EP. 23 — THE MOST SECURE ELECTION EVER

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Weston Wamp: I'm Weston Wamp, and this is Swamp Stories, presented by Issue One.

Just nine days after Election Day, the federal agency that coordinates the security of American elections called the November 3rd, 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, better known as CISA, was created two years prior by the stroke of President Trump’s pen. Subsequently, President Trump appointed a rising star in his Department of Homeland Security to lead the new agency. Christopher Krebs was confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. 

But after the statement was released, Krebs was abruptly fired by President Trump for vouching for the election’s security. In a 60 Minutes interview days after he was fired, Krebs grew emotional when talking about his departure.

Christopher Krebs: The thing that upsets me the most about that is that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my team. And I'd worked with them for three and a half years, in the trenches, building an agency, putting CISA on the national stage. And I love that team, and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. So that’s what I’m most upset about. 

Weston Wamp: Krebs didn’t feel sorry for himself. It was the team he worked with, and the legions of election workers all across the country who faced down threats to conduct the 2020 election. Those are the people he defended.

Christopher Krebs: It’s not me, it’s not just CISA. It’s the tens of thousands of election workers out there that had been working nonstop eighteen hour days for months. That are getting death threats for trying to carry out one of our core democratic institutions, an election. And that was again to me a press conference that I just, it didn’t make sense.

Weston Wamp: This episode is dedicated to those public servants. Regular people who love their country, just like me and you.

This is Episode 23 - The Most Secure Election Ever 

Jocelyn Benson: It was a very challenging few months, because it felt like in Charlie Brown, where Lucy keeps moving the ball. That every time we would successfully defend the election, there would be another attack on it that we would then have to prepare for. And that was challenging because you know I'm a runner, I run marathons. I'm used to running a marathon, running the full race, but then there's an end. And it's like, you get to the end of a marathon and you're told you have to run another mile. And then you're told you have to run another mile. And then it keeps going.

Weston Wamp: If there’s one thing about Michigan’s Secretary of State Joceyln Benson it’s that she’s not afraid of a tough slog. And despite describing the weeks of sustained attacks on America’s election integrity as being like a marathon that wouldn’t end, she and her colleagues never flinched.

Jocelyn Benson: At no point in this entire process leading up to the election, on election day itself or the months that followed, was I ever worried about the health of our democracy or whether or not the voters’ will would prevail. Because having done this work my whole life, or my whole professional life, I knew that it's always a battle to protect democracy. It was a battle I signed up for. I was weary. I was sad because we see people being lied to by leaders that they trust, those leaders are furthering a political agenda.

But the truth was always on our side. And that's what I told our team, that's what all our clerks knew. We had the truth on our side, we had the voters' will on our side and that's what we were defending every day. And so that's where we found our strength, that's where we found our confidence.

Weston Wamp: Election officials are a different breed. They do not see themselves as partisans, even in states and localities where they may run as Republicans and Democrats. Their shared ethos is integrity, bipartisanship, and transparency.

Adrian Fontes: I'm a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. I had a lot of faith in my fellow Marines and I didn't even know what their political leanings were. Right? I gotta believe. And that's where it starts. And I think we've lost a little bit of that. And that's on each individual one of us, every single one of us.

Weston Wamp: As the Maricopa County Recorder, Adrian Fontes set an example working across the aisle with Republicans to improve election processes in the fourth largest county in America.

Adrian Fontes: One of the most clear examples was after the 2018 election, I worked then, I being a Democrat, worked with our 4 to 1 Republican board of supervisors to revamp the election system because it was all under the county recorder. My office up until 2018 held all of the levers, all of voter registration, all ballot design, ballot execution, vote by mail, polling places, training, recruiting, equipment, IT security tabulation, everything was under one partisan elected official. That's a bad government model. And while a lot of folks have their reasons for moving into the new model that we created, it was created when then chairman, Bill Gates, a Republican on that board of supervisors and myself sat down and we said, "How do we make this a shared responsibility between the 4 to 1 Republican board and my office?" Not just because of politics, but because of practicality. We have to have integrity in the system.

