Athena Strategies President Kathy Boockvar recently spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer about the continuing spread of disinformation about the 2020 election and the deliberate efforts by President Trump and his allies to destroy people’s faith in our democracy and electoral system.
She spoke at length about all the layers of election security and integrity processes in place in Pennsylvania and nationally to ensure our elections are secure and accurate, as well as the need to better explain these processes to voters. Below is an excerpt from the Philadelphia Inquirer interview:
Voters only receive a mail-in ballot if they apply for it, and the envelopes have a barcode on them unique to the already-approved voter, she said.
“If a ballot is returned that doesn’t have a barcode or if a ballot is returned that has a barcode that’s connected to somebody who didn’t ask for it, that ballot is not going to get counted,” she said…. “There are checks and balances, and reconciliations and audits in Pennsylvania and across the country,” said Boockvar, who now advises on election security through her consulting firm Athena Strategies.
She said that on top of the typical election audits, “risk-limited audits” were piloted in Pa. in 2020 to review a sample of thousands of ballots, including every type.
Litigation challenging the election results have failed in state and federal courts, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court, and additional recounts and audits since the 2020 election have also showed up dry.
“Every single review of every single county in the Commonwealth has come back within a very small difference, if any, of the results reported back in 2020,” said Boockvar.