How do elections work, what election fraud entails, and how can we protect the integrity of our voting system?
PRAY FIRST for the election process to be protected and fair. And pray for those involved to act with integrity and responsibility.
Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. – Amos 5:24
U.S. elections serve as the backbone of American democracy—ensuring that citizens have a voice in their government. Every two years, citizens vote in elections that determine representation at local, state, and federal levels, with presidential elections held every four years. However, with growing concerns about election integrity, the topic of election fraud often arises. What is the reality of election fraud and the safeguards in place to protect against it?
The U.S. Election Process: How Does It Work?
In the U.S., elections are decentralized, with each state responsible for administering its own elections. While the federal government sets certain standards, each state has its own laws governing voter registration, ballot design, voting methods, and counting procedures. Elections typically involve multiple stages: primary elections (to determine party nominees), general elections, and local or midterm elections. Voting can take place in-person, by mail, or through absentee ballots, depending on the state’s rules.
Votes are tallied at the local level before being passed to state officials for certification. In presidential elections, the Electoral College system is used, where electors from each state cast their votes based on the popular vote in their state. The candidate with the most electoral votes wins the presidency.
What Is Election Fraud?
Election fraud refers to any illegal interference with the process of an election. It can take many forms, including voter fraud—where individuals illegally vote more than once or impersonate others, vote tampering (changing or destroying votes, physical or digital), manipulation of voter registration, or voting without being properly registered. Election fraud can also occur through intimidation, coercion, threats, bribery, or spreading disinformation to change or suppress a person’s ability to vote.
In a 2008 ruling of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court identified that “not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.” However, evidence for cases seems to be rare. Often claims of voter fraud can be difficult to prove, and they require that a public official, usually a prosecutor, thought the fraud serious enough to act upon it.
Notable cases of election fraud have occurred though. One example occurred in 2018 in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, where a political operative tampered with absentee ballots. The fraud was discovered, the entire results of the election were thrown out, and a new election was held. These cases underscore the importance of vigilance and how election officials work together to address and resolve any tampering with U.S. elections.
Given the current safeguards, the likelihood of widespread election fraud is low. This is heavily because election officials have implemented various measures to detect and prevent fraud, including voter ID laws, signature verification, secure ballot boxes, audits, and multiple levels of bipartisan oversight. Moreover, new technologies like voter database cross-checks and updated cybersecurity protocols are intended to further reduce the risk of fraud.
The Libertarian research group at the Cato Institute also found that the Electoral College, the system to balance U.S. elections, heavily mitigates voter fraud in swing states. “The Electoral College creates strong disincentives for national parties to engage in election fraud,” the brief said, “Under the Electoral College, the states where fraudulent votes would be most valuable are also the states where it would be most difficult to obtain them.” This is due to such heavy scrutiny in swing states and the volume of legislatures split between the two parties, each of which would refuse to coverup the fraud of their counterparts. Cato Institute researchers found that, not only does the Electoral College disincentivize voter fraud, but it also makes it largely ineffective, as presidential elections are not determined by the popular vote.
Even foreign actors have found it difficult to directly tamper with U.S. election. Instead, Foreign interference in U.S. elections typically refers to disinformation campaigns rather than direct tampering with ballots. In recent years, there have been cases of foreign governments attempting to influence public opinion through social media platforms. For example, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, foreign operatives used online platforms to spread false information, stirring political division. However, there has been no evidence of foreign powers directly tampering with vote counts or the physical process of voting.
How Does the Government Prevent Election Fraud?
Both state and federal governments have implemented a variety of measures to prevent election fraud. At the federal level, agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) work to ensure that election infrastructure is secure from cyberattacks. At the state level, states have laws that may include requiring voter identification, secure absentee ballot procedures, and routine audits of election results to ensure accuracy.
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, introduced reforms to improve election processes, including requiring states to upgrade voting equipment and use of safeguards to protect against fraud. States also conduct post-election audits to verify that the votes counted match the votes cast, further reducing the likelihood of fraud.
The U.S. government allocates millions of dollars to enhance election security. In 2020, Congress allocated $425 million to help states improve election security as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. Much of this funding goes toward modernizing voting systems, improving cybersecurity, and training election workers to detect and respond to potential fraud.