And they and I negotiated a plan. They approved it unanimously. We all worked very, very well together to make it happen. We have bipartisan folks, folks of both parties opening up the envelopes, checking the signatures before we open the envelopes. There are bipartisan observers inside the tabulation center in the very room where the isolated system is. We have bipartisan observers watching, not just the signature verification, but the opening of the envelopes. The parties themselves actually appoint the folks who formed the hand count audit that is in Arizona statute and has been performed for years, and years and years.

Weston Wamp: Even still, President Donald Trump claimed there was fraud in Maricopa County and across the state of Arizona and that he quote “easily” won the state. 121 House Republicans, including the minority leader and minority whip, along with 6 U.S. Senators voted to object to Arizona’s election results, which had been certified by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

Adrian Fontes: I have great confidence in the administration of elections in the United States of America. And I agree that we did just have the most secure election in the history of the country. And in Maricopa County, it is by a long stretch the most scrutinized election administration system in the country. And we've passed every test with flying colors. And I'm very proud of that.

Weston Wamp: Now I’m sure that some of my fellow Republicans hearing this, may be thinking ”of course Fontes thinks it was the most successful election in history, his party won, Joe Biden won Maricopa County and won Arizona.” That’s correct. But while Biden won Maricopa County by 45,000 votes, Adrian Fontes lost his own re-election bid to a Republican the same night by less than 5,000 votes out of nearly two million that were cast.

This is where you’ve got to understand — election officials have abiding confidence in the processes they work so hard to design, and to implement and protect. Even when the results don’t go the way they want, their appreciation for those who give for the integrity to the system doesn’t waver.

Adrian Fontes: There's literally thousands of people in Maricopa County of all political parties because you've got libertarians, and non-party designated folks or independents working there as well. And the tragedy is all of their work, good solid work by American citizens. Your neighbors. It goes out the window with these conspiracy theories, with the misinformation and disinformation. These are loyal Americans who took an oath, who sit one next to the other when they do ballot adjudication, when they do ballot duplication for damaged ballots and so forth. These folks are looking over each other's shoulders to ensure the integrity in the system.

Weston Wamp: Although the lionshare of the attention after the 2020 election went to claims of fraud in the states that President Trump lost, lessons about the critical role of everyday Americans in our elections can be learned from states that President Trump won.

Take Missouri for example, the state carefully expanded absentee voting options due to the pandemic. All-in-all absentee voting increased about three-fold across the state. But they handled it and showed how states can adapt under tough circumstances — and do it securely. 

Shane Schoeller: I think a lot of people don't know the accountability process that goes into mailing those ballots out, receiving those ballots in, how they are administered from beginning to end, and I think it's important people get educated on that process. 

Weston Wamp: I reached out to the former Executive Director of the Missouri Republican Party Shane Schoeller who now serves as the Greene County Clerk, overseeing elections in the state’s fourth largest county.

Shane Schoeller: I think it's important that they know that they were already in place in the statutes opportunities for anyone of any party, Republican included, to be there and observe every absentee ballot envelope as it's opened up to make sure that they are being taken care of properly. And so there's statutes in place in our state, and I know many other states, that allow for accountability and transparency to take place. And I'm not sure that a lot of people are aware of that, and there's other things in terms of the post audit into elections to make sure that the machines were working correctly, that take place as well. And then there's also opportunities where you can be, you know, a challenger on the day of the election. You can also be there to be a watcher, and that's someone who watches to make sure the tabulation is occurring correctly.

So there's a lot of things in the statute already in place that if you're concerned, you can literally almost like, I’ll use the sports analogy, you can be on the sideline watching everything that's happening and have an input basically like a referee and throw the flag and say, hang on a second, I'm concerned that this wasn't done right, and that question has to be answered by the election officials that are in place. And you can also volunteer as an election judge, whether it's in the absentee ballot preparation or it's on the day of the election. 

