Keep America safe for democracy

The president’s assertion of executive power poses a threat to the November elections.

July 13, 2020 | Gary Hart, Joel McCleary, Mark Medish and Tim Wirth | Boston Globe

As the republic with the oldest written constitution still in use, the United States is the world’s beacon of democracy. These days the beacon has been dimming. Freedom House, a respected global democracy watchdog group, recently sounded alarms about the integrity of primary elections in Wisconsin and Georgia.

The outlook for a free and fair national election in November is cloudy, not least because President Trump himself has predicted mass-scale voter fraud and because of foreign interference. …

Our Constitution, established by “We the people,” enshrines a core principle: the right of the people to choose and affirm by periodic free and fair election those who hold power on their behalf. This is what Lincoln so memorably described as a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” On this principle was built the very foundation of our Republic. It is the most important of our civil liberties that our government is not chosen by crown or religion, but by the people.