The only remedy to obvious examples of election fraud, like the Wisconsin jump for the Democrats is for there to be investigations, arrest, trials and imprisonment of people who commit these crimes. Stealing an election is much worse than theft or robbery of money or goods. They rob government of legitimacy and are the precursor to financial fraud on the part of the people put in power by the theft of an election. That's the reason elections are stolen.
Agree the consequences for engaging in election fraud should be severe, but there are proactive ways to prevent it as well. In addition to the ID requirements Glenn talks about, we need Florida-style immediate counting and reporting of results. Once the polls have closed but the results are not yet reported the risk for substantial organized fraud is highest. Election workers know who didn’t vote - and the risk of a voter showing up who already “voted” by mail ends when the polls close. This is when large numbers of election-swinging ballots can be introduced and names checked off to account for them. We simply cannot stand for Democrat-controlled jurisdictions dragging out counting while they wait to see the results from the rest of the state. Democrats say they can’t count quickly; I say the Trump DOJ should treat the drawn out counting we’re seeing in AZ and CA as a presumptive violation of civil rights.
Exactly - laws (and regulations, for that matter) without enforcement are nothing more than useless virtue signaling, like so many of our current laws. If the decision is made by the executive and judicial branches that laws are without merit, repeal them, to remove the temptation to selectively use them when it suits political ends, such as the recent spate of cases in the 6 January show trials.
You know perfectly why Elias Inc engages in lawfare to stop any voting reforms. It is so they can cheat. Nevada is a blue state that just passed Voter ID overwhelmingly.
The disturbing thing about recent years has been the frequency with which I have found myself saying, "America ought to do _______ the way the European Union does it." Those words don't come easily.
The presidential vote presents interesting challenges in the form of the Electoral Collage and the latitude states enjoy in deploying their electors. Do we want to jettison this aspect of Federalism to implement national standards for the Presidential election? There is more room to require new standards for Congressional elections.
Beyond the strong arguments for voter ID, paper ballots, and in-person voting, there is the question of how we count votes. The use of closed source systems from private vendors should be examined. An open source, purpose-built system with security and accountability baked in from the hardware up is desirable. I might even go so far as to make the machines mechanical and encase them in glass. Have them stamp their final tallies on forgery-resistant bills produced by the US Mint.
Paper Ballots are really a mandator requirement, but only to start, because they can be hand audited, IF: They are deposited by an identified voter into a sealed box, personally, among other issues. Preferably deposited in separate easily auditable precincts.
Colorado has mail in voting with "paper ballots", and all the ballots for a single county are mixed into boxes. Even though there are precincts, they are mixed at counting time, and therefor essentially impossible to isolate. Don't get us going on UOCAVA, up 50% in at least one Colorado county this election. RLA Audits are a fraud as they are an audit of inputs, not results. My source: InstaCommenter's wife was a GOP County Chair. It goes on and on. There isn't just one thing... case after case of plausible deniable occurrences, and stonewalling of canvass boards by staff. "Rules" because a previous clerk came up with them, not due to statue or SOS rules (which in this state are arbitrary too)
I work elections in Kentucky, and I heartily agree that one of the major ways to get more open and honest elections is to tabulate votes as close as possible to when the voter casts the ballot. No collecting ballots and then taking them to a single central location for tabulation. To much opportunity once you have boxes and boxes of ballots lying around for shenanigans to occur.
Seems like it's time for a purge of some state governments of their officials who seem to feel free to violate Art VI of the Constitution.
Art VI: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
"[A]ll executive and judicial Officers ... of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution ... ."
There is already one potential remedy, in at least some cases: bringing suit for violation of civil rights under color of law. Perhaps Professor Reynolds could someday address if continued and repeated promulgation of laws (and regulations) that are found by the courts to violate the Constitution could reasonably form the basis for such a suit? Same for officials whi repeatedly violate existing state and/or federal laws (such as the voting rules promulgated by the Michigan SecState). So far as I am aware, I don't believe this has been used against government officials at any level, even though it seems like it could be effective.
That map shows a pretty good correlation but it's slightly misleading. According to voteriders.org, Trump states PA, WV, AK, and OK have the same requirements as Biden states VA, CT, CO, and HI.
But it's still sort of telling that the Democratic powerhouses of CA, IL, and NY (which reliably give Democrats more than a third of the votes needed for a win) all have absolutely no voter ID requirements at all. Add in MA, NJ, and MD (which also have no voter ID at all) and you get more than half the needed votes.
After 2020, I tried to be all Federalist about it and say that if Philly wants to have crooked elections, it's up to the people of Pennsylvania to fix it. Maybe they did?
I don't think it's just up to the people of PA; PA is part of the federal Union, if its system is corrupt, it affects the entire Union. Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution seems to be premised on that reality.
Yes, but. The Constitution itself doesn’t say much about how Electors are chosen, nor does it require them to vote according to the popular vote (which is why NE and ME can allot them by district while the rest do it winner-take-all). In principle the PA legislature could appoint Electors independent of the popular vote. If it chooses not to clean up the Philly machine, it’s arguably not unConstitutional.
The PA constitution is another matter, of course — but it’s far from clear that there’s any Federal recourse. The Constitution guarantees PA a republican government but it’s not clear that a bit of corruption, especially in regard to the federal elections rather than the state elections, is enough to say it doesn’t have one.
All this may of course just be me trying to tell myself we still have a republic despite all the shenanigans…
i also suggest that the majority of those who count the votes be (1) unaffiliated with any political party or advocacy group (eg. naral), (2) neither participants in nor donors to any partisan campaigns or issue advocacy groups, and (3) private citizens who receive no income from government entities, political entities, advocacy groups, office holders, or candidates.
