Election Integrity Starts Here: Make It Easy To Vote & Hard To Cheat

THE ISSUE

The foundation of the American system of self-governance is liberty, and the core expression of the people’s liberty is the ability to vote in free and fair elections. Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is paramount to preserving our Republic.

Eligible and registered American citizens should vote just one time per election, their ballot should count only once, and that ballot should be protected from any possible fraud. The American people demand simple reforms like these at the state level, and they most certainly deserve it. One illegally cast ballot is one too many.

THE AMERICA FIRST SOLUTION
Make it Easy to Vote but Hard to Cheat

TOP LINES

VOTER PROTECTION

• Faith in the democratic process dwindles every election cycle, and voters are increasingly discouraged.
  • For decades, widespread concerns about the validity of election outcomes have been expressed across both sides of the political spectrum.
  • There are documented cases of irregularities, illegalities, anomalies, and fraud in each election, and in many cases, legal intervention for election-related crimes has been required.
  • Every legally registered voter should be able to cast one vote, one time, that only counts once. Any process that does not accomplish that simple goal is a failure and should be fixed.
• Our elections should be transparent, accountable, and equal.
  • Not every campaign, election official, or voter intends to commit fraud. But whether through lack of education, ineffective processes, poorly written laws, laziness, or maliciousness, election laws have been broken.
  • Free, fair, and honest elections are possible when laws protect legal votes and legal voters.
  • Unfortunately, the Left resists election safeguards—even those that boost turnout. They oppose photo ID for voting, monitoring of drop boxes, and maintaining clean voter rolls. Why?

POLICY TALKERS

• Election integrity should be simple: Make it easy to vote but hard to cheat.
  • Requiring photo ID to vote is a widely supported policy across all demographics.
    • Photo IDs are used for everyday activities like getting a job, renting or buying a house, buying alcohol, boarding a plane, and driving a car. Requiring voter ID to vote is no different.
    • Many on the Left reject Photo ID, claiming it is “systemically racist.” But, claiming that a certain demographic would not be able to obtain a photo ID to vote is racist because it stereotypes an entire group as less capable of doing something routine in daily life. It perpetuates harmful and inaccurate assumptions.
  • Ballots should be received by Election Day. When deadlines are extended, voters lose confidence in election results.
    • The IRS requires taxes to be filed or postmarked by April 15. Ballots should be received by Election Day.
  • Ranked Choice Voting is a chaotic and confusing system, often leaving voters feeling disenfranchised and that their vote did not matter.
  • The foundation of an accurate, trustworthy election starts with accurate voter rolls, but many deceased voters are still on voter rolls across the country. Additionally, many voters appear on rolls in multiple states.
  • Only American citizens should decide American elections.
    • Saying that it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections and, therefore, no safeguards are necessary to make sure they do not register and vote is like saying that Border Patrol is not necessary because it’s already illegal to cross the border.
    • 198 congressional Democrats voted against the SAVE Act, a bill that would limit voting to U.S. Citizens.
    • The Left labeled this bill “voter suppression”—a surprising angle considering that the Left also claims that no non-citizens are voting.

DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

• The so-called and self-proclaimed “defenders of democracy” have no problem ditching democracy when politically convenient.
  • They rigged the primary by prohibiting other candidates from debating so Joe Biden would be unchallenged for the Democrat nomination.
  • They forced Joe Biden to leave the race when the polls showed he would likely lose. Even Joe Biden said he quit because House and Senate members were worried that they would lose their political races.
  • They undermined the entire democratic process by nominating another candidate without a single primary election or caucus vote, essentially nullifying 14 million votes cast.
  • While many on the Left sow fear about January 6, 2021, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) says Democrats will overturn the will of the people on January 6, 2025, should Trump win and nullify the people’s vote through Congress.

