With midterm elections approaching, 14 states have improved their election integrity score developed by the Heritage Foundation.
The think tank recently released data through its online publication that ranked each state on election integrity, showing improvements on many levels since 2021. That’s good news for voters who questioned the results of the 2020 election and states that took steps to make cheating more difficult.
But Zack Smith, a Heritage Foundation legal fellow who helped develop the ranking program, told The Epoch Times there’s plenty of room for improvement.
“Unfortunately, no state is 100 percent or close to it,” Smith said.
Leading in Election Integrity
Tennessee earned the top spot in the country for election integrity after passing legislation that added five additional points to the state’s total from its initial showing in 2021. According to the Heritage Foundation rankings, the Volunteer State scored 84 points out of 100.Tennessee’s rise in the rankings came after the state passed a bill that allowed election officials to use an expanded list of sources to verify the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls. It received the most points for voter roll accuracy in all the states.
Tennessee’s election legislation allowed the elections coordinator to compare statewide voter registration data with credit agency data, the Department of Safety data, and the systematic alien verification for entitlements program database. The election official may also use federal jury data to identify those who are deceased, convicted felons, and non-residents of the state or United States.
Election fraud watchdog groups have also cited the accuracy of voter rolls as the biggest problem with safeguarding elections.
Catherine Engelbrecht, who founded the Texas-based nonprofit True the Vote, told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that accurate voter rolls are critical to secure elections, which corresponds to the Heritage Foundation’s assessment.
“To me one of the greatest concerns that linger and is yet to be addressed is the accuracy of the state voter files,” she said. “If you have accurate voter rolls, it makes other kinds of fraud more difficult to be perpetrated.”
Of the 14 states that improved, Missouri and Oklahoma added eight points each, with South Carolina earning five additional points. States that went up by three points included: Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Utah. Nebraska scored two points, with Wisconsin, Kansas, Arizona, and West Virginia adding one point each.
Some states, like Georgia, which ranked 2nd, and Texas, which ranked 8th, didn’t show improvement because their legislatures passed laws in 2021 that were accounted for during the initial ranking, Smith said.
Cases of Election Fraud
Smith said the foundation also keeps a database of election fraud cases across the country. While it is not meant to be exhaustive, the 1,300 cases listed indicated that voter fraud is not imaginary.“You hear from the folks on the left a lot that fraud doesn’t really happen. One of the companion products we have is our election fraud database. I think it kind of pushes back against that narrative that election fraud doesn’t happen.”
