America Has an Election Trust Problem. Ignoring It Won’t Make It Go Away. – Inside Sources

What happens when Americans stop believing their votes count? We’re dangerously close to finding out. With the Nov. 3 midterms just days away, confidence in American elections remains troublingly low.

New polling released Oct. 21 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 45% of registered voters have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence that votes in the upcoming elections will be counted accurately, down from 50% in 2022. Meanwhile, a new Pew Research Center survey found that only 53% of registered voters are confident that mail-in ballots will be counted as intended. And now, federal authorities are warning of another threat: increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks targeting election officials, including deceptive emails and text messages enhanced by artificial intelligence.

The response cannot be another round of political finger-pointing or empty assurances that everything is under control. Americans deserve proof.

I study how elections can fail. As a professor of decision analytics and director of the Empowering Secure Elections Lab at Towson University, my work focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in election operations, from mail-in voting and polling procedures to the people and technology responsible for protecting our ballots. And if there’s one thing my research has made clear, it’s this: Election security is too important to be left to political talking points.

For too long, conversations about election integrity have been dominated by competing narratives. Concerns about fraud are sometimes dismissed outright, while potential vulnerabilities are sometimes presented as evidence that elections have been compromised. Both approaches are dangerous. A vulnerability is not proof of fraud. But the absence of documented fraud does not mean election officials should stop looking for weaknesses. That’s not how security works.

Imagine a bank telling customers that because it hasn’t experienced a major robbery, there’s no reason to examine its security systems. Or an airline insisting that because its planes haven’t crashed, further safety inspections are unnecessary. Americans would never accept that logic. Why should our elections be any different?

My research examines tens of thousands of possible scenarios in which election operations could be disrupted, manipulated or compromised. Those scenarios are not documented attacks. They are tools for understanding where failures might occur, how serious the consequences could be and which safeguards offer the strongest protection.

That’s the work that should be driving election security policy, not partisan arguments designed to win the next news cycle.

Consider mail-in voting, an issue that continues to generate intense political debate.

A mail ballot travels through multiple stages before it is counted. Each stage, from delivery and verification to processing and tabulation, presents different operational challenges. Safeguards such as ballot tracking, documented procedures and verification requirements help protect that process. But those protections must be continuously evaluated, improved and clearly explained to voters.

Election officials shouldn’t expect Americans to understand or trust safeguards they’ve never been shown. And security extends well beyond the ballot itself.

Poll workers are on the front lines of our elections. They’re responsible for following procedures, identifying irregularities, resolving unexpected problems and ensuring that votes are handled properly. Yet their preparation rarely receives the public attention it deserves.

That’s why my lab has worked with Maryland election officials to develop ElectionReady, a training application designed to help poll workers recognize vulnerabilities and carry out election procedures consistently.

We’ve also developed GoVoteMD, a tool connecting voters with official election information. Both efforts reflect a principle that should guide election administration nationwide: Preventing confusion and preparing for potential failures are essential parts of protecting the vote.

Our research into election misinformation adds another troubling dimension. We found that people who believed misleading election information were also more willing to share it, while confidence in election integrity differed significantly across political affiliations.

Now add increasingly sophisticated AI-generated content to that environment.

A fabricated video, misleading voting instructions or a convincing false claim about ballot counting can spread faster than election officials can respond. And an Oct. 16 warning from the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency about increasingly convincing phishing emails and fraudulent text messages targeting election officials underscores how these threats continue to evolve.

Election officials must be prepared to respond quickly to false information, explain how voting systems are protected and make credible evidence readily available when questions arise. Policymakers must prioritize practical security measures, effective training and accountability rather than treating election integrity as a campaign slogan.

And voters must be willing to distinguish legitimate questions from unsupported accusations.

The stakes extend far beyond which party controls Congress. When Americans lose faith in the integrity of elections, they begin losing faith in the legitimacy of the government those elections produce.

That is a threat neither political party can afford to ignore.

Americans should not have to choose between blindly trusting elections and believing every allegation of wrongdoing. They deserve a third option: confidence grounded in evidence.

Election officials have the responsibility to provide it. With millions of Americans preparing to vote, the time for reassurances is over. Stop telling voters to trust the system. Show them why they should.