OPINION:
The 2024 election was a resounding victory for election integrity. Not only did red state voting laws again deliver smooth, high-turnout elections in places such as Georgia and Florida, voters overwhelmingly embraced election integrity ballot measures and rejected proposed left-wing voting reforms. Across the country, Americans turned out in support of laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
In eight states — Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin — voters passed ballot measures to ban noncitizen voting, most garnering 70% support or more. This landslide victory sends a clear message that Americans believe voting is a right reserved for citizens.
The amendments close loopholes that left-wing politicians have exploited to argue that noncitizens and even illegal aliens can and should be able to vote in local elections. The District of Columbia and New York City have passed laws to do just that, though New York’s has stalled in court.
Even in battleground states such as North Carolina and Wisconsin, where Democrats saw some success in downballot races, voters strongly backed these measures. This demonstrates that election integrity is not a partisan issue but a fundamental principle that resonates across the political spectrum.
In Ohio, voters decisively rejected a measure designed to gerrymander the state for Democrats under the guise of creating an “independent” redistricting commission. The measure raised nearly $40 million from left-wing groups, including $6.7 million in funds tied to a foreign billionaire. Fortunately, Ohio lawmakers passed a law to stop this foreign funding, and Ohio voters backed them up by stopping foreign dark money.
Perhaps most telling was the outcome in Nevada, a state that has leaned left in recent years.
In 2021, Nevada’s Democratic-run Legislature rushed to make COVID-19’s loosened voting rules permanent, passing one of the most anti-election-integrity laws in the country. But on Nov. 5, the state’s voters pushed back hard, approving a photo ID requirement for in-person and mail-in voting, with an overwhelming 73% in favor of the measure, outperforming Donald Trump’s win by 22 points.
The Nevada result aligns with national sentiment, with a recent Gallup Poll showing that 84% of Americans support voter ID requirements. The measure must pass a second time to become law, but if it does, Nevada will be the 37th state to adopt a voter ID law. To put this in perspective, it takes 38 states to amend the Constitution. It is past time for the left to acknowledge the clear consensus for voter ID.
Initiatives to implement ranked choice voting in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Oregon went down in flames.
Missouri voters went further by preemptively banning the complex voting scheme. Ranked choice voting, or RCV, eliminates the “one person, one vote” principle and asks voters to rank multiple candidates for each race. If no candidate gets a majority, the one with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their ballots are redistributed to the voter’s next choice. This process repeats until someone claims a majority.
Studies show that RCV discourages turnout and disproportionately harms minority voters. One thing it does well, though, is push politics to the left. That’s why liberal billionaires and dark money groups spent roughly $100 million this year to sell RCV to skeptical Americans. Voters didn’t buy it, and liberal groups failed to pass a single statewide measure.
Election integrity won big at the polls and by an even greater margin than Mr. Trump’s victory. Election integrity has a mandate from America’s voters. States should waste no time implementing strong photo ID requirements, cleaning up bloated voter rolls, banning ranked choice voting and stopping foreign money in elections.
Congress, meanwhile, should pass the SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship for federal elections and reform antiquated and Byzantine voting laws that hinder states’ ability to keep elections clean and honest.
Liberal politicians and the media will attack these policies as “voter suppression.” They always do. Liberals smeared Florida, Georgia, Texas and other red states over the last four years for passing laws that made it easier to vote but harder to cheat. But those laws again delivered smooth, high-turnout elections, and we got results on election night.
Contrast that to the liberal model of California, where officials still have more than 300,000 votes to count several weeks after the election. The better option is clear.
The 2024 election has shown that given the choice, voters overwhelmingly support commonsense measures to protect the integrity of our elections. The message from the voters is clear: Our democracy is strongest when our elections are secure and transparent and the outcomes are decided by American citizens.
• Jason Snead is executive director of the Honest Elections Project. Paul Teller is executive vice president of Advancing American Freedom.
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