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Securing Confidence to Vote and in Our Votes: What Might be Done before 2026 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-10

(an update of an article that appeared in open.substack.com/...)

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." Abraham Lincoln, 1838 (Lincoln, 1838)

"Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves - and the only way they could do this is by not voting." Franklin D. Roosevelt (Roosevelt, 1944)

"To vote is not only your right - it is your duty if you are indeed citizens." Theodore Roosevelt (Roosevelt, 1905)

"In our democracy, the only title that matters is citizen." Jimmy Carter (Carter, 1977)

"Suffrage is the pivotal right." Susan B. Anthony (Anthony, 1873)

"What matters is not who votes, but who counts the votes."

Donald J. Trump, as quoted in The Washington Post, April 28, 2023.

Introduction

The United States appears to be moving toward a model of governance marked by expanded executive power and increased surveillance, with diminished checks from the legislative and judicial branches (Mallin & Dwyer, 2024; Martinez, 2024). At the same time, economic inequality has surged, with the wealthiest 1 percent reportedly capturing as much as $50 trillion in value from the broader working public (Tankersley, 2020). These trends, authoritarian drift and wealth concentration, can undermine public trust in democratic institutions, including elections, especially if voters feel both powerless and surveilled. Voter confidence is eroding (Leven, 2024). Americans of every political persuasion should care deeply about whether our elections continue to reflect the collective will of the people. In times of great political uncertainty, the health of democracy depends not only on individuals being confident to vote as they wish, the act of actual voting, and on widespread public belief in the integrity of the vote.

Voting is not just a right; it is a civic act that must remain safe, private, and meaningful. Yet if voters perceive that casting a ballot could risk their health, their job, or their family’s safety, the act of voting may be deterred. That perception erodes the confidence to vote as one wishes, needed for democracy to thrive.

This paper lays out how states, especially those with adequate resources and political will, can safeguard the mechanisms of voting and restore confidence. It draws on successful models, court rulings, and tested technologies. Above all, it briefly explains each recommendation in plain language, ensuring accessibility for every citizen regardless of educational background.

Amid rising concerns about election security and public trust, the United States faces a critical challenge before the 2026 midterms: how to ensure not only that every vote is counted accurately, but that voters believe the election results. In an era of polarized narratives, federal overreach, and emerging technologies, election integrity can no longer be defined solely by ballot accuracy; it must also encompass voter privacy, data protection, and trust in the electoral process itself.

Why Accuracy Alone Is Not Enough

Much of the debate over elections correctly focuses on whether ballots are accurately recorded and counted. But confidence in outcomes also depends on something more foundational: whether voters feel safe to participate at all. When citizens suspect that their registration information, party affiliation, or turnout history may be fed into a federal database and cross-referenced with tax, medical, and social media data, they may conclude that voting is no longer a private act; instead it may be perceived as a risk. In that context, even the duty to vote, the duty of all citizens underscored by Theodore Roosevelt, may feel like a risk. Citizens must feel their votes are private in order for them to vote what they feel is best, rather than what they may feel the government might prefer (Orwell, 1949).

While robust empirical studies on this relationship are limited, preliminary research suggests that perceived government surveillance may suppress political participation, especially among marginalized communities (Stoycheff, 2016; Panagopoulos & Green, 2015). This remains an emerging field requiring further empirical validation, though caution is warranted given the chilling effects observed in other domains of political expression. Surveillance and observation have been documented to have continuous and long-term effects even when conducted on nonhuman primates (Williamson & Feistner, 2003).

From Lincoln’s Republic to the Age of Surveillance

In Abraham Lincoln’s time, Washington had no practical way to track how citizens registered, affiliated, or voted. Most voters were "needles in a haystack" far beyond the notice of the methods of the time. Today, with massive databases and computational power to organize them, every "needle" can be found. A growing federal apparatus seeks to consolidate identity, party, and behavioral data under the banner of "election integrity." Executive orders and the Project 2025 agenda propose linking voter rolls to federal databases such as the IRS, Social Security, and DHS, forming a centralized "citizenship file" capable of flagging individuals based on voting history or political views.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt might caution in our time, surrendering the civic power to vote, whether through silence or fear, can open the door to democratic collapse. Data accumulation and misuse may even begin to intimidate voters the way burning crosses once did (Stein, 2024).

