[MUSIC PLAYING] Picture this: In America, where your voice matters equally, as much as anyone else’s, where your voice carries the same weight, no matter who you are, where you’re from or what you have. That’s the promise of democracy: one person, one vote. Sounds simple, right? But it’s revolutionary. And right now, that promise is in danger. It started in earnest in 2020, when falsehoods spread about our elections became part of a calculated effort to undermine our collective voice. Since then, election deniers have been telling Americans that millions of votes are being cast illegally, by dead people, by people coming in from outside the border, by people stuffing drop boxes with illegal ballots. Election deniers brought these claims to court and lost in over 60 cases before judges of both parties, yet the lies persist and have exploded into violence. We saw this play out in the events of Jan. 6, when people who believed in the lies tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. It also hit closer to home. Just a few weeks after that, someone claiming the election was stolen fired gunshots into a campaign headquarters right here in Montgomery County, across the street from my office. My name is Neil Makhija. Here in the battleground of Pennsylvania, I’ve been part of a new generation of election officials who are trying to combat the attacks on our democracy. I was born the son of immigrants and grew up in a small coal and steel town. I saw firsthand that, while my family was different, we held shared values of hard work and opportunity in common with all of our neighbors. I also saw how easily our communities could be divided over differences. By 2020, I was teaching election law in Philadelphia. I had to explain to my students why some folks were trying to throw out millions of legally cast votes in Pennsylvania. I knew I couldn’t just teach about this stuff anymore. I had to do something. So I ran for office, and in 2023 I won. Now, as a Montgomery County commissioner, I oversee the elections for 865,000 people. I became the first Asian American to hold this position in all of Pennsylvania’s history. My fellow commissioner Jamila Winder is the first Black woman. We are living proof of what democracy can look like. When I took office as chair of the Board of Elections, I found that the lies about our elections had become worse than ever. Every public meeting is now full of conspiracy theories. But here’s what I’ve learned. Our elections are secure. You are more likely to get struck by lightning than to find voter fraud. Here’s why. We have layers of protection to ensure that no one can vote more than once. And starting when a person registers to vote, we make sure that they’re eligible citizens, over 18 by Election Day. Whether you vote in person or by mail, there are full paper trails every step of the way. Mail-in ballot envelopes are stamped with unique bar codes. They can be safely returned through secure drop boxes, which are monitored 24/7. Our county voter services and sheriffs manage highly secure daily pickups of the ballots. And every single ballot is scanned and kept safe and secure. After each election, we conduct multiple public audits to detect any irregularities. If we do detect an issue or if it’s just a very close election, the law requires a full recount. Pulling off widespread voter fraud with 10,000 different locally run elections across the country would be like trying to rob every bank in America at the same time. It’s just not happening. In my county alone, on Election Day, we have 2,700 poll workers across 430 precincts. These are your friends and neighbors of all parties, working together to help everyone vote. Witnessing the incredible care that goes into ensuring everyone has the chance to vote, most county officials will appropriately certify an election. If our elections are this secure, the truth is, none of these lies have been about election integrity. It’s always been about power. American democracy started with just 6 percent of people being eligible to vote. It took generations upon generations of activists subjecting themselves to violent opposition to expand voting rights to women, to people of color and young people, to a majority of our country. These rights were hard won. There are some who are afraid of democracy in an ever-evolving, inclusive America. They’re part of a shrinking minority that wants to entrench itself in power and enact policies that set us back to a time when we had no rights. Instead of celebrating record voter participation, in recent years, antidemocracy politicians have run for office, specifically to introduce laws making it harder for us to vote. They continue to lie about the security of our process and even go as far as to deny the certification of free and fair elections. Inevitably, this leads to violence. This isn’t just an attack on voting. It’s part of an attack on the American ideal that we all deserve a voice. To protect democracy, we can’t just play defense. We need to go on offense to expand voting rights and access. We can make early voting easier, provide language assistance, support community voting centers. We can even bring mobile polling places to senior centers or college campuses where voters don’t drive. We need a movement in every corner of the country to celebrate our hard-won right to vote. It’s time to step up and support those who will hold sacred our democratic process, who will reject violence and accept the outcome of elections, no matter the result. The vast majority of us agree on this because, in the end, this is bigger than a policy debate. America is on the cusp of something unprecedented, a truly multiracial, inclusive democracy, where we respect our differences and our rights, where our highest courts and halls of power truly seek to represent the best interests of everyone. That’s never existed before — not here, not anywhere. That America is within our grasp at this moment. But it could slip away. This is the dream we’ve been chasing since 1776. It’s now up to us to make it real.
