Nonetheless, there is a huge need to have some kind of body that can hold a well-trained spotlight on the 2024 elections to create public accountability across states—to deal with Republican efforts this time around that are going to be crafted to sound far more credible and refined than the crazy theories of Venezuelan intelligence operatives breaching American voting machines put forward by Trump attorneys after the 2020 election. Given that a number of Supreme Court justices seem to hold views that state legislatures under the Constitution may be vested with ultimate decision authority on the appointment of Electoral College electors, the courts may well not be the protection against an effort to sabotage a legitimate Electoral College result like they were last time.

I propose a bipartisan presidential commission be created that is intended to do what U.N. election monitoring used to do—make it much harder for either side in an election to undermine the integrity of the democratic process by having citizens of high integrity furnished with investigative powers and a major public communications forum. The commission should be put in place well in advance, so unlike the attempt to create a bipartisan commission on the Jan. 6 riot, Republicans can’t claim that it is being put in place to lay partisan blame at their feet following some event.

However, given the unprecedented threat to our democracy being hatched right in front of our eyes, I suggest that this presidential commission be constructed in an unprecedented way. In order to give the commission a true perception of bipartisanship with the broadest possible trust and credibility of the American electorate, half the commission members should be appointed by a Republican with national standing, but one who is by no means a devout Trumpian. There is only one Republican I can really think of given this would be a presidential commission—and that is former President George W. Bush.