Watchdog Fitton says left won't back tighter election security despite vulnerability evidence

Washington watchdog Tom Fitton supports efforts to make the U.S. election system more secure before the November races after President Trump provided evidence in Thursday’s speech that the system is vulnerable.

“I think the left is going to oppose any election security measures, no matter how sensible or widely supported,” Fitton told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Tuesday. “Prior to 2020, it was a non-controversial point among the left and the right.” 

Fitton is the President of Judicial Watch, a conservative educational foundation.

Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts, and Ron Wyden, Oregon, brought up concerns years ago. 

In 2017, Wyden sent letters to major voting machine manufacturers (including Dominion, ES&S, and Hart InterCivic) inquiring about their cybersecurity practices. In December 2019, Warren, Wyden, and Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Democrat, along with Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, sent letters to private equity firms owning these vendors. 

Trump, in his Thursday speech, said Americans have been lied to about election security.

“For many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems,” he said. “Almost all are vulnerable. And they are easily compromised, and people within our government knew that.”

Over two decades ago, former President Jimmy Carter, also a Democrat, voiced concerns about electronic voting machines. In 2005, he co-chaired the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform with former Secretary of State James Baker.

The panel recommended that Congress require voter-verifiable paper audit trails for all electronic voting machines by 2008 to enable audits and recounts amid security and accuracy worries.

Tom Fitton said people who knew about elections should understand that internet systems were and are problematic.

“Anyone who knew anything about elections understood that systems that were able to connect to the internet were inherently vulnerable,” Fitton told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Just the News White House correspondent Amanda Head contributed to this story.