAct responds by:
✔ Protecting local election officials from removal w/o cause
✔ Setting uniform, enforceable standards for vote counting
✔ Giving voters a clear right to sue if their rights are infringed, incl. if their votes are not counted

Another big concern is the mounting attacks on election officials that fall short of outright removal: intimidation, harassment, and even threats of criminal prosecution (like Texas threatening to prosecute them for encouraging people to apply to vote by mail)

The #FreedomToVoteAct responds with:
✔Much stronger protections against intimidation and harassment of election officials + workers
✔Uniform rules for things like mail voting that, if officials follow them, will shield them from prosecution

Another threat: highly partisan sham reviews of elections results like the one conducted in Maricopa County, which spread misinformation and undermine confidence in elections

The #FreedomToVoteAct responds with:
✔Protections for election records and equipment so that they can't simply be turned over to unqualified, biased entities like #CyberNinjas
✔Requirements that states conduct actual statistically sound risk-limiting audits of election results

Finally there is the prospect of a state legislature or another authority simply deciding not to certify valid election results. This is chilling and could happen in any race, not just for president, though it almost certainly would violate the Constitution.

The #FreedomToVoteAct offers another statutory remedy, b/c it gives voters the right to sue not only for infringement of their right to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted, but also to have the lawful result certified.

For more on all of these topics, check out this detailed paper from my colleagues delving into the problem in depth. brennancenter.org/our-work/resea…

As they point out, voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering and the other serious problems addressed by the FTVA and the #JohnLewisVotingRightsAct should also be understood as efforts to subvert the electoral process.

Do these bills take on every single problem? No. We do need a fix for the Electoral Count Act, and other changes. But that's not a reason to derail the critical legislation the Senate is poised to finally take up.