Why Business Leaders Need To Stand Up To Protect U.S. Democracy

In today’s hyper-partisan political environment, U.S. business leaders are struggling to decide if and when to speak out on issues of the day. Our society is deeply divided on abortion, guns, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, the Middle East conflict, and views on diversity and inclusion. Corporate CEOs are loathe to challenge politicians and a public ready to punish companies in retribution for their public statements. On the other hand, these leaders face increasing pressure to speak out—from their employees, customers, and the communities where they operate. Top executives have their own values and beliefs, of course, and these, too, may feed a desire to join the political fray. While it is understandable that most corporate leaders have declined to engage publicly on these topics, there is one issue on which I believe they need to take a stand. It is the sanctity of our elections and defense of our democratic system.

U.S.-based businesses have been the beneficiaries of democratic society where, in broad terms, the rule of law is respected, courts resolve disputes fairly, and there is trust in the legitimacy of elected officials. When this democratic edifice breaks down, businesses suffer. This is not about who gets elected but rather whether the system that elects them is fair, accessible, and inclusive. It’s about whether our electoral choices are based on real facts rather than concocted ones. And it is about whether there is an orderly transition of power once the results of an election become clear. As these basic tenets of democracy are coming under attack, business leaders need to speak out. And yet to date, few have been willing to do so.

There are three types of threats to our elections and democratic order that deserve special attention. The first is voter suppression laws, usually aimed at limiting the participation of poor and minority voters. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “The restrictive laws passed in the last 10 years target every aspect of voting, including making voter registration more difficult, curtailing early voting opportunities, closing polling places, and limiting voter assistance. “

In 2020, Michael Gerson, the late Washington Post columnist and speechwriter for President George W. Bush, critiqued his party, when he wrote, “the GOP seems to expend more energy and creativity on discouraging minority voting than it does on doing minority outreach.” That same year several prominent business leaders including Kenneth Chenault, the former CEO of American Express; Kenneth Frasier, the former CEO of Merck; and Michael Dell, whose computer company bears his name, forcefully challenged the latest generation of voter-suppression laws in places like Georgia and Texas. But too few business executives followed their lead. While these laws cannot be repealed or amended before next month’s election, looking to the future, more corporate leaders need to join efforts to restore voting rights in the more than 29 states where restrictive laws are now on the books.

A second challenge relates to the spread of online disinformation before, during, and after elections. The major social media companies have a special responsibility for addressing this growing problem. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, mindful of Russian interference in 2016, Facebook took a number of constructive steps to counter political disinformation on its platform. It took down Russian-government-sponsored sites, banned new political ads in the week before the election, strengthened responses to posts aimed at dissuading voter turnout, and countered disinformation in the uncertain weeks after the election. These measures reflected Facebook’s recognition of the enormity of its influence. As its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, rightly observed, “This election is not going to be business as usual.” Therefore, he asserted, “We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy.”

Four years later, Zuckerberg is singing a different tune, expressing a desire to stay politically “neutral.” Pursuing this new laissez-faire approach, Meta has removed transparency tools making it harder for journalists and others to track disinformation on its sites. The company also has disbanded its election integrity team and laid off or shifted scores of those who worked in that unit to other roles. The company also has scrapped its plans to set up a “war room,” around the upcoming election, an internal mechanism the company has utilized in the past.

A report my colleagues at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights published earlier this year concluded, “The social media industry has retreated from safeguarding elections from the manipulation, hatred, and conspiracy-mongering that all too often now characterize online political discourse.”

Zuckerberg and some of his counterparts elsewhere in Silicon Valley argue that they are obligated to allow deliberately and provably false information from populating their sites in the name of free speech. But their companies are not bound by the First Amendment, a protection against government censorship that does not prevent private organizations or companies from deciding what speech to host. As disinformation tied to our elections floods social media sites, these companies need to do much more to moderate this kind of harmful content.

A third challenge relates to new state laws that could delay and disrupt the vote counting and election certification processes. According to the Brennan Center “Since the 2020 election, a growing number of rogue local officials have refused or threatened to refuse to certify valid election results. In each of these instances, state courts and officials intervened to protect the certification process. But the danger remains that rogue officials may attempt to interfere with the timely certification of this year’s presidential election results.”

The adoption of so many new certification laws since 2020 appears to be an attempt by Republicans to lay the groundwork for endless and frivolous court challenges similar to the dozens that were ultimately turned away by judges in the last election cycle. Menacing comments by local GOP election officials only add fuel to the fire. In the days and weeks after the election, if local officials seek to interfere with an orderly transition of power, it will be more important than ever for business leaders to speak out. In this period when our democratic institutions are being sorely tested, the public embrace of democracy by leaders of the business community becomes more important than ever.