Truth is, the idea that Russia determined the election is overstated. It would never have resonated so loudly without our deep polarization — and our structural issues, including the vast discrepancy between the popular vote in favor of Mrs. Clinton and the narrow Electoral College win for Mr. Trump.
These issues were rooted in our system and had already played out in 2000. By overplaying Russia’s ability to influence the vote, American politicians and pundits conceded victory to Russia and its intelligence agencies. Instead, we should have focused on fixing our own faults.
Today, we are even more fractured than in 2016. What was then a vulnerability is now a full-blown national security crisis.
Our partisan strife has contributed to the botched handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has eroded our international reputation. It has made us susceptible to manipulation by any foreign or nonstate actor that wants to weaken us. Our own political actors are undermining our democracy in a gambit to sway the election.
The United States has set international standards for free and fair elections for decades. But President Trump, not President Putin, has repeatedly declared our electoral system “rigged” and questioned the integrity of the ballot.
As I came to realize while I was at the National Security Council, working directly with colleagues from the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies, the structure of our electoral system is complex and decentralized. Since 2016, the federal government has worked with state and local government officials as well as tech companies to harden our critical infrastructure. Early voting, online voting, in-person voting and paper and mail-in ballots all increase physical election security. If there is full voter turnout, and every vote is counted in every form, then it is much more difficult for anyone — domestic or foreign — to mess with the margins. If we want to restore our democracy, we need to heal our divisions and get out the vote.
The biggest risk to this election is not the Russians, it’s us.
Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings, was deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.