In a powerful bipartisan op-ed published in The Hill this week, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Tim Roemer, and Zach Wamp lent the weight of their combined years of service to our country to this simple rallying cry: protect our election.
The piece lists closed polling stations, faulty equipment, and untrained poll workers as significant hurdles. It mentions the threat of foreign interference, and it calls on Congress to increase funding ahead of November's general election in order to combat these issues and to ensure free, fair, efficient, and inclusive elections in the United States. Critical steps, all.
Most notably, the statement correctly notes how our vote is being "threatened by those who seek to promote fear and division" and adversaries who are "certain to pounce on any opportunity to make an already chaotic situation worse."
Hagel, Panetta, Roemer, and Wamp don't draw the final dotted line, but it should be clear to all Americans that those threats and adversaries are not exclusively foreign. The most significant threats to our system, and the most desperate attempts to sow chaos, are already coming from the White House.