Thoughts on Elections

I don't know about you, but I'm really sick of hearing all the noisy, evidence-free whining about election fraud. So far, the only effect of all this horse-hockey has been to undermine public confidence in our elections and in each other, which is not a good thing for a functioning democracy.

How did we get here, and what can we do to fix it?

I'm no expert in constitutional law*, and I'm at best a well-read amateur historian and political commentator, but I've been working as a trained, certified, sworn Election Officer here in Fairfax County, Virginia, for more than ten years, which I think gives me a certain amount of credibility to comment on election law and procedures. All that being said, I think most of our electoral problems** stem from the Constitution - specifically, the first clause of Article 1, Section 4, which reads

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature*** thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing (sic) Senators."

The obvious result of this unfortunate guidance is that we have 50 different sets of rules, regulations, and procedures to govern our elections†. This means that an observer accustomed to the procedures in their own state may look at the procedures in another state and misinterpret fully normal and legal actions as evidence of chicanery. 

Why was the Constitution written this way? I'm not sure what the historical record says, but I suspect it was to prevent some future, overly-powerful federal government from being able to dictate the results of state-level elections. 

The thing that wonders me about the wording of the Constitution, though, is that it specifies that the states control the times, places, and manner of elections for senators and representatives - not for the Presidency. 

I can tilt my head to one side, squint, and sort of see an argument for states to decide their own procedures for electing senators and representatives because of their individual needs, desires, traditions, and histories. For instance, Texans might want to settle election disputes by gunfire at high noon, where Oregonians might resort to logrolling contests, or Floridians to alligator wrestling. But when we talk about the election of a President who (theoretically) represents every single American and the nation as a whole, I think it makes sense to be uniform in our approach. How much of the flailing agony about whether to count absentee ballots before or after votes cast in person, or what the design of ballots should look like, or where the final tabulation of votes is conducted, could have been avoided if only the states all did things the same way?

I also think that we've gone so far in our attempts to prevent election fraud that we've made it easier to create forced errors that can create the illusion of fraud where none exists. For instance, here in Virginia we have very detailed and thorough procedures for making sure everything is secure and all the numbers add up. During the election process, we have very detailed guidelines of what sorts of identification are valid and what to do when there's any question of a voter's eligibility. When the polls close, we have agonizingly detailed and complicated procedures for squaring the number of voters checked in with the number of ballots issued with the number of ballots scanned by the voting tabulation machines. Every single ballot must be accounted for, every number needs to balance, and all the numbers must be painstakingly entered by hand into multiple forms for submission to various agencies. Every seal removed from every machine must be witnessed by at least two people, and returned to the correct office in the appropriate envelope. The numbers of every seal removed from or applied to anything must be certified by at least two people and carefully noted on the appropriate forms, which must be returned to the proper office in the correct envelope. Etc, etc, etc.

Can you see where there might be room for human error in all this?

All this folderol is necessary because the Constitution builds complication and uncertainty into our elections, because lawyers gotta litigate, and because power-hungry people have undermined trust in our electoral processes for cheap political advantage.

My recommendation: enact a law to standardize voting processes and procedures for presidential elections across all 50 states. Naturally, this would be difficult, because each state will want to keep its own procedures and force the others to adopt them. For this reason, a bipartisan national commission on voting standardization would need to be tasked with studying the problem and making a formal recommendation.

It's a bizarre fantasy, but you should see some of my other ones††.

Benjamin Franklin is reported to have answered a person who asked what sort of government the Founders were creating by saying, "A republic, if you can keep it." Sadly, at the rate we're going, we won't keep it much longer.

Have a good day. Vote carefully and responsibly. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* And neither are most of the people who howl loudest about what they think the Constitution says.

** Other than the quality of the candidates.

*** You may recall that we discussed the craziness of the "Independent Legislature" theory in a previous post.

† It's not only elections that are complicated by allowing each state to set its own rules ... consider our widely-varying standards of education (or non-education), medical care, firearms laws, etc, etc.

†† On second thought, you probably shouldn't.