How our democracy survives the 2024 election

We’re even more prepared and resilient than we were in 2020

We already know a lot about how this presidential election is likely to go. 

Election workers will carefully prepare ballots to be mailed to voters, distributed at early voting locations, or used on Election Day. Millions of Americans will cast their ballots by one of those means. Hundreds of thousands of election workers will assist voters at polling places and then, after polls close, turn their attention to counting and tabulating ballots in local, state, and federal races. And eventually, we will learn the results — perhaps not on Election Night, but certainly within a few days or a week.

We also know that this process will once again be the target of many of the election subversion tactics that were used to undermine (and then try to overturn) the 2020 election. There will likely be frivolous lawsuits. We expect (in fact, are already seeing) mass challenges to voter registrations. Various elected officials may baselessly (and illegally) refuse to certify results. If Trump loses, there may be pressure on state electors or another campaign to try to get Congress to interfere with the results. We may even see violent and intimidating behavior (again), especially around polling places, drop boxes, and counting locations. 

None of these subversion tactics will work — at least in the sense that they are unlikely to prevent a free and fair election from taking place. 

But that’s not necessarily the issue. 

Many of these efforts are designed to cast doubt on the result, particularly if the race is close and Donald Trump does not win. And on that front these tactics could very well succeed at further eroding our trust in the system — especially after four years of concerted effort to do just that. 

So. Because the biggest threats stem from eroded trust, we believe our democracy can survive this election the same way it survived the 2020 election: by being prepared, informed, and resilient. 

Preparation can prevent subversion

Some reassurance before anything else: our election system has been stress tested since 2020 and is now arguably more prepared than it has been for any presidential election ever. 

For example, the Electoral Count Reform Act, passed by Congress in 2022, has clarified the process for states to certify their presidential election results, limited states’ ability to appoint electors contrary to the will of the voters, and updated the rules (originally written in 1887) that Congress will follow in counting electoral votes. 

Additionally, most of the key levers of power are controlled by people who have demonstrated commitment to a free and fair election. At the federal level, the Biden administration has never signaled it would insert itself into the election process by, for example, deploying the National Guard. (Vice President Harris has already committed to a neutral role in the Congressional vote-counting process.) At the state level, while election deniers did make a play for positions that have some control over the election process (like secretary of state and governor), in 2022 voters in swing states overwhelmingly rejected them. 

And, most importantly, we’ve had a bunch of trial runs since 2020. 

In 2022, a federal court blocked an effort to intimidate voters who were lawfully casting ballots using dropboxes. Every election has ultimately been certified — even if it took a court order to make it happen. And when election deniers have sought to overturn election results in court, their bogus claims have been consistently rejected. Each of those examples illustrate how the election system can hold — and they’ve made us even more prepared for the fall.

Knowledge can preempt disinformation

At the same time, the high levels of distrust in our election system remain a vulnerability. 

How do we combat this doubt? By learning the facts about the system, and the safeguards that are built into it. We all need to be educating ourselves and the people who trust us about how the process works, so that election-related disinformation loses its grip on the American electorate. 

We can already predict a number of the claims that anti-democratic actors will make during the 2024 election cycle. So if we recognize that voter fraud is extremely rare, and we understand how states clean their voter rolls, we are unlikely to entertain allegations that non-citizens, dead people, or other ineligible voters are casting ballots. If we understand in advance that election certification is mandatory and states have mechanisms outside the certification process to address irregularities, we will worry a little less about counties refusing to certify results this year. And if we learn how election officials test and verify voting equipment, we can dismiss calls for expensive, unreliable hand counts and generally ignore conspiracy theories about hacking. 

While it can seem daunting to discern accurate, trustworthy information in today’s noisy media landscape, we have a few suggestions. A great place to start is the website for your state’s chief election officer (usually the Secretary of State) or the election administrators in your county. Better yet, sign up to be a poll worker and learn while serving your community. You can also receive updates and analysis from the National Task Force on Election Crises, a cross-partisan group of some of the country’s premier election experts which, among other things, helped the nation brace itself for the “red mirage” in 2020. 

Resilience can overcome panic

At Protect Democracy, we often remind ourselves that, in high stakes situations, panic is one of the most dangerous instincts. 

Hard to think of a situation where this is more true than around elections. 

Over the coming months, crazy things will happen. There will be moments of chaos, anger, and misinformation. There will be moments where we’re all feeling panic. But just because something feels like a crisis doesn’t mean it necessarily will be. 

Our election system is built with a variety of safeguards, and even if those are breached, there will be processes in place to resolve and respond to genuine crises. 

So the final thing you can do to help our democracy survive this election? Stay calm. 

Resist engaging with chaos. Focus on your role in the election and the pro-democracy ecosystem (and if you don’t feel like you have one, again, consider signing up to be a poll worker). When in doubt, take a break — go take a walk or play with your pets or kids. Remember what it’s all about. 

The biggest priority for our democracy this year is conducting a free and fair election, regardless of who wins. (You may want to remind yourself of that sometimes: while electing a would-be autocrat could lead to democracy dying, failing to hold a free and fair election would mean democracy has already died.) 

And above all, don’t lose hope. The antidote to distrust — just like the antidote to despair, fear, and indeed authoritarianism — is hope.