Secretaries of state offer best fraud protection

NEW MEXICO and other states are on solid ground in resisting White House attempts to collect extensive personal and political information about its voters. Repeating false statements — as the Journal did in its Saturday editorial about voter fraud — does not make them true. Trump’s imaginary millions of illegal votes and stories about rampant voter fraud conjured up by conservative activists have been proven false by the people who know best — secretaries of state across the country.

The best protection against fraud are the 50 offices responsible for the integrity of the voting process within each state. Many, including New Mexico, have laws that preclude release of much of the raw data requested by the White House election commission to protect privacy and ensure the information is not misused. The Journal’s exhortation that New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver release the information reflects a poor understanding of what is potentially at stake . ...

If the White House were truly interested in strengthening the voting process, it would work with state officials to ensure processes are sound, systems are in place to keep the information up to date and secure, and all citizens are both encouraged and able to vote.

Sure, some problems exist in the complex and fluid environment of practicing democracy, but repeated investigations have shown them to be minuscule. The real challenge is to safeguard and strengthen the information in a time when cyber vulnerabilities are growing, not to move it all into a single and static repository that can be attacked or, worse, manipulated for political ends. NICK HARRISON Albuquerque