PRO-TIP

• Don’t let name-calling by your opponent derail your strategy. If you’re called an “election denier,” that typically means your accuser is deflecting in order not to have a substantive policy conversation. Here’s how you can respond:
  • It was congressional Democrats who formally challenged the results of EVERY Republican presidential victory for the past 23 years. They objected to certifying the electoral votes for the presidential elections in 2000, 2004, and 2016.
  • The Left claimed irregularities and issues in various states were significant enough to warrant a more thorough investigation prior to declaring a winner.
    • Stacey Abrams denied the results of her failed gubernatorial election for Georgia Governor 35 times—which she lost by a margin greater than President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
  • The Left said there were ample grounds to challenge the electors from Ohio as being unlawfully appointed because of violations of state law, voting machine irregularities, and denial of access to election observers in the election process.
    • 65% of Republicans believe Donald Trump was the REAL winner in 2020.
    • 60% of Democrats believe Hillary Clinton was the REAL winner in 2016.

IF PRESSED

• There’s never enough “fraud” to change the outcomes of elections.

Well, how much fraud is acceptable? One vote? 100? 1,000? The answer is NONE. In the United States of America, one fraudulent vote is one too many. When someone casts a fraudulent vote by accident or on purpose, it erases a legitimate vote. This is completely unacceptable. Many recent local elections have even been decided by just one vote.

• Monitoring drop boxes or polling locations jeopardizes the safety of election workers.

Why is the Left so opposed to a secure and transparent voting process? At every turn, the Left has fought, through the courts and legislatures, against any idea that would allow transparency in the election process. They want drop-boxes set out all across the country with NO monitoring, whether by video surveillance or poll workers. They refuse to allow trained election poll workers to raise concerns on Election Day. The Left wants to allow partisan governors, attorneys general, and/or election boards to set rules for the elections WITHOUT going through state legislatures, as it should be and as specifically stated in the U.S. Constitution. If you see something, you should be able to say something and NOT be concerned about retribution.

MYTHBUSTERS

MYTH: America First Policies suppress voter turnout.
FACT: This is completely false. In Georgia, in 2021, SB 202 revised election laws that the Biden Administration demonized and demagogued as “Jim Crow 2.0,” claiming these policies caused voter suppression. Georgia then experienced record turnout in the following election, and according to a University of Georgia study, 97% of Black people, the very people Democrats claimed would be harmed by the law, who voted rated their experience “excellent or very good,” and 0% rated it poor.

MYTH: It’s only the Right that doesn’t trust elections.
FACT: Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Karine Jean-Pierre, and countless other leftists said Donald Trump was an “illegitimate” president. They pushed, and still push to this day, a fake, false narrative about Russia collusion to subvert an American election. Congressional Democrats have challenged the outcome of every election that has been won by a Republican since Reagan. Remember, both the Right and the Left have been concerned about the validity of elections for decades.

QUICK STATS

• ONLY 35 states require some form of voter identification to vote. Many states do not even make you prove you are who you say you are when you vote.
  • Of those that require proof, ONLY 24 require a photo ID, so you can instead use a water or gas bill, for example. (You could NEVER use a gas bill to get on a plane.)
• Millions of people remain on voter rolls today that should NOT be there.
  • Arizona has between 500,000 and 1.27 million people on the voter rolls who are unaccounted for because of invalid registrations or because they are deceased.
  • Virginia discovered they had 19,000 dead people on their voter roll.
  • Michigan has more than 26,000 dead people on its rolls—some of whom have been deceased for two decades. (Elected officials there refused to remove them)
  • Pennsylvania has between 10,000 and 100,000 non-American citizens registered to vote in American federal elections, which is illegal.  
• There are many counties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, and others with voter registration rates that exceed 100% of the number of citizens who live there, which is impossible.
• In Nevada, in 2022, 95,000 mail-in ballots were returned as undeliverable.
  • Ballots were sent to people who were registered to vote at strip clubs, the Las Vegas Airport, 7-11 stores, fast food restaurants, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
• ONLY 28 states have banned Zuckerbucks, which means outside private money can still be used to conduct and influence public elections in many states.
• ONLY 29 states have prohibited ballot harvesting, violating the sanctity of the voting booth to some degree.
• ONLY 32 states require all ballots to be received by Election Day.

