Secretary Adams testifies before Senate committee, says biggest threat to elections is misinformation

Staff report

Secretary of State Michael Adams appeared virtually before the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration Tuesday and told members that the biggest threat to our election system is misinformation – and it comes from both sides of the political aisle.

Adams, Kentucky’s Secretary of State and chief election official, was elected in 2019. He got his start in election policy as an intern in the Senate hearing room 22 years ago.

Yesterday, he was back virtually.

The news is not all bad, he told the committee.

Secretary Adams

“In Kentucky, voting has never been as accessible, nor as secure, as it is has been in the 21 months,” he said.

“Last year, 3 months after being sworn in, I asked our legislature to grant me, a Republican, and our Democratic governor, joint emergency powers to alter election procedures, as necessary, to ensure public safety in the pandemic, without sacrificing voter access or ballot integrity. We made absentee balloting more available and extended in-person voting well beyond the one election day Kentucky had from 1891 through 2019.”

The result, he said, was a primary election and a general election that each set records for turnout and created no spike in Covid-19 cases deriving from the in-person voting.

The Republican-controlled legislature subsequently voted nearly unanimously to make most of the temporary changes permanent – early voting, an absentee ballot request portal, dropboxes, and more.

The frustration, he said, is “the unwillingness of certain quarters, on both sides of the aisle, to accept the reality that our election process is accessible and secure.”

“In our current populist, anti-establishment political culture, part of this is organic, a reflexive refusal to believe anything somebody in the government says. This is not unique to elections, as we’ve seen with lagging vaccination rates,” he said.

And that is “driven, by political actors who perceive some benefit in misinforming voters.”

He decried the misinformation on both sides.

“In Kentucky, we election officials were subject to a misinformation campaign that resulted in numerous threats of violence and other verbal abuse,” he said. “I remain grateful to our Democratic governor for defending our state and calling out these lies.” He referred to a campaign claiming voter suppression.

“The first step in ensuring the safety of our election officials is to do no harm yourselves. Please, keep your rhetoric factual and responsible.”

Misinformation, he said, is the most serious threat our election system faces. It affects “the safety of election officials; willingness of election officials, including volunteer poll workers, to serve; voter turnout; polarization; and ultimately, the accepted legitimacy of our democratic system.”

Public officials generally are at risk, Adams said, acknowledging threats against U.S. legislators.

“In Kentucky, our Democratic governor has received threats from some on the far right: our Republican attorney general has received threats from some on the far left,” Adams said. “Even public health officials in our state have received threats, and my fear is that school board members will be next, if they aren’t already. This shows the problem is worse than we might think.”

He encouraged the group to play a “constructive role” by providing reliable, predictable funding to the states, chipping in a share of election costs alongside state and local election funding.

“These efforts have been bipartisan, and for that reason, accepted across the political spectrum.

“I have no wish that you pass any particular election laws going forward, but if you do, I hope you will do so in a non-ideological, bipartisan fashion, rather than furthering the polarization that plagues our politics.”