Barber: This Independence Day, democracy faces grave danger

Former U.S. Rep. Ron Barber is a co-chair of the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network.

Our democracy is in serious danger from attacks on election workers, false claims that our elections are stolen and even that we don’t need a democracy any more. The Arizona Democracy Resilience Network’s mission is to promote confidence in our elections and our democracy. We believe that the vast majority of Arizonans share these concerns and will respond favorably to credible and trusted messengers who are working to restore faith in our democratic norms.

Following the insurrection in 2020, the Carter Center in Atlanta, founded by former President Jimmy Carter, decided that their work in support of emerging democracies overseas needed to be brought home to the United States.

In early 2022, the Carter Center launched a cross-partisan initiative in support of secure, fair, and safe elections in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. Michigan and Wisconsin were added this year. All of these state organizations have similar goals. We want to restore faith and trust in our election systems and to mitigate violence and threats of violence.

Threats of violence have caused election officials (county recorders and election directors) from both major parties in 12 of the 15 Arizona counties to resign. They loved their job and yet they did not want to continue to expose themselves and their relatives to vicious attacks on social media and in person.

As part of the Carter Center initiative, we established the nonpartisan Arizona Democracy Resilience Network, made up over 250 business, community and faith leaders and former and currently elected officials from across the state. Our mission is to address concerns about how our election processes have been adversely impacted by threats of violence, acts of violence, vitriolic statements, and the abandonment of democratic norms.

The Arizona Democracy Resilience Network is led by Don Henninger, a former newspaper publisher, Ron Barber, a former congressman, and Jason George, our logistics manager. Our sights are now set on the 2024 election cycle. We will be expanding our network by recruiting Arizonans to promote, within their networks and publicly, the restoration of democratic norms and civility among political candidates and their supporters.

We are guided by the following principles which candidates and their supporters should embrace and voters should demand of those who run for office:

• Honest process: Candidates should cooperate with election officials, adhere to rules and regulations, and refrain from knowingly propagating falsehoods about the electoral process.
• Civil campaigns: Candidates should encourage a peaceful election atmosphere during the pre-election, polling, counting, and post-election periods. They should also denounce attempts to intimidate, harass, threaten or incite violence against opponents, their supporters, and election workers.
• Secure voting: Candidates should respect voters’ freedom to exercise their lawful rights to register and vote, free from interference, obstruction, or intimidation.
• Fair oversight: Candidates should encourage political parties and others to train poll-watchers on the election process and appropriate roles and behaviors, responsibilities, and obligations.
• Trusted outcomes: Candidates should make claims of election irregularities in accordance with the law and acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcomes after the results have been certified and all contests decided.

As we prepare for the 2024 elections, we invite you to join our efforts. It is going to take an informed and engaged public to save our democracy.

You can contact Don, Ron or Jason or go to our website, www.arizonadrn.org to sign up for the ADRN.

• Don Henninger, don.henninger@cartercenter.org
• Ron Barber, ronald.barber@cartercenter.org
• Jason George, jason.george@cartercenter.org