ELECTIONS INTEGRITYBrazil, U.S. Show That Secure Elections Require Agreement – Not Just Cybersecurity and Clear Ballot Records
The source of the violent disputes which followed the 2020 U.S. election and the 2022 election in Brazil were not the result of procedural or technical flaws in the voting systems, but rather a failure of certain individuals living in democratic society to uphold the fundamental principles of democracy. True democracies require candidates who agree on election rules and processes in advance and agree to abide by the outcome of elections, even when they wish the results were otherwise. The alternative is continuing instability and doubt in the electorate – an outcome that serves no citizen’s interests.
There are a number of ways to run a legitimate election. But the U.S. has learned in recent years, and Brazil learned in recent weeks, that it’s not always simple.
There are technical mechanics and processes of how votes are cast, collected and counted. But those are ultimately less important than the agreement – among opposing parties, and across a society – to abide by the results of those processes.
In 2020, President Donald Trump alleged, without evidence, that election fraud in several states had caused him to lose. A number of audits in various states found no evidence that irregularities in voting or vote counting processes had any effect on the outcome of balloting in those states.
Some of these results were later challenged in lawsuits seeking to alter the results of the election, and in every case, the election’s outcome was determined to be accurate.
Though the vast majority of these questions and checks and court decisions concluded before Congress met to count Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump’s supporters and a number of militia groups stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the counting and have Trump declared president.
In Brazil in late 2022, incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro lost an election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former president seeking a return to office. Even before the election, Bolsonaro had cast doubt on the integrity of the country’s voting system. On Jan. 8, 2023, after Lula had been in office for a week, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters, including right-wing militants, attacked key government buildings, including the building that houses the national Congress.
As a scholar who studies election integrity and cybersecurity, I see the source of these violent disputes not as the result of procedural or technical flaws in the voting system but rather as a failure of certain individuals living in democratic society to uphold the fundamental principles of democracy.