Christopher Arps: When Will Government Know-It-Alls Stop Interfering in Our Elections?

“No issue is more essential to this republic’s long-term health and viability than election integrity,” writes Project 21 Ambassador Christopher Arps in a commentary at RedState.

“That’s why I am so disheartened to see bureaucrats — both left and right-leaning ones —continuing to interfere in this election system that makes America great.”

Read Chris’s entire commentary below.

Call me crazy, but I still believe in the Constitution. I still believe in the ideals and principles the Founding Fathers outlined for our country. I think that the sanctity and durability of this democratic republic give the people of the United States more power over their personal affairs than any other form of government out there.

Christopher Arps

That’s why I am so disheartened to see bureaucrats — both left and right-leaning ones —continuing to interfere in this election system that makes America great.

The most recent example of these government know-it-alls putting their thumbs on the scales of American democracy came this month when the State of North Carolina’s Democratic-controlled Board of Elections attempted to do presumed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris a solid by keeping third-party presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and the Constitution Party’s Randall Terry off the state’s November ballot.

Although these candidates had more than enough voter signatures to qualify, unelected bureaucrats outright rejected the initial requests to certify the parties associated with these nominees.

Thankfully, the GOP-controlled legislature aggressively pushed back, summoning the Board of Elections for hearings and creating the foundation of a massive media and public pressure campaign that ultimately strong-armed the state into at least partly reversing course, in which it granted Kennedy and the Constitution Party ballot access.

Hearings and lawsuits regarding how the Board of Elections handled this matter continue. This is excellent because no issue is more essential to this republic’s long-term health and viability than election integrity.

While members of the Democratic Party appear to mobilize these crony, backhand tactics to short-circuit the democratic progress more than the right, power-hungry, unelected right-leaning bureaucrats are not without their faults either.

Look no further than Arkansas, where the state refused to count the signatures on a proposed petition that would allow voters to consider an abortion amendment on their November ballots. If I was an Arkansas resident, would I vote yes on this effort, which would permit abortion in the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, among other cases, such as rape or incest? No, but I wouldn’t interfere with the referendum process either. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Secretary of State John Thurston did.

Earlier this month, the state’s Supreme Court found that “Despite the petition’s organizers securing over 100,000 signatures” — more than required to get the vote on November’s ballots — the state failed to “perform an initial count of the signatures” even though it is, “at a minimum, required to perform an initial count of all signatures before making a sufficiency determination.” It ordered state leaders to count each of the 100,000 signatures on this petition by this upcoming Monday.

I understand that political tensions are high, but political differences should never become more significant than the broader principles, values, and beliefs that make us Americans — election integrity being one of them.

For generations, Americans’ love for the principles found within the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was more substantial than any differences they had.

During the great presidential election of 1800 — the first election the country faced without the unifying force of George Washington, who was elected unanimously — John Adams and Thomas Jefferson set a precedent that ensured this.

Despite partisan division running higher than ever before at the time, with Adams and Jefferson mudslinging each other with scorched-earth colorful names like a “hideous hermaphroditical character” and a “mean-spirited, low-lived fellow,” the two candidates decided that while Americans may go by “different names” (or political affiliations), above all, they were “brethren of the same principle.” In other words, the truths in the Declaration and Constitution that they found to be self-evident were more vital than the more considerable election differences of opinion that divided them.

Adams and Jefferson didn’t try to interfere in the election process. They didn’t try to get their way by putting their thumbs on the scale of justice. Instead, they respected the will of the people and the process. Things stayed peaceful, and, by and large, America’s elections remained that way for over two centuries.

Americans can be “brethren” again today, but only if they respect the precedents and procedures that make this democratic republic hum. If this mindset shift worked for America during the start of this nation’s two-party system, it can work for it today. Let’s try it as we prepare for November’s upcoming local, state, and federal elections.

Christopher Arps is an ambassador with the Project 21 black leadership network and a managing partner with the public affairs and communications consulting firm Red Tail Strategies. This was originally published at RedState.