Election Integrity

The lack of Voter ID, proliferation of absentee ballots, and big tech companies’ political bias have caused too many Americans to lose confidence in our elections.  As a former Elections Commissioner, I am uniquely qualified to tackle these issues in Congress. 

I was twice nominated by the Republican Party and confirmed by the Suffolk County Legislature as Suffolk County’s Republican Elections Commissioner and served in that capacity from 2015 through 2021.  There, my 60-member staff and I were on the front lines of administering town, county, state and federal elections in a county with more voters than 10 individual states.  In 2016, years before most people had any focus on this topic, Newsday wrote about my concern over voter fraud.

Voter ID

Committing fraud by impersonation at a polling place is relatively easy in New York because, unlike 34 other states, our state doesn’t have a voter ID law.  To pull off this crime in New York, all a fraudster needs to do is appear at a polling place and present a signature on an iPad that looks somewhat like the real voter’s signature.  Given this vulnerability to our democracy, I testified before the New York Senate Elections Committee and advocated for a New York State photo voter ID law.  Unfortunately, my advocacy fell on the deaf ears of Senate Democrats who controlled the committee.

In Congress, I will support legislation that requires a voter to have ID to participate in any Federal Election.  If a qualified voter doesn’t have ID, one should be made easily available and at no cost because voting in our elections shouldn’t be contingent on paying a de facto poll tax.  Moreover, a voter who comes to a polling place without an ID should be offered the interim solution of voting by affidavit ballot. 

Absentee Ballots

The proliferation of absentee ballots has also opened the door to fraud by impersonation and fraud by coercion.  While absentee balloting is perfectly appropriate for voters who can’t make it to the polls such as those who are in the military, in a hospital, disabled, or traveling outside the county, the risks of expanding absentee balloting beyond these voters who can’t reasonably get to the polls outweigh the risks.

That is because absentee balloting lends itself to a fraudster easily casting a ballot for another by forging the voter’s signature on an absentee ballot application or absentee ballot oath envelope.  When my staff and I caught a person breaking the law by forging his deceased mother’s signature to vote in her name, we worked with the authorities to have that person arrested and brought to justice.

So many other frauds go unchecked because of loopholes in our State Election Law, such as the requirement that elections clerks from both parties agree a signature doesn’t match to invalidate a ballot or even investigate its validity.  In Congress, I will fight to give local boards of elections more tools to uncover these frauds.

Fraud by coercion is likely more prevalent in the absentee balloting process because there is no chain of ballot custody.  Among other examples, fraud by coercion happens when a parent twists the arm of an adult child or relative, often elderly, to vote a certain way.  It is also done by a boss or supervisor offering to “help” educate employees on how to vote but in reality that boss will apply pressure on an employee-voter to effectively “multiply” the boss’ vote.

The more balloting is done outside the presence of controlled environments with elections inspectors present, the more fraud will ensue and the less confidence we will all have in elections.  In Congress, I will fight to limit absentee ballots in Federal Elections to those who can’t reasonably get to the polls.

Big Tech in Our Elections

As we see big tech companies grow to become almost omnipresent in our lives, Congress has a responsibility to regulate the tech industry to ensure its coding, which has tended to censor and suppress conservative news, is politically neutral or properly disclaims what they are censoring.

In 2020, a week or two before Election Day, we saw prominent tech companies suppress or censor legitimate news of Hunter Biden’s kickback scheme while doing no such thing with uncertain reporting about President Trump’s taxes.  That affected Americans’ views on the candidates and, in turn, how they voted. 

Big tech and social media companies are private entities.  Within reason, they should be allowed control over what they will and won't allow on their platforms.  However, a user shouldn’t be led to falsely believe what or how much of what they see is politically neutral.  This highly-advanced trickery undermines the very core of our democracy.  

In Congress, I will support legislation that requires tech companies to provide a disclaimer when they are throttling news that tends to marginalize a political ideology or party.  

Conclusion

Our democracy is best served when candidates for public office campaign on a fair and transparent playing field.  Voter ID, limiting absentee ballots and providing transparency to big tech’s algorithms will even the playing field, build the public’s confidence in our elections and ensure the candidate with the most valid votes wins.  As a former elections commissioner, I will fight for just that in Congress!