DEAR EDITOR:

Columbus must secure our elections because Congress won’t.

Last week, at long last, the U.S. Senate held closed-door briefings on election security. Unfortunately, the prospects for Congress passing any election security updates don’t look any better than they did before the briefings. America will have to move on without them.

But at the most fundamental level, elections aren’t run by the federal government, but by the states. One easy step they can take to help secure the elections is to adopt Automatic Verification and Registration (AVR). AVR is a modernization to the election system that updates voter rolls continuously. It not only makes it harder to interfere in elections, but it saves time and money that can be redirected toward other election security measures.

Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have already implemented AVR, and the more that join them, the safer our elections will be. Don’t wait on Washington. Start securing our elections in Columbus.

TREY GRAYSON

Advisory board chair, Secure Elections Project