On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to take numerous actions intended “to protect the integrity of our election process.”
His order is a well-designed, comprehensive plan that will ensure that the federal government assists the states in conducting “free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion.”
This has been long needed and is a reversal of the decades of indifference, neglect, or downright interference in the election process by the federal government, particularly by the Obama and Biden administrations. They took every opportunity to attack commonsense election reform efforts by the states, like voter ID requirements, and to stymie efforts to improve the maintenance of accurate voter registration rolls.
Their overall goal, it seemed, was to make American elections as insecure, and therefore vulnerable to fraud, as possible.
Trump’s executive order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” directs a whirlwind of crucial activity harnessing the resources of multiple federal agencies such as the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Those directives include the following:
The president says in the executive order that “elections must be honest and worthy of public trust.” It is the policy of his administration, he says, “to enforce Federal law and to protect our election process.”
Finally, we have a president who understands the role of the federal government in safeguarding our elections, while respecting the primary authority of states to administer their elections. It is about time that the federal government helped, rather than hindered, that work. Bravo, Mr. President.