It’s difficult to say whether or not President Trump will win his challenge to the 2020 election. Few of us know much about what’s really going on behind the scenes, so it’s hard to predict how it will turn out.
But from where all of us spectators sit, one would have to guess Joe Biden will be the next President.
However it turns out, one thing is clear: We have to reform our entire election apparatus.
Many conservatives believe that if Joe Biden really becomes President, conservatives will never win another election. Without voting reform, that may be entirely true. And if it’s true, the United States, as we know it, will cease to be.
That’s why voting reform is more important than anything – even more important than Trump retaining his Presidency.
To start with, we need to clear the voter roles. Blow the entire database away. Anyone who wants to vote in their next local or the next federal election will need to register between now and then.
When they register, they will be required to show a valid, verifiable identification. There will need to be two people present when this ID is shown – one to administer and one to witness. The ID must have a photo and signature that can be matched.
All future voting must take place same day, with the exception of absentee ballots. Absentee ballots should apply to military personnel and government personnel stationed overseas. Other reasons may apply, but those restrictions should be tightened significantly.
For those who don’t qualify for, or need, absentee ballots, the only way to vote will be same day, by standing in line at a polling place. If you’d like to vote, you will find time during voting day, stand in line at your polling place, and cast your vote.
Time is the enemy of fair elections. The more time there is between a vote cast and a vote counted, the more time there is to conduct voter fraud. Time makes it possible for bad actors to do whatever they can to change votes, steal votes, turn in extra votes, or find some other way to tamper with our results.
If one has children, they will be encouraged to bring them so they can learn about how we handle elections in the United States. Election day should be a celebration, and kids should see our republic in action.
Voting machines should be entirely analog. Analog voting machines take hackers right out of the equation. There’s no way to hack an analog machine.
But if we have to go digital, voting machines must be built on block chain programming. Block chain is nearly impossible to hack, giving us the best chance to fight against enterprising domestic or international hackers.
Voter registration drives should either be illegal or seriously regulated. Registering voters who otherwise wouldn’t have registered opens the door to fraud because it identifies those who may not be paying attention to the election or their vote, which means those people can be identified by fraudsters for impersonation on voting day.
Likewise, “get out the vote” efforts should be seriously curtailed, regulated, or eliminated. People who are paying attention and taking an interest in our system of government will know when election day is and how to vote. Those are the people we want voting.
“Get out the vote” efforts target those who otherwise aren’t paying attention, don’t follow politics or the news, and have no inclination to vote. If someone isn’t paying attention or doesn’t want to vote, that is their right to exercise. There’s nothing that says anyone must be compelled to vote.
If a candidate or initiative’s path to electoral victory includes getting low information or uninformed people to vote, the chances are, that candidate or initiative should lose, anyway.
The trade off, of course, is if we must allow “get out the vote” initiatives or more active voter registration, than we must also mandate that everyone is taught an intensive civics course in their junior or senior year of high school.
Within this civics course, legitimate conservative and liberal representatives should be given significant time to teach a portion of the class. Students should learn first hand, directly from the political ideologies, what the ideologies are all about. There should be at least one debate between them, and the representatives should be selected by the parties.
In lieu of a civics course, all voters will have to be able to pass a United States citizenship exam, just as anyone wishing to become a citizen would. Many people fear a voting test because of the inevitable question: who gets to write it? But our citizenship exam already exists, and anyone voting in this country should be able to pass it.
I know this sounds a little “my way”-ish, or possibly a bit totalitarian, but anyone disagreeing with these fundamentals is probably looking for loopholes for voter fraud.
There is no such things a foolproof elections. There are limitations to all safeguards so long as there are creative people involved. But we have to regulate and guard our election rules and processes as militantly as anything we do in this country.
If people can’t trust election results, they can’t trust anything, which will erode people’s faith in our country – leading to our eventual demise.
Regardless of who our next President is, we need an election system everyone can trust. Without it, we may not have much standing between now and outright civil war.
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