Jim Himes describes steps to ensure election integrity

Last week, Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, described a series of steps his Democratic colleagues would be taking to preserve the integrity of the upcoming mid-term election in the face of Republican attempts to overcome what is forecast to be a strong election turnout by Democrats. As Charlie Cook, the well-known political commentator, recently told Republicans, “The three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible.”

To counteract those outcomes, President Trump and national Republicans are challenging the mail-in ballot process, have jerrymandered congressional districts and, in Texas, have eliminated voting locations in areas with high percentages of Democratic voters. The attacks on mail-in ballots and other aspects of voting are meant to erode confidence in the outcome if Democrats succeed in winning the House, Senate or both.

“We know that there will very likely be challenges to the results of the November elections,” Himes wrote in a recent press release. “As we have painfully learned, claims of corruption, foreign meddling or improper participation in our elections can lead to disaster and challenge the fundamental tool of our democracy.”

In the release, he outlined a series of steps his Democratic colleagues will be taking to protect election integrity. They include: Actively planning to identify threats and develop response strategies; fighting voter suppression attempts and opposing legislation that would make it more difficult for millions of citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote; strategizing on what voter suppression attempts could be deployed and how to combat them; and supporting an existing program to send trained personnel to observe federal elections.

Additionally, as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Himes is demanding that the Intelligence community and the Director of Intelligence monitor and report any foreign attempts to affect the outcome; provide apolitical analyses of foreign threats to past and current elections, provide transparency on election security and move legislation that would require the release of election integrity assessments and protect the authors of the report from retaliation.