US state officials say election confidence imperiled by lies, threats

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top election officials from two U.S. states warned a congressional panel on Wednesday that confidence in elections has been eroded by ideological efforts to discredit the system that have spawned unrelenting threats against election workers.

"This is a vicious cycle that must be mitigated for the good of our country," New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, said in written testimony to the House of Representatives Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections.

Toulouse Oliver is one of six state election officials due to appear at a Wednesday hearing about public confidence in the Nov. 5 election before the committee.

She warned that U.S. elections have been colored in the public mind by "conspiracies, misinformation and outright lies" that have led to threats, violence and frivolous public information requests.

Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told lawmakers in a written statement that the spread of false information is driving threats that have unleashed "an omnipresent feeling of anxiety" among election administrators.

"People have come to my home or threatened me, my staff, and many of the hundreds of clerks and local election officials in our state," Benson said. "We cannot have a secure democracy if we do not protect the security of the people who administer our elections."

Neither Toulouse Oliver nor Benson identified those they said were seeking to discredit U.S. elections.

In recent weeks, Republican Donald Trump has stepped up his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and maintains without evidence that this year's contest could be swayed by votes from people who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Republicans in Congress this week are trying to force Democrats to accept legislation sought by Trump that would require proof of citizenship from those registering to vote in federal elections.

Toulouse Oliver cited claims of non-citizen voting as an example of the misinformation that diminishes voter confidence.

"Non-citizen voting simply does not happen in any systematic way in New Mexico or in the nation more broadly," she said.

Voting by non-citizens is a felony offense and has been shown by independent studies to occur only rarely.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, told the panel that voters in his state are concerned about non-citizen voting as a result of record flows of migrants into the country under President Joe Biden.

"Some non-citizens are indeed registered to vote in this country," said LaRose, whose office last month said it had identified nearly 600 non-citizens who were registered to vote.

Ohio has about 8 million registered voters in total, according to state records.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, a Republican, criticized Biden for using a 2023 executive order to direct federal agencies to help people register to vote. The action has recently become a target for Republican lawsuits that claim it could open the door to non-citizen voting.

Warner claimed the executive order would "result in votes being cast outside the law."

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)