POLLING

ELECTION INTEGRITY

How confident are you that your vote is counted and processed correctly?

• 73% | Confident
• 25% | Not Confident
• 2% | Depends/Unsure

It should be easy to vote but hard to cheat.

• 94% | Agree
• 3% | Disagree
• 2% | Depends/Unsure

We show an ID to buy alcohol, board a plane, check into a hotel, open a bank account, or drive a car. We should do the same when it comes to voting.

• 83% | Agree
• 12% | Disagree
• 5% | Depends/Unsure

Mail-in and absentee ballots should be rare and used only if an individual is out of town on Election Day, sick or disabled, or is unable to travel to the polling location due to other personal circumstances.

• 60% | Agree

• 34% | Mostly Disagree

• 5% | Unsure/Depends

The government should be more transparent in how and when they receive and count votes.

• 87% | Agree

• 9% | Disagree

• 5% | Depends/Unsure

Mail-in or absentee ballots received after Election Day, or ballots that are postmarked with a date after Election Day, should not be counted.

• 68% | Agree

• 22% | Disagree

• 10% | Depends/Unsure

Whatever happened to Election Day? Now, it is Election Season, giving people two months to vote before Election Day and one month to count the votes after Election Day.

• 59% | Agree

• 29% | Disagree

• 13% | Depends/Unsure

In 2020, the country endured a once-in-a-century pandemic, COVID-19, or the coronavirus. Since some people were afraid to go to the polls, additional measures were put in place to help people vote safely, like mail-in ballots and extended voting that lasted in some places for months. Now that the pandemic is over, should states keep these special measures in place or remove them?

• 55% | These COVID-19 voting measures should be removed

• 30% | These COVID-19 voting measures should remain in place

• 15% | Depends/Unsure

Again, due to the pandemic in 2020, many new election laws were passed to help the voters cast their ballots safely, such as voting up to two months early, absentee voting without a verified reason, and mail-in ballots. Now that the pandemic is over, should these measures be removed or remain in place?

• 56% | These COVID-19 voting measures should be removed

• 32% | These COVID-19 voting measures should remain in place

• 13% | Depends/Unsure

The following statement was made by a politically independent voter. Please indicate if you agree or disagree:

“The 2020 election was a confusing time. New ways of voting, like mail-in ballots, drop boxes, and extended early voting, were introduced seemingly overnight and made me question the security of our elections. Yet, the same people who spent three years looking for Russia collusion in the 2016 election would not allow more than three minutes investigating if the 2020 election was secure.”

• 53% | Agree

• 32% | Disagree

• 15% | Unsure/Depends

In 2005, a bipartisan commission led by former President Jimmy Carter declared that voting by mail “remains the largest source of potential voter fraud.” The bipartisan report stated that “citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation.” Knowing this, do you believe voting by mail should be limited to individuals who are unable to vote in person for personal reasons or expanded to include anyone, regardless of their ability to vote in person?

• 58% | Voting by mail should be limited to individuals who are unable to vote in person

• 35% | Voting by mail should be expanded to include anyone, regardless of their ability to vote in person

• 7% | Unsure/Depends

VOTER PROTECTION MEASURES

Below are some suggested changes to election laws in various states. For each, please indicate if you support or oppose the measure:

Same-day voter registration should not be allowed because it does not give election officials time to verify the voter’s eligibility, including if the new voter even lives in the correct district. Instead, every effort should be made to ensure voters are registered before Election Day.

• 70% | Support

• 23% | Oppose

• 7% | Unsure/Depends

Prohibit ballot harvesting, the process in which an individual can return unlimited ballots on behalf of other people.

