Common Ground: For Secure Elections and True National Security

    An open letter by Gloria Steinem, Noam Chomsky, John Dean, Governor Bill Richardson, Walter Mosley, Michael Moore, Valerie Plame, and others.

    July 11, 2018

    Many Americans remain deeply concerned about reports of Russian interference with the 2016 election. Meanwhile, relations between the United States and Russia are at their lowest and most dangerous point in several decades. For the sake of democracy at home and true national security, we must reach common ground to safeguard common interests—taking steps to protect the nation’s elections and to prevent war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.

    Whatever the truth of varied charges that Russia interfered with the election, there should be no doubt that America’s digital-age infrastructure for the electoral process is in urgent need of protection. The overarching fact remains that the system is vulnerable to would-be hackers based anywhere. Solutions will require a much higher level of security for everything from voter-registration records to tabulation of ballots with verifiable paper trails. As a nation, we must fortify our election system against unlawful intrusions as well as official policies of voter suppression.

    At the same time, the US and Russian governments show numerous signs of being on a collision course. Diplomacy has given way to hostility and reciprocal consular expulsions, along with dozens of near-miss military encounters in Syria and in skies above Europe. Both sides are plunging ahead with major new weapons-development programs. In contrast to prior eras, there is now an alarming lack of standard procedures to keep the armed forces of both countries in sufficient communication to prevent an escalation that could lead to conventional or even nuclear attack. These tensions are festering between two nations with large quantities of nuclear weapons on virtual hair-trigger alert; yet the current partisan fixations in Washington are ignoring the dangers to global stability and, ultimately, human survival.

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    The United States should implement a pronounced shift in approach toward Russia. No political advantage, real or imagined, could possibly compensate for the consequences if even a fraction of US and Russian arsenals were to be utilized in a thermonuclear exchange. The tacit pretense that the worsening of US-Russian relations does not worsen the odds of survival for the next generations is profoundly false. Concrete steps can and must be taken to ease tensions between the nuclear superpowers.

    Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus, Boston University

    Rev. Dr. William Barber II, President and Senior Lecturer, Repairers of the Breach, and Visiting Professor of Public Theology, Union Theological Seminary

    Phyllis Bennis, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies

    Noam Chomsky, Professor, Author, and Activist

    Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics, NYU and Princeton University, and Board Member, American Committee for East-West Accord

    John Dean, Former Nixon White House Counsel

    Phil Donahue, Journalist and Talk-Show Pioneer

    Thomas Drake, Former NSA Senior Executive and Whistle-blower

    Daniel Ellsberg, Activist, “Pentagon Papers” Whistle-blower, and Author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

    Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Founder and President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition

    Jack F. Matlock Jr., Former US Ambassador to the USSR and Board Member, American Committee for East-West Accord

    Michael Moore, Academy Award–Winning Filmmaker and Best-Selling Author

    Walter Mosley, Writer and Screenwriter

    John Nichols, National Affairs Correspondent, The Nation

    Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–Winning Novelist

    Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, CUNY Graduate School

    Valerie Plame, Former Covert CIA Operations Officer and Author

    Adolph Reed Jr., Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

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    Bill Richardson, Former Governor of New Mexico

    Patricia Schroeder, Former Congresswoman

    Norman Solomon, National Coordinator, RootsAction.org

    Gloria Steinem, Writer and Feminist Organizer

    Adlai Stevenson III, Former US Senator and Chairman, Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy

    Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation

    Alice Walker, Writer, Poet, and Activist

    Jody Williams, Professor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

    James Zogby, President, Arab American Institute

    Signers have endorsed this Open Letter as individuals and not on behalf of any organization.

    Published at https://www.thenation.com/article/common-ground-for-secure-elections-and-true-national-security/