US takes extreme measures to prove election not rigged

Four years after Donald Trump and his loyalists repeated groundless claims of election fraud, counties across the United States are working to ensure 2024 won’t be a repeat of 2020 by taking extreme measures to demonstrate that US elections are not “rigged”.

- KELLY RISSMAN

His allegations about how the 2020 election was “stolen” spread on social media, resulting in baseless theories circulating, and which left much of the public with residual distrust of the votecounting process. Those fears haven’t subsided since 2020 and Mr Trump continues to push the idea that the voting process in 2024 will be flawed.

Officials across the country are now trying to restore voters’ trust by promoting transparency. Some of those measures include GPS trackers on machines, offering public tours, providing 24/7 video surveillance and educating voters.

“The best way to create trust in our election system is to make it as transparent as possible and ensure the public is involved in supporting that process,” Colorado’s Mesa County recorder Bobbie Gross told The Independent.

The historically pro-Trump district in Colorado is working particularly hard to restore voters’ trust after one of the county’s former clerks, Tina Peters, was charged in August with seven counts related to a security breach during the 2020 election.

The “secure rooms”, where the county’s election equipment lives, are now only accessible with a badge, and even then, workers have to enter in pairs “for accountability”, Ms Gross said. The county keeps 24/7 camera surveillance on this equipment, including ballot boxes, to ensure security – even when there’s not an election going on. If anyone requests video footage, the county will provide it, Ms Gross said.

The county also holds open houses, including one planned for election day, allowing the public to witness the process, inspect the equipment and ask questions, Ms Gross said. Providing the public tours is important, she added, because “there’s a lot of things that I think the public is not aware of – how an election was conducted and what our checks and balances are – so we really try to make sure that we can get that out to the public”.