The overriding message you get after reading the essays collected by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University history professor, and Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University Law School, is that all the voting issues of today (charges of voting fraud, voter suppression, and foreign interference with the vote) have been with us a long time.
Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue outlines this country's less-than-illustrious past in pursuing democracy.
"The most significant challenges to free and fair elections in the United States have not, and do not, come from abroad, they have come from domestic actors," writes Nicole Hemmer in her essay on election deception.
Regarding foreign interference, Jeremy Subi noted that "the U.S. was, after World War II, the most aggressive and pervasive foreign election meddler. The Cold War national security state enabled Washington's reach into the election of other societies, but the country's own elections remained largely insulated, until the 21st century."
Greenberg pointed to past presidential elections that were contested in this country. "If the 2000 election was a wake-up call and the 2020 election a full-scale alarm, other elections had also stumbled to the finish line--most famously in 1800, 1824, and 1876," she noted.
Too often, election problems have been left unresolved and "kicked down the road," said Greenberg in an interview with Steve Tarter.
"As we approach the 2024 presidential election, the dangers to democracy of a contested election are now indisputably clear...let's keep our fingers crossed," she stated.
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