Recent reporting by Barrett and Corasaniti (2025) reveals that the Department of Justice has begun investigations into how voting data has been handled, suggesting that voter information may already have been misused or improperly shared. Handing this information to the DOJ may provide further voter details to add to their increased data on citizens (Kinzinger, 2025).

Certainly with Trump stating flatly that he hates Democrats (NBC News, 2024), registered Democrats may begin to wonder how their party affiliation could be negatively used across databases containing income, taxes, property ownership, insurance, Social Security payments, and medical care.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

Modern profiling tools may allow artificial intelligence to infer political affiliation from social media behavior, online purchases, and even AI conversations. These tools, once confined to marketing or national security, can be deployed in the domestic civic space, with the potential to profile voters based on political identity. This chilling expansion threatens not just the privacy of the vote, but the willingness of citizens to engage in the democratic process at all.

The Constitutional Role of the States

Under the Elections Clause (U.S. Const. art. I, § 4) and the Tenth Amendment, the administration of elections is a state responsibility. States therefore may serve as a constitutional firewall against improper federal intrusion. In this moment, they can help protect Americans' right and security in voting by protecting voter identity. States have the power to set boundaries on how voter data is stored, linked, and accessed. Notably voter party affiliation seems like something that should be kept out of aggregated data bases on American Citizens.

Project 2025 calls for overriding state discretion through federal enforcement mechanisms such as DOJ and DHS, asserting that states with "noncompliant" voting systems should be compelled to adopt federal standards (Project 2025, 2023, p. 829). While the goal is uniformity, this federal encroachment could be used to suppress state-level efforts to expand ballot access, weaponizing "standardization" to disqualify opposition-leaning voters.

While states oversee election administration, the federal government has historically played a vital role in enforcing voting rights and defending against cyber threats. The Voting Rights Act and, more recently, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s role in election infrastructure protection exemplify this balance.

From Casting to Counting: Why Confidence Must Endure Beyond the Ballot Box

While much emphasis is placed on motivating citizens to vote, confidence in the electoral process must also encompass faith in the accurate and trustworthy counting of those votes. Yet in recent years, that confidence has been significantly undermined by both disinformation and real-world vulnerabilities.

Most notably, Donald Trump initiated the "Stop the Steal" narrative before the 2020 election, falsely alleging widespread fraud, an allegation repeatedly dismissed by courts, recounts, and investigations (Baker & Haberman, U.S. District Court, 2024). Despite this, the campaign persisted through the January 6 insurrection, and continued throughout his successful return to office in 2024.

In May 2024, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a New York state case involving hush-money payments during the 2016 election. Although he received an unconditional discharge, the conviction marked the first criminal sentencing of a U.S. president (United States v. Trump, 2024; Hosenball, 2024). Appeals are ongoing, and the conviction remains part of the public record.

Trump also faces two major unresolved legal cases stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election:

Federal charges: Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct an official proceeding. Although the case was paused after Trump returned to office, substantial evidence has been released to the public, and the legal questions remain active (Goudsward & Lynch, 2024; Volz, 2024).

Georgia RICO case: In Fulton County, Trump and 18 others were indicted under state racketeering laws for attempting to subvert the Georgia 2020 election. Several co-defendants have pleaded guilty, while Trump's case is on hold (State of Georgia v. Trump et al., 2023).

Beyond the courtroom, Trump's rhetoric erodes electoral confidence. At a July 2024 rally, he told Christian supporters that if they voted for him, "you won't have to vote in four years," adding, "we'll have it fixed so good" (Oliphant, 2024). Such statements raise red flags about the future of electoral participation under his administration and directly undermine the principle of recurring democratic accountability.

