In addition to providing definitions of critical infrastructure that show the partisan and amnesiac nature of Republicans’ complaints about President Biden’s super-duper infrastructure plan, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency provides an excellent Rumor Control page that rebuts Republican lies about election fraud. But because Republicans seem to prefer fiction to fact and continue to peddle their Big Lie about rigged elections, eleven state election chiefs led by SOS Jena Griswold of Colorado have written a letter asking CISA and its parent Department of Homeland Security to counter the foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns that are undermining public confidence in American democracy:
There have been some good and bad days in the election community since November. On one hand, election officials successfully ran multiple elections during a pandemic. The general election was the most secure in recent history. On the other hand, because of disinformation, some Americans now lack confidence in the electoral process. This is unfortunate and extremely concerning. Elections are a core pillar of our democracy. Without confidence in the system, our country faces great challenges ahead.
But these problems do not mean CISA’s counter disinformation efforts—its support for states and individual actions—were unsuccessful. In fact, the opposite is true. Without this work and state initiatives supported by CISA, we are confident significantly more Americans would doubt the electoral process. And we are confident the country would be in a significantly worse place.
We have a lot of work to do to fortify Americans’ trust in elections. This is—hands down—one of the most important issues facing our country. Doing so will require countering disinformation on the electoral process, and state election officials need CISA’s help to do so. CISA must not only continue its counter disinformation work—but increase it [Sec. Jena Griswold et al., letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and CISA Acting Director Brandon Wales, 2021.04.14].
SOS Griswold and her colleagues from Washington, Vermont, Rhode Island, Oregon, New Mexico, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine, California, and Alaska (where the lieutenant governor is in charge of elections) say they don’t want CISA policing political issues like candidates’ policy positions. (You can leave that to us journalists!) But maintaining the integrity of our elections requires not only all the security and audits built into the system but active campaigns to assure voters that claims that their votes won’t count are malarkey:
However, the electoral process—the system by which Americans register to vote, cast their ballot, and results are tallied—is not a political issue. It is a pillar of our democracy and a critical infrastructure sector. And, in our view, this absolutely is CISA’s responsibility to protect. It is essential to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure. Doing so traditionally has centered on enhancing physical and cyber security. But the world has changed and so have the threats and the defenses necessary to counter them. Addressing disinformation on the electoral process and renewing confidence in it is required to ensure its security [Griswold et al., 2021.04.14].
South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett should get on the horn to Denver and ask Secretary Griswold to add South Dakota’s good name to that letter. We just conducted the most secure election in history, with no evidence of election fraud in Arizona or anywhere else indicating that the results did not reflect the will of the voters. Just as every Governor should send out pressers and tweets every day saying, “GET YOUR SHOTS!!!“, Secretary Barnett and his fellow election chiefs have an obligation to regularly declare, “Our elections are secure, and we’re going to keep them that way so everyone’s vote continues to count.”
Just imagine kristi’s rage should Barnett add us to the list !
Everyone knows trump, the lying loser has 64 per cent of his minions believing him. I used to manage a group home 40 years ago and they were so much smarter than today’s GOP it isn’t even funny.
Start by outlawing magats and alternative facts.
When do we get to know the person that gave the order to stop counting and why?
:)
You stop counting when you fall asleep John.
The stats are freaky. 11 states have the brains to stand up to Trump/McConnell’s big lie but 47 some states are trying to pass some 3-400 voter suppression laws that Republican legislative mills have churned out in response to Obama’s former VP, our now President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris.
Republicans have thrown out the sea anchor. A last desperate attempt. And so today John Thune was standing at the Senate podium, sun burned or influenced by Beohner/Trump in orange -face, swearing Republicans will not support them. “The degeneracy (of Republicans turned grotesque by committing these sins of sedition and 4 years of Trumpist debasement, after debasement), and then by refusal to atone for it” continues this upside down world of Republican spin that Biden had somehow failed to bring unity, when they as a party pledged not to participate. Casey Cep, “DEMON-DRIVEN: Wm Faulkner.
***
Disinformation is peddled from trolls, here and everywhere daily:
Grdz: “Unions are bad, Mr. Anderson. They are very bad.”
Dale: “When do we get to know the person that gave the order to stop counting and why?” [try K. “754” Klimmick, Kremlin Intelligence agent cited 754 times in Mueller Report confirming Trump collusion in 2016 election]
Tucker Carlson: “Confront mask wearers….”
Rick DeSantos: “There is not much of a Native American culture in the US….”
There is a Republican obstruction conspiracy, again, in this country. Seditionists, every one of them. Most are racists. Misogynists. Most definitely they are NOT patriots.
Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and perhaps Newt Gingrich, infamously did it during Obama’s two terms.
Republicans *REFUSE* to be a responsible political party. It is at war with democracy. There needs to be a reckoning with this criminal institutional Republican behavior. Imagine if there was cheating in a world series, or a super bowl! Wait!! There is! These bridges to community have been burned down. There is an extreme capitalism at work here that has decided to destroy the institution of community to achieve more wealth. And Republicans are the instigators. Why?
The increased costs for us to mitigate the intentional damage these dogma-idiots create is much like unregulated Capitalistic Venture Capitalists who pile onto funding the next Uber/WeWork schemes which still net unscrupulous bankers billions upon their inevitable failure and throw thousands of desperate employees to the streets. New Yorker 11.30.20
The “one” % has gotten way too big and rich. And fools like the above shill
for them.