Sue Lani Madsen: Resolved: Voter fraud is a major problem in U.S. elections.

Last week, over 1,500 Americans attended a virtual debate on election integrity. Debaters were passionate yet civil. The moderator simply moderated. There was minimal impugning of motives and no personal attacks. It was delightfully refreshing. And the event proved it’s possible to discuss a question so contentious that even the brave souls of Braver Angels agonized over having the debate at all.

Braver Angels was formed following the 2016 election by a group of 10 Trump supporters and 11 Clinton supporters in Ohio, first under the name Better Angels. The organization is committed to evenly matched “red/blue” leadership teams at both the national and regional level.

The goal of a Braver Angels debate is for speakers to be their authentic selves, listen well and demonstrate disagreeing respectfully. On March 4 the question was: Resolved: Voter fraud is a major problem in U.S. elections.

The resolution was carefully framed to make room for voices believing the 2020 election was stolen, those believing the election was free and fair, and those who suspiciously see voter fraud claims as a smoke screen for voter suppression. John Wood Jr., national ambassador for Braver Angels, said in an email prior to the event that an “alternative to this is the continuing siloing of the American people into the echo-chambers that incubate ignorance, institutional decline and eventually violence.”

Some saw it as a confirmation of Braver Angels’ seriousness about depolarizing political debate; others questioned giving a platform to claims of a stolen election. But in an earlier podcast discussing whether to even have the debate, Wood pointed out “views that we don’t agree with still have a life,” and the only way to interrupt a narrative is to bring it out of its echo chamber to be examined.

Arguments for the affirmative emphasized that disbelief and insecurity about the 2020 election is not going to fade away without examination any more than the claims of Russian interference have faded. Ballots coming in with only a presidential vote and no down-ballot votes raised suspicion. Higher voter turnout in parts of Wisconsin than in Australia under mandatory voting was hard to believe. Court cases dismissed primarily on procedural grounds have left too many open questions. There was personal testimony of seeing flagrant fraud in Orange County, California. Ballots mailed to inactive voters in Colorado were ripe for harvesting, pointing to the need for clean voter rolls. Fraud was defined to encompass interference with poll watchers, ballots added after the deadline, dead people voting – more than a dozen different irregularities, not all within the legal definition of fraud but all capable of causing doubt.

The first speaker for the negative position admitted no system is perfect. She cited detailed statistics on the rarity of fraud from the Heritage Foundation and the Brennan Center, and a 2002 study concluding fraud is “infinitesimal.” She spoke to voter suppression as a century-old problem and the need to remove barriers, although she didn’t cite barriers with specificity.

But even infinitesimal fraud can be a problem in close races, said a speaker from Colorado. Three 2020 congressional races were decided by margins of 6, 109 and 333 votes. The bottom line is every person who can legally vote should have that right and the means to do it but we can’t solve voter suppression by allowing voter fraud. The question rests on where to draw the line between preventing fraud and maximizing voter access.

It became clear that the lack of common definitions contributes to the lack of trust. Voter fraud in the narrow legal sense is rare but irregularities will always be with us, and problems in 2020 were compounded in states where systems and rules were changed during the election period. Voter suppression is used to describe both general discouragement from being in the minority party, whether in a red or a blue state, and what are perceived as confusing rules and needless hoops to jump through.

Assuming we all want election integrity, what’s next to build trust? Stop calling maintenance of voter rolls an effort in voter suppression. Find an alternative to signature verification to adapt to a new generation that only knows block printing. Make rules well before elections and stick to them. Don’t assume ill intent behind every rule proposal; recognize we need rules. Take personal responsibility to educate yourself on how to vote. Update poll watching from systems designed for people counting pieces of paper to effectively audit the hidden operations of software.

And a final word from a Braver Angel: “Can’t answer for 2016, don’t know the truth about 2020 but have to make sure we are never asking this question again.”

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com