Further weakening trust, a known breach of voting system integrity occurred in Coffee County, Georgia, where Trump allies accessed Dominion Voting Systems software and made forensic copies. Many of the same machines remain in use today, without public audit or certified reconfiguration. A December 2023 letter from nearly two dozen computer scientists and election-security experts, highlighted by PBS NewsHour, warned that unauthorized forensic copies of voting-system software in multiple states pose serious threats to election and national security. The breaches involved major vendors whose systems collectively count over 70 percent of U.S. votes (Cassidy, 2023).

Adding to the concerns, a lawsuit in Rockland County, New York, brought by the nonprofit SMART Elections, has been allowed to proceed after Judge Rachel Tanguay found sufficient irregularities in 2024 election results to warrant discovery. The case, supported by voter affidavits and data analysis, targets inconsistencies in the vote counts for both the presidential and Senate races (Kika, 2024; SMART Elections, 2024).

Together, these developments, criminal convictions, pending legal proceedings, incendiary rhetoric, software vulnerabilities, and emerging lawsuits, create a climate in which many Americans now question whether their votes will be accurately counted or even matter. Restoring confidence before the 2026 election requires far more than civic encouragement; it demands structural reforms, transparent oversight, and constitutional fidelity.

Germany as a Precedent

Germany banned the use of electronic voting machines in 2024. Its Federal Constitutional Court—equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court, based the decision on Germany’s Basic Law, which holds that all essential aspects of an election must be open to public scrutiny. The ruling emphasized that citizens must be able to verify the core steps in their democratic process without needing expert knowledge.

The decision marked a national shift back to hand-counted paper ballots. It wasn’t just about technical accuracy. It was a declaration that elections must be auditable by ordinary citizens to preserve legitimacy and trust. As the court stated, trust in democratic institutions must not depend on proprietary software, hidden tabulators, or elite expertise.

By contrast, Project 2025 supports expanded use of proprietary election technologies that may not be open to public inspection or auditing (Project 2025, 2023, p. 839). Advocates argue that this promotes innovation and efficiency. Critics warn that it creates opaque systems where manipulation may go undetected, especially when combined with the dismantling of independent cybersecurity oversight bodies.

The German ruling gained new relevance after Finnish hacker Harri Hursti demonstrated in a 2024 live podcast how easily he could breach a U.S. voting machine still in use across multiple states (Levi, 2024). Hursti’s exploit echoed earlier warnings from DEF CON, where machines used in American elections were compromised in under two minutes. The German model reminds us that even secure systems may lose public confidence when they cannot be plainly observed and verified.

This concern parallels the Volkswagen emissions scandal in which cars were programmed to detect test conditions and modify performance to pass inspections—only to revert to noncompliant behavior under normal use. These "defeat devices" were explicitly designed to pass public scrutiny while misleading both regulators and consumers (Ewing, 2017). The lesson is that even sophisticated audits can be defeated by systems that anticipate them. Transparent design and external testing are essential.

Strengthening Machine Audit Integrity

To counter potential test-mode deception in voting machines:

Physical and software isolation: Audit machines must be fully offline, with no network, wireless, or external communications. Randomized deployment and surprise testing: Only bipartisan oversight boards should know audit details to prevent machines from predicting test conditions. Independent firmware verification: Use cryptographic checksums to verify firmware before and after audits. Forensic logging and playback: Maintain immutable logs for every action, matched to paper trails. Third-party red teaming: Invite ethical hackers to identify vulnerabilities before bad actors do. Decoy and "canary" ballots: Insert known ballots to detect manipulation. Open-source and/or reproducible builds: All software must be inspectable and compiled from publicly verified source.

These safeguards, if implemented with full bipartisan support and transparency, could reassure even the most skeptical voters.

Public Education and Civic Entertainment

Given the scale and complexity of these reforms, achieving them all before 2026 will be challenging. One approach to accelerate public engagement and institutional support is to make these processes visible and compelling through public television and streaming platforms. Voting machine vendors and election officials could collaborate to create televised test elections, bipartisan audits, and secure mock demonstrations in which average voters observe and participate.

