Matt Blumenthal

Senator Mae Flexer and I wrote an op-ed in the Hartford Courant last week raising urgent concerns about federal interference in state elections and noting the steps we are taking to protect Connecticut’s democracy. Check it out below. 

Federal agents recently descended on Georgia state election offices without warning, seizing equipment, records, and ballots. Purportedly, they are investigating the 2020 presidential election. But Georgia’s results were exhaustively verified by machine and manual recounts, a signature audit, and multiple court cases and investigations. This raid on Georgia’s election facilities should alarm every American. Even more disturbing is the news that President Donald Trump was directly involved. Bizarrely, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has no elections-related or law-enforcement authority, was on the scene. She directly connected Trump and the federal agents by phone. This would be shocking for any president. But Trump isn’t just any president. He’s the one who attempted to overturn that very same election by strong-arming Georgia elections officials to “find 11,780 votes,” conspiring to have fake electors submit fraudulent certificates to the electoral college, and pressuring the Georgia House Speaker to convene a special session to fraudulently reverse the results. And now he wants Republicans to “take over the voting” and “nationalize” our elections. Translation: he wants to control ballot boxes across America.

This is a raw power grab. The U.S. Constitution has always given the states control over election administration. This has allowed them to serve as laboratories of electoral democracy. It is a crucial check against an authoritarian takeover. Trump wants to dismantle that firewall. Here in Connecticut, we can’t afford to become a target. We have a duty to protect our voters, election workers, and democratic process. As co-chairs of the General Assembly’s Government Administration & Elections Committee, we’re introducing legislation to do just that. First, Connecticut must establish clear legal protections for our polling places and election infrastructure. No federal official—or anyone else—should have access to our polling locations, election offices, or ballots without explicit authorization from Connecticut election officials or appropriate judicial oversight. Our legislation prohibits unauthorized law enforcement activity within set distances of polling and elections locations without a judicial warrant. It also prevents anyone, including federal officials, from improperly accessing ballots or sensitive election infrastructure. These measures are vital to maintain public trust, prevent voter intimidation, and ensure that our elections can be administered securely, fairly, and transparently. Second, we must protect Connecticut voter data. Your voter registration information and personal data belongs to you. It is held in trust by the state of Connecticut. It should not be accessible to private entities or federal officials seeking to interfere with our elections—or engage in voter suppression or intimidation. We should carefully regulate the accessibility of private voter information, allowing for sharing only under limited circumstances with judicial oversight. Third, we need a comprehensive ban on deepfakes in Connecticut elections. Artificial intelligence has given bad actors an incredibly powerful tool to deceive voters. We’ve already seen deepfake videos of candidates saying things they never said, audio recordings of phone calls that never happened, and images designed to mislead voters at crucial moments before elections. They can quickly go viral on social media. The danger is bad enough in national elections. But state and local elections are even more susceptible: campaigns operate on low budgets with little media exposure. A misleading deepfake could easily cause irreversible harm. This would allow malign actors to interfere in our elections. Our legislation would make it illegal to create or distribute deepfakes about candidates or election procedures within 90 days of an election unless they’re labeled as artificial or are satire protected by the First Amendment. Some may claim these measures are unnecessary, that we’re overreacting, that it won’t happen here. But many said the same about the chaos and violence being perpetrated in Minnesota today. No one saw this Georgia raid coming. A key Trump ally recently called for him to deploy ICE and troops to voting sites. The time to build a firewall is before the inferno—not when it’s already raging. Neither will these proposals interfere with legitimate federal law enforcement. Federal authorities properly investigating actual crimes will still have ready access to evidence with appropriate judicial oversight. Connecticut has a proud tradition of protecting civil rights and democratic participation. We’ve worked hard in recent years to make our elections more accessible and more secure. Now we must make them more resistant to interference. Two hundred and fifty years ago, our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to forge a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to democratic ideals. They ratified a constitution that gave the primary power to administer elections to the states. They described this structure as a bulwark against tyranny. They built it for a moment like this one. They gave us the power—and the duty—to protect the democracy they forged, and countless heroes died to defend. We must act to preserve it now.