DEMOCRACY WATCHPreventing Another 'Jan. 6' Starts by Changing How Elections Are Certified, Experts Say

By Sara Savat

The 2024 presidential election may be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, but preventing a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021 — when false claims of a stolen election promoted by Donald Trump and his allies led to an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol —will be top of mind this election year.

A reecent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research confirmed that many Americans — especially Republicans — are skeptical that their votes will be counted correctly. The lack of confidence in elections is a real threat to our democracy, experts say.

A new institutional reform proposed by Daniel M. Butler, a professor of political science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Jeffrey J. Harden, the Andrew J. McKenna Family associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, would change the way elections are certified to help minimize politics from influencing the process. 

Their proposed solution — published March 20 in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science — would grant independent, nonpartisan commissions the authority to certify elections, rather than partisan elected officials.

“Convincing voters — and some politicians — that the 2020 election was free and fair is simple in theory, but quite difficult in practice,” Butler said. “Researchers have found that correcting misinformation about politics yields limited success and may even cause voters to become more entrenched in their original beliefs.

“Because of this, our recommendation for protecting elections does not center on correcting misinformation or detailing the empirical case for a fair process. Instead, we argue that an institutional reform is needed to separate the electoral process from partisan elected officials’ control.” 

Butler and Harden said this solution would insulate the certification process from the demands that voters might make on politicians to engage in attempts to overturn elections — as was the case in the 2020 election — and would provide political cover for legislators to maintain support without acting against the electoral process.

According to the authors, the proposed commission would be similar to the nonpartisan redistricting commissions that various states have introduced to remove partisan influence from that process and to ensure fair representation of all citizens.