• 73% | Support

• 18% | Oppose

• 10% | Unsure/Depends

Non-citizens of the United States should not be able to vote.

• 84% | Support

• 11% | Oppose

• 5% | Unsure/Depends

Clean voter rolls by removing voters who have not confirmed proof of address and have not voted in several elections to ensure ballots are not sent to the wrong address or sent to an individual who is no longer living in the state or is deceased.

• 77% | Support

• 13% | Oppose

• 11% | Unsure/Depends

All ballots should be required to be received by Election Day, with exceptions for service members. Nineteen states do not require ballots to be received by Election Day, delaying vote counting.

• 73% | Support

• 20% | Oppose

• 8% | Unsure/Depends

Ballot signature matching, a process in which an election worker compares the signature on your ballot to the signature on your voter registration form to ensure it’s the same person signing, is unreliable, as people often use different signatures. Instead, mail-in ballots should verify the senders’ identity by requiring a driver’s license number, the last four digits of their social security number, or another form of identification.

• 76% | Support

• 15% | Oppose

• 9% | Unsure/Depends

Outlawing private entities from funding government election offices. In 2020, two non-profit organizations funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to fund government election offices to run “get out the vote” operations. Ninety-two percent of the funds were sent to jurisdictions that benefited one political party.

• 62% | Support

• 21% | Oppose

• 17% | Unsure/Depends

Drop boxes for ballots should be placed within polling sites and only open only during in-person voting hours. They should not be on the street in unsecured places.

• 80% | Support

• 13% | Oppose

• 7% | Unsure/Depends

A government-issued ID card should be required to confirm the identity of the individual voter when voting absentee or in person, as well as to confirm the voter’s eligibility, address, and name.

• 82% | Support

• 13% | Oppose

• 5% | Unsure/Depends

Votes must begin to be counted on Election Day and not stop the process until all ballots are counted.

• 85% | Support

• 8% | Oppose

• 6% | Unsure/Depends

EARLY VOTING

Which of the following best describes you?

• 59% | Voted Early in the Past

• 38% | Have Not Voted Early in the Past

• 4% | Unsure/Depends

With whom do you agree more?

Person 1 thinks that being able to vote up to two months before an election is reasonable because it may relieve congestion at polling sites and increase voter participation, making this option worth the time, money, and resources spent by the government.

Person 2 thinks that being able to vote up to two months before an election is excessive, unnecessary, and may lead to less security and more potential for fraud, and, therefore, time, money, and resources should not be spent by the government.

• 46% | Person 1

• 50% | Person 2

• 5% | Unsure/Depends

How likely would you be to vote early (either in-person or mail-in) if you were to learn that:

Campaigns would contact you less once you vote early.

• 53% | Likely

• 34% | Not Likely

• 13% | Unsure/Depends

You can track your ballot.

• 67% | Likely

• 24% | Not Likely

• 10% | Unsure/Depends

Nearly 20% of voters failed to vote early by mail or in person before Election Day in 2022 and ended up missing Election Day because of weather, long lines, or other life circumstances.

• 60% | Likely

• 26% | Not Likely

• 13% | Unsure/Depends

Nearly 20% of voters failed to vote early by mail or in person before Election Day in 2022 and ended up missing Election Day because of weather, long lines, or other life circumstances.

• 60% | Likely

• 26% | Not Likely

• 13% | Unsure/Depends

Both presidential nominees and both political parties are advocating for voters to vote early.

• 57% | Likely

• 28% | Not Likely

• 15% | Unsure/Depends

Voting early in person is just as secure as voting in person on Election Day.

• 71% | Likely

• 23% | Not Likely

• 7% | Unsure/Depends

Source: KAConsulting, LLC on behalf of America First Policy Institute National Survey among 1,000 Registered Voters Conducted April 2024. 

POLICY

For more information on Election Integrity and the America First solutions to make it easy to vote but hard to cheat, visit americafirstpolicy.com