Doug Truax writes for the Federalist about lingering concerns involving election security.

Four years ago, I asserted that we can “never again” allow an election like 2020 to happen. I’m back to say that despite Trump’s near landslide, America’s election system is still broken.

And the time to fix it is immediately, while President Trump has the wind at his back with a Republican Congress and the public on his side.

You most clearly see a broken election system when the margins are extremely tight. We saw it in 2020 when approximately 40,000 votes in key states tipped the election, and not so much in 2024. But rest assured, the public still lacks confidence in the integrity of our elections, and rightly so. They are only partially transparent. The tools to cheat are still on the table and able to be used. This is a ticking time bomb that could throw America into chaos in a future close election.

The main problems are ridiculously extended voting periods, mass absentee ballots, lack of voter ID, flimsy signature verification, unsecured drop boxes, voting machines with opaque software and connectivity to the internet, and sloppy, inaccurate voter rolls. We wouldn’t accept any of these third-world standards in our personal banking or accounting practices — why are we OK applying them to our precious votes?

Under our Constitution, we entrust election administration to the states. Some, like Florida, run a tight, efficient ship, counting all votes on Election Day in a few hours and posting ballot movement online in real time. The public trusts those results. Others, like Arizona, have created a bizarre process that takes days to count the ballots. Even if there is no fraud whatsoever, the public is distrustful of such a Byzantine system. It boggles the mind that in 2024, in the United States of America, we are still counting votes days and even weeks after the election in Arizona and several other states.

The incoming Trump administration must make election integrity a top priority through federal legislation or persuading states to pass reforms.