America can be proud that in 2020, millions of citizens took the election seriously and showed up at the polls or filled out a mail-in-ballot that they hand-delivered to a county clerk or got postmarked at their local U.S.P.S. prior to a deadline demand.  Citizens were generally worried about standing in lines in the middle of a Pandemic and opted for mail-in-ballots only to find that steps had been taken to slow the mail down and make postal stations less effective by removing high-speed processing machines.   And yet, the people decided that in spite of 2020, a year filled with the terror of a Pandemic, personal and business losses, unemployment, raging forest fires, weather calamities, and you name it, there was a sense of obligation that people needed now more than ever to step up and have their voice heard via their vote.  There were extraordinary examples of voters, some college students – one a woman in her 90’s, who had been turned away by their new polling place forcing them to return to their previous place of residence to cast a vote.  That’s how critical many saw this election.

America can be proud that in 2020, a number of heroes stood up for democracy and the will of the people.

Some of those heroes worked tirelessly for the last three years to ensure that the 2020 election would be secure.  The man who lead the charge was a GOP operative by the name of Chris Krebs, an attorney who was approved unanimously by the Senate for the position, Director of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Krebs had extensive experience working in the private sector for Microsoft and had the wherewithal to put together a team of professionals who could make sure that foreign influence would not tarnish this election.  Krebs’s team rehearsed different scenarios that might or could happen at the hands of Iran, China, or Russian hackers.  Many on Krebs’ staff put in 18 hour days day-in-and-day-out to make sure that U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure could withstand any attack.

The other heroes were the strong-willed men and women who served their states as Secretaries of State, the office that oversees an election and certifies the authenticity of the votes cast.   Many of them, regardless of their party faced death threats when the count didn’t go the way some thought it should.  Allegations with little credence and more importantly little proof placed even more pressure on the people working in the trenches counting and recounting millions of votes.  Due to state deadlines, some of that work was literally done around the clock.

When the entire process was deemed fraudulent by the most powerful man in the country, TRUTH to POWER took center stage as numerous Secretaries of State from both parties stepped up as did Chris Krebs to set the record straight that we had one of the most secure elections ever without tampering from foreign or domestic influence.  Krebs was immediately fired via a tweet.  Some of the Secretaries of State and one election commissioner in Philadelphia had to be provided bodyguards.

Democracy depends on public servants doing the right thing.  We should all be thankful that America is blessed with people on both sides of the aisle who have a firm commitment to pick country over party and GO DO GOOD in maintaining the integrity of our electoral process even if it means being sacked as it did for Chris Krebs.