Today, The GovLab published 27 recommendations for strengthening America’s democratic institutions by bolstering the integrity of our election system.
The package of concrete funding recommendations to philanthropy and government provide a robust strategy to address the twin challenges of election denialism and election sabotage that threaten the bedrock of our democratic system.
Our recommendations include innovative ideas and strategies for how U.S. philanthropic and government organizations can address these two core challenges in the short, medium and long term.
The Challenge of Election Sabotage and Denial
From City Hall to Capitol Hill, candidates for public office in all levels of government have advanced politically-motivated efforts to subvert elections. Election deniers have carried out a diverse range of election subversion strategies, from spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories on social media, to advancing politicized bills in state legislatures that destabilize voting procedures, to exploiting real economic disempowerment, inequality, and government dysfunction in an effort to spread authoritarian beliefs. In many cases, these efforts have been aided by partisan media, bad-faith law firms, powerful corporations and private donors.
Our recommendations tackle the broader challenge of election subversion from two areas we identified through research to be high priority.
First, our research has shown that those seeking to undermine our democratic institutions increasingly misuse our administrative and legal systems. Election deniers have abused the legal system and the freedom of information system in a coordinated effort to obstruct election administration and sow doubt in the outcomes of fair elections in the minds of the public. In some cases, election deniers have knowingly filed multiple malicious lawsuits with the goal of overturning electoral outcomes and canceling votes. In other cases, election deniers have filed frivolous public records requests seeking information about elections that are duplicative, repetitive, and have unreasonable and unrealistic asks, with no real purpose but to burden and strain the offices responsible for administering elections. There is a need for solutions to address malicious actors and abuse while ensuring that individuals have the ability to meaningfully exercise their due process and rights under the law.
Second, research shows that there has been an upsurge in support for violence targeting elections designed both to undermine faith in our democratic processes or to sow doubt in them. During recent election cycles, extremist groups and individuals have used violent acts and threats to intimidate political opponents, disrupt electoral processes, and cast doubt on the fairness and legitimacy of election results. Local election officials, in particular, are increasingly becoming targets of harassment and violent threats. Many acts of political violence and intimidation target candidates and public servants who are women in an effort to discourage equal and diverse participation in political processes. White supremacists continue to disproportionately target communities of color – Black communities in particular – as a strategy to prevent communities from gaining and exercising equal political and economic power. There is a need for solutions to address how to better prevent, mitigate the effectiveness, and respond to violence targeting elections.
How We Did It
Using a problem-solving approach we call “Smarter Crowdsourcing,” we co-created this set of strategies with nearly 100 experts, including representatives from community-based organizations, academics, legal practitioners, lawmakers and policymakers. We convened these experts in a series of two-hour, moderated online advisory sessions where the goal was to generate solutions that respond to these priority problems.
In parallel, we used an artificial intelligence-based toolkit called Policy Synth to develop solutions. Policy Synth automated the creation of over a thousand different search queries, from general to scientific, to data-specific and news-related, to conduct a comprehensive search for problems and their root causes. Then, the software searched the web to identify solutions that are responsive to the problem. Policy Synth yielded many of the same problems and solutions as those identified by the human experts but also introduced additional solutions, such as establishing a legal defense fund for administrative officials and mental health support for election workers.
Why These Recommendations
Looking towards 2024 and future election cycles, these recommendations serve as a roadmap for philanthropic or government organizations to make urgently-need investments to combat attempts to subvert and cast doubt on the fairness of U.S. elections
The GovLab and the Burnes Center for Social Change developed these recommendations with the support of Democracy Fund Voice, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping America build a stronger, healthier democracy.
Recommendations
Misuse of the Legal and Administrative System
To address the root causes and mitigate the negative impacts of malicious litigation on election integrity, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Swift Justice: Encourage organizations and bodies with disciplinary authority to take swift action against groups, attorneys, and law firms who have advanced malicious litigation.
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Legal Education: Invest in legal education to better teach professional responsibility and support professional development opportunities for students in order to train the next generation of lawyers to fulfill their role as guardians of democracy, elections and the Constitution.
