More and more people are working together to preserve and protect American Democracy and its institutions from increasing internal threats. One such pro-democracy group in Pennsylvania consists of a former governor, as well as former state and federal lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
Editor’s Note: At Postindustrial, we’ve not only featured some of the new groups working to defend democracy against those who seek to undermine it, but we’ve also worked with them to promote their causes.
Considering one of the building blocks of any democracy is a free and fair news media, we consider it part of our responsibility at Postindustrial to highlight organizations that work to defend our constitutional right to free expression.
America's confidence in the electoral system is shaken, and we believe it is critical that all voters, regardless of how they choose to vote, can trust the process.
Restoring faith and confidence in the sacred privilege of voting is why we are a part of the Democracy Defense Project.
This new organization was created to defend the transparency, safety, security, and validity of our nation’s electoral system. As the Democracy Defense Project board, we will work in a bipartisan manner to protect our electoral system from subversion and distrust while looking at ways to enhance our already well-functioning system.
Having highly qualified board members from across the ideological spectrum without our own personal or political agendas positions us to call out attempts to undermine faith in our democratic systems, regardless of political affiliation.
We will speak up when we see problems in the system or attempts to undermine faith in our election processes. When we see politicians, whether on the left or right, intentionally sowing mistrust and doubt for personal or partisan gain, we will call that out, too. We also will ensure that efforts to undermine the election and spread electoral misinformation are quashed.
This group isn’t for or against any candidate or political party. It exists to cut through the noise and defend lawful election processes so people can confidently cast their ballots and have faith in the results.
That is why we are doing everything possible to learn about our election process from those who oversee it, including meeting with Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, the chief election administrator in the Commonwealth.
We participated in an informative and detailed discussion on Pennsylvania’s processes for administering elections and on addressing misinformation that creates unnecessary challenges for election administrators.
The biggest takeaway for us from this meeting, as with all that we’ve participated in, was that all voters in the Commonwealth should have confidence in our election system when they cast their ballots.
While Election Day is less than 74 days away, we know that this mission will not end on Nov. 5. We intend to continue working to rebuild faith in our election process because our nation deserves it.
Regardless of your political affiliation, you should expect candidates, officials, and interest groups to hold our democratic principles and systems in the highest regard.
America’s free and fair elections are the envy of the world. They can remain the gold standard if we unite behind preserving and defending the integrity of our electoral system.
