[MUSIC PLAYING] Image this: In America, the place your voice issues equally, as a lot as anybody else’s, the place your voice carries the identical weight, regardless of who you’re, the place you’re from or what you’ve gotten. That’s the promise of democracy: one individual, one vote. Sounds easy, proper? However it’s revolutionary. And proper now, that promise is in peril. It began in earnest in 2020, when falsehoods unfold about our elections turned a part of a calculated effort to undermine our collective voice. Since then, election deniers have been telling People that thousands and thousands of votes are being forged illegally, by lifeless folks, by folks coming in from outdoors the border, by folks stuffing drop containers with unlawful ballots. Election deniers introduced these claims to court docket and misplaced in over 60 instances earlier than judges of each events, but the lies persist and have exploded into violence. We noticed this play out within the occasions of Jan. 6, when individuals who believed within the lies tried to disrupt the peaceable switch of energy. It additionally hit nearer to residence. Just some weeks after that, somebody claiming the election was stolen fired gunshots right into a marketing campaign headquarters proper right here in Montgomery County, throughout the road from my workplace. My identify is Neil Makhija. Right here within the battleground of Pennsylvania, I’ve been a part of a brand new era of election officers who’re making an attempt to fight the assaults on our democracy. I used to be born the son of immigrants and grew up in a small coal and metal city. I noticed firsthand that, whereas my household was totally different, we held shared values of onerous work and alternative in widespread with all of our neighbors. I additionally noticed how simply our communities could possibly be divided over variations. By 2020, I used to be instructing election legislation in Philadelphia. I needed to clarify to my college students why some people have been making an attempt to throw out thousands and thousands of legally forged votes in Pennsylvania. I knew I couldn’t simply educate about these things anymore. I needed to do one thing. So I ran for workplace, and in 2023 I gained. Now, as a Montgomery County commissioner, I oversee the elections for 865,000 folks. I turned the primary Asian American to carry this place in all of Pennsylvania’s historical past. My fellow commissioner Jamila Winder is the primary Black girl. We live proof of what democracy can appear like. Once I took workplace as chair of the Board of Elections, I discovered that the lies about our elections had turn into worse than ever. Each public assembly is now stuffed with conspiracy theories. However right here’s what I’ve discovered. Our elections are safe. You usually tend to get struck by lightning than to search out voter fraud. Right here’s why. We have now layers of safety to make sure that nobody can vote greater than as soon as. And beginning when an individual registers to vote, we ensure that they’re eligible residents, over 18 by Election Day. Whether or not you vote in individual or by mail, there are full paper trails each step of the best way. Mail-in poll envelopes are stamped with distinctive bar codes. They are often safely returned by way of safe drop containers, that are monitored 24/7. Our county voter companies and sheriffs handle extremely safe every day pickups of the ballots. And each single poll is scanned and stored protected and safe. After every election, we conduct a number of public audits to detect any irregularities. If we do detect a difficulty or if it’s only a very shut election, the legislation requires a full recount. Pulling off widespread voter fraud with 10,000 totally different domestically run elections throughout the nation could be like making an attempt to rob each financial institution in America on the similar time. It’s simply not occurring. In my county alone, on Election Day, we have now 2,700 ballot employees throughout 430 precincts. These are your folks and neighbors of all events, working collectively to assist everybody vote. Witnessing the unimaginable care that goes into guaranteeing everybody has the prospect to vote, most county officers will appropriately certify an election. If our elections are this safe, the reality is, none of those lies have been about election integrity. It’s at all times been about energy. American democracy began with simply 6 % of individuals being eligible to vote. It took generations upon generations of activists subjecting themselves to violent opposition to increase voting rights to girls, to folks of colour and younger folks, to a majority of our nation. These rights have been onerous gained. There are some who’re afraid of democracy in an ever-evolving, inclusive America. They’re a part of a shrinking minority that desires to entrench itself in energy and enact insurance policies that set us again to a time once we had no rights. As a substitute of celebrating report voter participation, lately, antidemocracy politicians have run for workplace, particularly to introduce legal guidelines making it tougher for us to vote. They proceed to lie in regards to the safety of our course of and even go so far as to disclaim the certification of free and truthful elections. Inevitably, this results in violence. This isn’t simply an assault on voting. It’s a part of an assault on the American preferrred that all of us deserve a voice. To guard democracy, we are able to’t simply play protection. We have to go on offense to increase voting rights and entry. We will make early voting simpler, present language help, assist neighborhood voting facilities. We will even deliver cell polling locations to senior facilities or faculty campuses the place voters don’t drive. We want a motion in each nook of the nation to have a good time our hard-won proper to vote. It’s time to step up and assist those that will maintain sacred our democratic course of, who will reject violence and settle for the result of elections, regardless of the outcome. The overwhelming majority of us agree on this as a result of, in the long run, that is greater than a coverage debate. America is on the cusp of one thing unprecedented, a very multiracial, inclusive democracy, the place we respect our variations and our rights, the place our highest courts and halls of energy actually search to characterize the perfect pursuits of everybody. That’s by no means existed earlier than — not right here, not wherever. That America is inside our grasp at this second. However it might slip away. That is the dream we’ve been chasing since 1776. It’s now as much as us to make it actual.