These programs could double as civic education, showcasing trustworthy election practices and modeling good citizen behavior. Political parties might even be granted a number of surprise audits in each other’s strongholds, filmed and publicly broadcast, transforming accountability into prime-time civic engagement. The model resembles a reality show where transparency, not drama, takes center stage and where trust in democracy becomes a shared national narrative.

Public Vote Confidence Measures

To make the process more accessible and transparent for all voters, the following concrete measures are proposed. Each is explained in simple terms, with links for further information:

Voter‑Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs): Machines should print a paper copy of each vote. Voters check this paper before it is officially cast, and it is used for recounts.

Further information: Verified Voting. (2024). https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/ Risk‑Limiting Audits (RLAs): A small sample of ballots is randomly checked against the machine count to detect fraud or mistakes. If the ballots do not closely correspond to machine counts, this would trigger investigation and correction.

Further information: National Academies of Sciences. (2018). https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25120/securing-the-vote-protecting-american-democracy Ballot Tracking Systems: Voters get updates by email or text about when their mail ballot is received and counted.

Further information: California Secretary of State. (2024). https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-status Open‑Source Software and Independent Testing: Voting machines should use software that can be inspected and tested by outside experts.

Further information: Brennan Center for Justice. (2023). https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/securing-elections-open-source-software

Like other software, such as Windows, industry experts might be invited to search for potential weak points in security and accuracy. Related example: Levi, D. (2024, September 25). Finnish hacker Harri Hursti hacks U.S. voting machine on live podcast. https://techstartups.com/2024/09/25/finnish-hacker-harri-hursti-hacks-u-s-voting-machine-on-live-podcast/ Public Demonstration Audits: Let bipartisan groups vote in a demonstration election and verify that the machines count the votes correctly. These audits, while not definitive, can build trust—especially if they are timed and staged by representatives of opposing parties to surprise the machine and reduce the risk of manipulation. However, as the Volkswagen diesel scandal demonstrated, systems can be programmed to behave differently under expected test conditions (Ewing, 2017). Therefore, care must be taken to ensure that voting machines are disconnected from centralized updates, randomized in their audit locations, and handled under secure bipartisan observation. Voluntary Voter Verification Pre‑ or Post‑Election: Allow small, anonymous groups of voters to verify their votes were recorded correctly, either after the election or as part of supervised, surprise demonstrations beforehand. These staged verifications—especially if conducted by Republicans in blue districts and Democrats in red ones—could be filmed and broadcast as civic confidence events. Each party could be allowed a set number (e.g., 20) of such public integrity tests. These tests could function as reality‑TV style public accountability programs that encourage civic engagement. Equal Protection for Mail Voters: Let mail voters confirm their ballot was counted by scanning a receipt code or getting updates online. As with in‑person ballots, public filmed spot‑checks could help verify mail ballot integrity through bipartisan oversight. Canary Ballots: Introduce a small, known number of indistinguishable paper ballots into the system by bipartisan election observers from each party. These ballots, known only to human auditors, are designed to be completely undetectable by the voting machine as distinct from regular ballots. Post‑election, officials can verify whether the results of these ballots match their intended votes. This tactic, like the German emissions scandal workaround, is meant to detect if machines behave differently under ordinary conditions than they do under scrutiny.

Implementation Feasibility Before 2026

States already using Voter‑Verified Paper Audit Trails can adopt Risk‑Limiting Audits with modest upgrades. Tracking systems and public audits are achievable with modest investment. Open‑source testing can begin immediately through public universities. Public education and legal firewalls require only administrative guidance.

Measuring Success

Voter turnout rates

Risk‑limiting audit consistency

Polls on trust and voter confidence

Metrics on voter willingness to recommend participation

Conclusion: A Patriotic Duty

As Lincoln warned, America can only be destroyed from within. As Roosevelt affirmed, the most likely cause of democratic decline is a citizenry that fails to vote. States must act now to restore confidence. The steps are clear, lawful, and achievable, and the time to act is before the 2026 election.

References

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Barrett, D., & Corasaniti, N. (2025, July 2). Justice Department investigates voting data use under Trump‑era initiatives. The New York Times.

Brennan Center for Justice. (2023). Securing elections with open‑source software.

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