The decentralized nature of U.S. elections, along with the checks and balances built into the system, make large-scale fraud difficult. Citizens do have the right to challenge suspicious election results through legal avenues, such as requesting recounts or filing lawsuits.
Pray the Vote 2024 – Candidate and Party Positions
As the election nears, the presidential candidates have expressed their views on how to address the concerns in the United States regarding Election Integrity. Here are their platforms.
SPECIAL NOTE: The full platform for each party can be found on their respective websites. The following excerpts are unedited. Reader discretion is encouraged as these are political statements and have not been checked for accuracy. The Presidential Prayer Team is non-partisan and does not support or endorse any of the following statements.
2024 Democratic Party Platform – VOTING RIGHTS & STOPPING THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL INTERESTS:
VOTING RIGHTS
The right to vote and to have your vote counted is the threshold of American democracy and liberty. Without it, nothing is possible; with it, anything is. Decades after a generation of civil rights leaders faced fire hoses and batons, were brutally beaten and even died to secure this fundamental right, it remains under assault.
Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken action to protect the sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections, especially for communities of color who have been historically disenfranchised.
Within the first 100 days of his presidency, President Biden signed an executive order directing an all-of-government effort to promote access to voting. Agencies have taken historic action to help veterans, college students, Native Americans, and other underserved communities register to vote.
Because laws are only as effective as their enforcement, the Department of Justice has more than doubled its staff dedicated to enforcing voting rights laws. And because the American people deserve to have faith in their elections, President Biden signed the Electoral Count Reform Act to preserve the will of the people and to protect against the type of attempts to overturn our elections that led to the January 6 insurrection.
Trump has a dark and different view, with a long history of supporting rollbacks to voting rights. He has spent years undermining the electoral process and confidence in elections, and continues to spread blatant lies about the election he lost. Trump’s allies in state legislatures across the country have enacted and continue to introduce laws that make it harder to vote and undermine the will of the people. Trump supported Georgia’s voter suppression law, which makes it illegal to hand out water to voters waiting in line. If he returns to the White House, he will seek to eliminate early voting and mail ballots to make it harder for Americans to exercise their right to vote.
Key to the right to vote is ensuring that voters pick their elected officials– not the other way around. President Biden has spoken out against extreme gerrymandering and harmful court decisions that perpetuate it, and he has consistently advocated for legislation that would end it and create fair congressional maps. Meanwhile, Trump opposes efforts to draw fairer maps.
Congress must restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act and take additional steps to ensure access to the ballot box. Democrats will pass and President Biden will sign the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act to fully secure the right to vote in every state, ensure fair congressional maps for every American, modernize and secure our elections, and curtail the corrupting influence of money in politics.
STOPPING THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL INTERESTS
Too much money flows in the shadows to influence our elections. Advocacy group scan run ads on issues attacking or supporting a candidate right until Election Day without disclosing who’s paying for that ad. Too often, powerful special interests use front groups to run these ads to win at any cost. Even foreign entities that aren’t allowed to contribute to political campaigns use dark money loopholes to try to influence our elections.
To fight back, President Biden has called for immediate passage of the DISCLOSE Act, which will require advocacy groups that run ads to influence elections to disclose donors who contribute more than $10,000, and ban foreign entities from contributing to them. Under President Biden’s leadership, the FEC has also finalized a rule expanding political advertising disclaimer requirements for online public communications.
Democrats will also fight to strengthen public financing with small-dollar matching for all federal candidates and crack down on foreign nationals who try to influence elections. We will keep super PACswhollyindependentofcampaignsandpartiesandpassaconstitutional amendment that will ban all private financing from federal elections. Democrats will end “dark money” by requiring full disclosure of contributors and ban 501(c)(4) organizations from spending on elections. And, to curb the influence of special interests in our elections, Democrats will prohibit corporate PACs and lobbyists from donating to anyone they lobby.
