Published in the Deseret News:

I was deeply disturbed by former President Donald Trump’s claim, first made within days of the 2020 presidential election, that he had actually won because the results were tainted by massive fraud in the battleground states. If true, that would be the greatest crime in the history of our nation. If false yet believed, such a claim would do great damage to the Constitution and our republic. And it was believed by the men and women who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election. Nothing like that had happened in the history of our nation. All of this brought to my mind the warning of Jonathan Haidt, the renowned social psychologist, that our democracy will fail if we drain all trust from it.

Had the election been stolen? I wanted to know. But rather than rely on the arguments of politicians or the assertions of pundits on media outlets, I put together an informal group of experienced conservatives I knew and trusted to make our own independent examination of this deadly serious charge. Every member of our group had worked in Republican politics, been appointed to office by Republicans or was otherwise associated with the GOP. None of us voted for Biden nor bore any ill will toward Trump. Three of our group (including me) were former federal appeals court judges who had been appointed by Republican presidents. Another was Michael McConnell, now at Stanford Law School, but formerly of the University of Utah School of Law and the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 10th Circuit. We had confidence in our ability to study and analyze competing claims and determine what really happened. No outside group commissioned this project or financed our effort. It was my idea.

For over a year, our group did a deep dive into the issue. We examined every claim of fraud and miscount put forward by Trump and his advocates in each of the six battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Our conclusion was unequivocal. There was no evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any precinct, let alone any state or the nation as a whole. Biden won. He was the choice of the majority of the electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of the voters in their states. We published the results of our investigation online in a report titled “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election.”…

One of the great untold stories of the last 30 years is how those tasked with administering our elections have helped create a modern election system in which we can and should have confidence. I grew up hearing stories of stuffed ballot boxes in Philadelphia and dead people voting in Chicago, and those stories were sadly true. But that was then. Today, in all 50 states and at the national level, our elections are administered by trained professionals from both sides of the political aisle who have an established track record for fairness. I have met many of these good people from across the nation — Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, progressives and libertarians. Regardless of their political views and affiliations, these professionals are committed to conducting fair and transparent elections….

Conservatives seek to preserve the best elements of our traditions. Tearing down faith in an election administration system when the facts show that it is reliable and trustworthy is not conservative. I urge my fellow conservatives to cease making unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. These claims not only damage the Constitution, but they distract from the important work of presenting to voters candidates and ideas that offer a positive vision for overcoming our current difficulties based on conservative values that will bring liberty and prosperity to our nation and help unite our divided land.