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Protect Election Offices from Litigation: Invest in capacity building, and legal advocacy to better protect election offices from malicious litigation.
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Resources for Legal Advocacy: Invest in resources to support groups who track, report on, or carry out legal advocacy challenging malicious litigation.
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Equipping the Courts: Invest in research to understand how the courts can more effectively deal with malicious litigations.
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Stakeholder Engagement: Engage key stakeholders in the process of developing solutions to the problem of malicious litigation.
To address the root causes and mitigate the negative impacts of abuses of the freedom of information (FOI) system, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Evaluate FOI Policy Changes: Invest in policy research to understand how potential changes to FOI laws and policies will impact public access to information, and in particular, the negative knock-on consequences of policy changes.
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Proactively Release Information: Invest in training, data infrastructure, staffing, and other forms of capacity building that enable election offices to proactively release more election-related information, which can allow offices to head-off vexatious or duplicative requests.
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Boost FOI Efficiency: Invest in training, data infrastructure, staffing, and other forms of capacity building that enable election offices to process and respond to FOI requests more efficiently and effectively.
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Pilot State-Level FOI Changes: Invest in research and policy advocacy to pilot administrative changes designed to limit vexatious FOI requests.
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Understand FOI Challenges: Fund research and further engagement with experts to fully understand the scope of the problem.
To address overarching, existing problems and anticipate future challenges related to election integrity, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Support Underresourced Local Election Offices: Invest in improving administrative processes, filling funding gaps, and providing local election offices (LEOs) with the resources they need to continue to run elections with minimal errors and disruptions.
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Predicting Future Threats: Invest in research, and provide sustained funding to on-the-ground organizations, to enable the election protection groups to anticipate, and prepare to respond, to future election subversion campaigns.
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Community Engagement: Engage communities and build coalitions to ensure that the voices of key stakeholders are represented in funding decisions related to election administration.
To enable better forecasting of acts of violence, improve threat response, reduce the effectiveness of violence as a political tool, and mitigate harms caused by violence, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Early Warning Response Systems: Invest in Early Warning Response Systems (EWRS) – tools which use data and research findings to predict instances of violence – with an emphasis on rapidly delivering intelligence about threats to elections groups working at the local level.
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De-escalation Training: Invest in de-escalation training for election officials to equip them with strategies to prepare for and effectively respond to potentially violent incidents.
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Legislative Protections: Explore how changes to law – such as better protections for the personal identifying information of election officials and judges, or introducing stiffer penalties for threats targeting public servants – could prevent acts of violence.
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Collaborate with Law Enforcement: Invest in building stronger relationships among elected officials and law enforcement to allow law enforcement to better anticipate, prepare for, and respond to violent threats and actions.
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Longitudinal Data Collection: Invest in longitudinal data collection about violent threats, attitudes, political beliefs that justify violence, and other data related to violence to better understand the risk of violence and make better predictions. Collecting data about violent acts alone is insufficient.
To address the root causes that promote election-related violence and reduce acceptance for political violence, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Research Collaborative on Messaging: Fund a multidisciplinary research collaborative to develop and test effective messaging strategies, borrowing from successful campaigns in other domains, and designed to combat the spread of anti-democratic ideas.
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Counter Online Hate Speech: Fund efforts to proactively respond to and counter online hate speech that fuels violence.
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Resilient Election Administration: Support more transparent, resilient, and bipartisan election administration practices that build public confidence in electoral procedures and outcomes.
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Civic Engagement: Invest in civic engagement projects that get citizens more involved in elections, helping to educate and build trust in the electoral process.
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Address Social Media Misinformation: Explore how to engage with social media companies in developing and implementing solutions to stop the spread of misinformation on their platforms which fuels election violence.
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Congress’s Role: Advocate for Congress to take a leading role in combating violent threats and acts against election officials.
To ensure that the grantmaking process is both equitable and effective, philanthropic organizations and governments should:
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Center Local Communities – in particular, communities of color and other groups who have historically been targeted by political violence – in grantmaking decisions around election violence.
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Sustained Funding: Provide sustained funding that allows groups to work on election violence issues continuously across election cycles.
To learn more, visit smartercrowdsourcing.org
