Carter Center, pushing for fair elections, turns focus to US

WASHINGTON — The Carter Center, an organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, has worked for decades to ensure fair elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The center notes that while the U.S. has fallen short of some international election standards before, it’s only in the last decade that the center would describe the country’s democracy as “backsliding.” Countries that are at risk of “backsliding” are “often characterized by polarization, a lack of public trust, ethnic or racial divisions and injustice, and fears that election results won’t be seen as credible or could trigger violence,” the Carter Center said in a statement. “Given the scale of problems today – including deep polarization, lack of confidence in elections, obstacles to participation by minority groups and others, persistent racial injustice, and the COVID-19 pandemic – the Center has decided that it should try to improve elections here at home, drawing on its global experience observing troubled elections and its knowledge of international standards,” said Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander. The country’s counterintelligence chief, William Evanina, issued a warning earlier this month about the threat of foreign interference in the 2020 election, saying U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia is using various methods to denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and that people linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin are boosting Trump’s reelection bid.