Weston Wamp: Article 1 Section 4 the U.S. Constitution sets out a two part voting system. It says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof” while it also gives Congress the power to “alter such regulations.”

So the result is that overall, states are the drivers of an elections system that is uniquely decentralized. Every state is different. The intricacies of each state’s systems, the redundancies that are in place to provide security and the coordinated federal support from agencies like Christopher Krebs’ they make a compelling case that our election system is rock solid. It’s an institution that we frankly all should be proud of.

Jocelyn Benson: There actually is no question when you look at the facts and the data and the truth that last year, the 2020 elections were indeed the most secure and successful in our nation's history, based on the fact that more people voted on both sides of the aisle than ever before. And there were no security threats or challenges that actually impacted the infrastructure of the elections or the counting of the ballots, that indeed the results were an accurate reflection of the will of the people. And election administrators met every challenge thrown at them, including a global pandemic and intense scrutiny.

Weston Wamp: When the American way of conducting elections is at its best, states are learning from each other and building on each other’s best practices. Every state has some form of vote by mail. In some states voting by mail has been the norm for some time, in others it’s more limited, but there’s no question that the subject isn’t going away.

Schoeller is like many Republicans in that he has always preferred to cast his own ballot in person — but his experience overseeing elections has opened his eyes about fraud. 

Shane Schoeller: I think when people are concerned about fraud, I can tell them as an election official, I have a much better chance to identify that prior to the day of election. If you vote by mail, you have a pretty good chance if something is going on that should not be taking place if voter fraud is taking place.

Weston Wamp: The vote by mail process can, in many ways, add additional layers of security to our elections.

Asking tough questions about complicated election processes is important. Healthy skepticism and bipartisan accountability are important to protecting the integrity of our elections. But like Schoeller, we all owe it to each other to remain teachable and earnest about strengthening American elections.

We can all heed a message that Adrian Fontes wants to share in the aftermath of his own narrow defeat in Maricopa County.

Adrian Fontes: I would challenge folks out there to really do some soul searching if your personal faith in America and your fellow Americans could be so easily shaken by politicians who are out for selfish, political advantage, where else can your faith be shaken? And that's a rough statement to make for some people, but it's true. And I think that's what we got to do.

Weston Wamp: All across our country, ordinary Americans form the backbone of our election system. Think of the familiar faces in your local polling place that you see every two years in your county or your parish. Now multiply that by the more than 10,000 jurisdictions in the United States and you can begin to imagine the diverse tapestry of officials, public servants, part-time workers and volunteers who make our elections happen.

Adrian Fontes: You've got county clerks and temporary workers who are retired teachers, some other folks in the community. You’ve got to believe in these people, because it's those people who are actually running the elections. The national political parties have very little to do with election administration. They have a lot to do with campaigns. They have a lot to do with messaging. But when it comes to the actual ballot, the actual administration of the ballot, it's a whole different world. Those folks who run elections are dedicated. They have been doing it for a very, very, very long time. And we have believed in them for a very long time. And to turn our backs, to lose faith in our fellow Americans, to lose faith in our neighbors, that's terrible.

Weston Wamp: On the next episode of Swamp Stories we’re going to revisit dark money — examining the historic role it played in the 2020 election and exploring whether a bipartisan breakthrough to fix the system may be getting closer.

Weston Wamp: Thanks for listening to Swamp Stories, presented by Issue One, the country's leading political reform organization that unites Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to fix our broken political system. Please subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends. Even better, rate and review it on iTunes to help us reach more listeners. You can find out more at swampstories.org. I'm your host Weston Wamp. A special thank you to executive producer, Ethan Rome, senior producer Evan Ottenfeld, producer Sydney Richards, and editor Parker from ParkerPodcasting.com. Swamp Stories was recorded in Tennessee, edited in Texas and can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.

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