Trust in democracy is critical to protecting democracy. Democrats will adopt ethics reforms to ensure every American can feel confident that their government is working for them, not for special interests. Democrats will enact legislation to apply similar standards to Members of Congress. Democrats will create a federal ethics commission to strengthen good governance laws, like those requiring financial and lobbying disclosure. Democrats will require all federal candidates to disclose at least 10 years of tax returns. To ensure tax dollars go to work for the American people, not for special interests, Democrats will reestablish merit-based federal contracting and ban political appointees from interfering in grantmaking. And to ensure that policy decisions are guided by what’s best for the American people, not by special interests, Democrats will strengthen laws that regulate lobbying by foreign governments and lower the threshold for registering as a federal lobbyist.
2024 GOP Platform – GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE PEOPLE:
Republicans will offer a clear, precise, and USA oriented plan to stop the Radical Left Democrats’ Weaponization of Government and its Assault on American Liberty. We will restore Government of, by, and for the People, ensuring Accountability, protecting Individual Liberties, and fixing our once very corrupt Elections. We commit to upholding the Constitution of the United States, appointing judges who respect the rule of law, and defending the Rights of all Americans to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We will maintain the Supreme Court as it was always meant to be, at 9 Justices. We will not allow the Democrat Party to increase this number, as they would like to do, by 4, 6, 8, 10, and even 12 Justices. We will block them at every turn.
1. Republicans Will Stop Woke and Weaponized Government
We will hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents. We will declassify Government records, root out wrongdoers, and fire corrupt employees.
2. Republicans Will Dismantle Censorship & Protect Free Speech
We will ban the Federal Government from colluding with anyone to censor Lawful Speech, defund institutions engaged in censorship, and hold accountable all bureaucrats involved with illegal censoring. We will protect Free Speech online.
Republicans Will Defend Religious Liberty
We are the defenders of the First Amendment Right to Religious Liberty. It protects the Right not only to Worship according to the dictates of Conscience, but also to act in accordance with those Beliefs, not just in places of Worship, but in everyday life. Our ranks include men and women from every Faith and Tradition, and we respect the Right of every American to follow his or her deeply held Beliefs. To protect Religious Liberty, Republicans support a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.
4. Republicans Will Protect and Defend a Vote of the People, from within the States, on the Issue of Life
We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).
5. Republicans Will End Left-wing Gender Insanity
We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.
6. Republicans Will Ensure Election Integrity
We will implement measures to secure our Elections, including Voter ID, highly sophisticated paper ballots, proof of Citizenship, and same day Voting. We will not allow the Democrats to give Voting Rights to illegal Aliens.
7. Republicans Will Protect Americans in the Territories.
The territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico are of vital importance to our National Security, and we welcome their greater participation in all aspects of the political process.
Why It Matters and How We Can Respond
Citizens play an essential role in maintaining the integrity of elections—serving as poll workers, observing election procedures, and reporting any suspicious activities. In addition, we can remain informed about how elections work and participate in ensuring that elections are free and fair.
As followers of Christ, we are called to pursue justice and integrity in all aspects of life, including how we engage with our political system. The Bible speaks to the importance of truth and fairness: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV). Election integrity is not just a political issue but a moral one. Ensuring that elections are fair and free from fraud is a way to love our neighbors and support a just society.
We can respond by participating in the electoral process responsibly, advocating for transparency, and encouraging others to vote. It is essential to approach conversations about elections and integrity with humility and grace, avoiding divisive rhetoric. By focusing on truth and fairness, we can help foster a healthier political climate.
HOW THEN SHOULD WE PRAY:
— Pray for godly wisdom to guide both voters and leaders in this time, that voters may discern truth from falsehood, seek candidates who will serve with justice and humility, and for God to grant leaders the insight to make decisions that promote the well-being of all people, not for personal or political gain.- If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. James 1:5
— Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring calm to hearts and minds, for our nation to work toward reconciliation rather than conflict, for the process to reflect a commitment to peace and understanding, and that, in the results of the election, we could find common ground as we move forward. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
CONSIDER THESE ITEMS FOR PRAYER:
- Pray that the safeguards in place will stand strong and that anyone seeking to commit fraud or illegally change election outcomes to be exposed and brought to justice
- Pray for integrity in the hearts of those overseeing and participating in the election process—officials, volunteers, and leaders.
- Pray for God’s healing over the divisions in our nation.
Sources: U.S. Election Assistance Commission, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, National Bureau for Economic Research, SurpemeCourt.gov, The Cato Institute
