The last 2 presidential elections were disputed by the losing side. I'm not going to rehash those claims on this post but that type of sentiment is very dangerous. I believe that if Trump had won in 2020 under the same circumstances as Biden with suspicious vote dumps in the middle of the night, we would have seen full scale riots that would make January 6 look like a nothingburger. Here are some reforms that I propose. If nothing else, they should restore confidence in our election system.
I am fine with early voting up to a week in advance of Election Day. To me, there is something special about Election Day itself and I always vote on that day. Still, early voting will reduce the lines and enable easier access if your work schedule makes it difficult.
Polls are open from 7 AM-7PM. I'd extend that by one hour in each direction. Suppose that something comes up late in the day and you can't leave the office on time and/or you get stuck in traffic, there won't be any exceptions. You must be in line at the time of closing. There should be many small precincts that are easily accessible to all of the population. If there are few precincts in populated areas that make for prohibitively long lines, that is a form of voter suppression and must be stopped.
Absentee or mail-in ballots should only be used if the voter truly cannot make it to the polls. Examples would be college students, military personnel and those with a chronic illness. There may be other rare exceptions, but the rest must vote in person either early or on Election Day. If you do vote by mail, there must be a strong security system to ensure integrity. Provide a copy of your ID and make sure that your signature matches. To me, an even better method would be matching thumb prints.
When it comes to reporting the results, some states are different than others. For example in 2020, Iowa and Ohio reported the mail-in ballots first. As a result, Trump trailed up until 75% of the vote was counted but he surged ahead at the end, and it wasn't very close when all the results were counted. By contrast, Pennsylvania and Michigan counted mail-in ballots last, and the opposite occurred.
My proposal is this: Mail-in ballots must be postmarked no later than 5 days before Election Day and must be received by Election Day itself. No matter which party benefits, people will question the result if the outcome changes after Election Day due to "found ballots." Mail-in and early votes must be the FIRST to be reported in every state. Partisan observers on both sides must be present for vote counting of both early votes and Election Day votes. Also, there must be nationwide voter ID requirements to prevent non-citizens from casting a ballot.
I've heard of conspiracy theories that suggest that voting machines can be hacked such that 1 in 50 Republican votes are switched or thrown out in swing states. I'm not going to comment on that but if every state used paper ballots with pens that are picked up by the scanner, that puts such talk to rest. If something goes wrong with the scanners, you have the ballots themselves to verify in case of a recount. Also, the results should be known within 4 hours of the poll closing unless the margin is razor thin. Why is it that Florida can count their ballots so quickly, but Arizona and Nevada take up to a week?
As for 2022, Republicans certainly should have done better given the current environment. Some of it can be attributed to poor candidates. However, I'm afraid that we are perilously close to the point in which 50+ percent of the electorate will vote Blue no matter who it is or how much of a failure their policies turn out to be. I was particularly disappointed about Kari Lake in Arizona and Mayra Flores in Texas. Also, victories by the likes of Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Witmer in Michigan were inexplicable to me. The latter was not even close. Fetterman is obviously incompetent after his stroke and should have stepped aside. With the possible exception of Newsome in California, no state had more draconian COVID restrictions than Michigan. I surely hoped that a swing state would be wise to that by now.
Florida continues to be a pleasant surprise. DeSantis barely won in 2018 but 2022 was a 19 point landslide while Rubio, who is considered to be a more "respectable conservative" won by 16. Obviously, the people liked the policies set forth by DeSantis but that did not carry over to Michigan or Pennsylvania. As for 2024, I am open to supporting DeSantis over Trump.
No comments:
Post a Comment