President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month on “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” and is requiring his administration to take multiple actions driving towards his stated principle that “free, fair, and honest elections ... are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic.”
Interestingly, that objective is consistent with what former President Jimmy Carter espoused two decades ago in the bipartisan Carter-Baker Report, noting that “(i)f elections are defective, the entire democratic system is at risk.”
The conservative public interest organization Fair Election Fund recently released a comprehensive 51-page report evaluating Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s election administration performance as measured against the five pillars of an effective electoral system espoused in the Carter-Baker Report. The report bears review and should drive additional legislative oversight, but in summary, the Fund graded Benson’s administration of elections with an overall “D” grade — focusing especially on her administration’s lack of transparency in elections processes and loss of voter confidence.
