Bay State’s election chief concerned about election denial, money in politics

The Bay State’s top elections official is concerned about the growing level of distrust in the nation’s electoral process, a worry he said he finds among election officials from other states, and the rise of big money is state politics.

Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin said that he and other state election officials have shared concerns over emerging technology — like deep fakes and AI — and over the increasing number of voters and politicians who are calling the legitimacy of elections into question.

“Many of us share the same concern, that we have citizens who are distrustful of the process and who have anxiety over the accuracy of the process, none of which are factually justified,” Galvin told WBZ.

Even if voters have no reason to cast doubt on the system, Galvin said, it doesn’t make their doubts any less real and “it’s contributing to an unease in our democracy.”

“We have to get beyond that,” Galvin said.

The Bay State’s ballot question process has become “dominated by money,” he said.

“It increasingly has become simply a money pit for all of the various interests,” where the questions put before voters are being decided by the amount of money spent by the competing sides of an issue, Galvin said.

“There is a remarkable amount of money being spent every election in Massachusetts on ballot questions,” Galvin said.

The ballot question process was put in place, Galvin said, so that the people had “a safety valve” on the Legislature, not as “an opportunity for special interests of all kinds to influence the outcome of public policy by expenditure.”

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