Not a bad idea, but where will one find these people? I imagine that most people who are willing to volunteer for something such as this are also volunteering in other political organizations/causes.
The more typical process is to have people who are willing to declare for one of the two major parties, and then have them work together in a check and balance system.
Absolutely. There should be no doubt in a voter's mind that the election is fair. That certainly is not the case now. In fact we know the Democrats cheated. I witnessed a cheat in the 2022 election. My vote was run through the wrong voting machine. The "helper" showed me the machine to put it in after seeing my vote. She looked guilty as hell but I didn't know what to do.
Top"ish" priority. Making the NFL less lame and federally mandating the return of McDonald's All Day Breakfast* are ahead in line. These are problems that are direct threats to our nation's shared values.
The only remedy to obvious examples of election fraud, like the Wisconsin jump for the Democrats is for there to be investigations, arrest, trials and imprisonment of people who commit these crimes. Stealing an election is much worse than theft or robbery of money or goods. They rob government of legitimacy and are the precursor to financial fraud on the part of the people put in power by the theft of an election. That's the reason elections are stolen.
Agree the consequences for engaging in election fraud should be severe, but there are proactive ways to prevent it as well. In addition to the ID requirements Glenn talks about, we need Florida-style immediate counting and reporting of results. Once the polls have closed but the results are not yet reported the risk for substantial organized fraud is highest. Election workers know who didn’t vote - and the risk of a voter showing up who already “voted” by mail ends when the polls close. This is when large numbers of election-swinging ballots can be introduced and names checked off to account for them. We simply cannot stand for Democrat-controlled jurisdictions dragging out counting while they wait to see the results from the rest of the state. Democrats say they can’t count quickly; I say the Trump DOJ should treat the drawn out counting we’re seeing in AZ and CA as a presumptive violation of civil rights.
Exactly - laws (and regulations, for that matter) without enforcement are nothing more than useless virtue signaling, like so many of our current laws. If the decision is made by the executive and judicial branches that laws are without merit, repeal them, to remove the temptation to selectively use them when it suits political ends, such as the recent spate of cases in the 6 January show trials.
As the great professor says: "MAKE THEM PAY."
You know perfectly why Elias Inc engages in lawfare to stop any voting reforms. It is so they can cheat. Nevada is a blue state that just passed Voter ID overwhelmingly.
The disturbing thing about recent years has been the frequency with which I have found myself saying, "America ought to do _______ the way the European Union does it." Those words don't come easily.
The presidential vote presents interesting challenges in the form of the Electoral Collage and the latitude states enjoy in deploying their electors. Do we want to jettison this aspect of Federalism to implement national standards for the Presidential election? There is more room to require new standards for Congressional elections.
Beyond the strong arguments for voter ID, paper ballots, and in-person voting, there is the question of how we count votes. The use of closed source systems from private vendors should be examined. An open source, purpose-built system with security and accountability baked in from the hardware up is desirable. I might even go so far as to make the machines mechanical and encase them in glass. Have them stamp their final tallies on forgery-resistant bills produced by the US Mint.
Paper Ballots are really a mandator requirement, but only to start, because they can be hand audited, IF: They are deposited by an identified voter into a sealed box, personally, among other issues. Preferably deposited in separate easily auditable precincts.
Colorado has mail in voting with "paper ballots", and all the ballots for a single county are mixed into boxes. Even though there are precincts, they are mixed at counting time, and therefor essentially impossible to isolate. Don't get us going on UOCAVA, up 50% in at least one Colorado county this election. RLA Audits are a fraud as they are an audit of inputs, not results. My source: InstaCommenter's wife was a GOP County Chair. It goes on and on. There isn't just one thing... case after case of plausible deniable occurrences, and stonewalling of canvass boards by staff. "Rules" because a previous clerk came up with them, not due to statue or SOS rules (which in this state are arbitrary too)
I work elections in Kentucky, and I heartily agree that one of the major ways to get more open and honest elections is to tabulate votes as close as possible to when the voter casts the ballot. No collecting ballots and then taking them to a single central location for tabulation. To much opportunity once you have boxes and boxes of ballots lying around for shenanigans to occur.
Glenn: welcome back to X (formerly Twitter), as per your Tweet this morning!
Actually, you never left X, you left the old Twitter.
Seems like it's time for a purge of some state governments of their officials who seem to feel free to violate Art VI of the Constitution.
Art VI: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
"[A]ll executive and judicial Officers ... of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution ... ."
There is already one potential remedy, in at least some cases: bringing suit for violation of civil rights under color of law. Perhaps Professor Reynolds could someday address if continued and repeated promulgation of laws (and regulations) that are found by the courts to violate the Constitution could reasonably form the basis for such a suit? Same for officials whi repeatedly violate existing state and/or federal laws (such as the voting rules promulgated by the Michigan SecState). So far as I am aware, I don't believe this has been used against government officials at any level, even though it seems like it could be effective.
That map shows a pretty good correlation but it's slightly misleading. According to voteriders.org, Trump states PA, WV, AK, and OK have the same requirements as Biden states VA, CT, CO, and HI.
But it's still sort of telling that the Democratic powerhouses of CA, IL, and NY (which reliably give Democrats more than a third of the votes needed for a win) all have absolutely no voter ID requirements at all. Add in MA, NJ, and MD (which also have no voter ID at all) and you get more than half the needed votes.
After 2020, I tried to be all Federalist about it and say that if Philly wants to have crooked elections, it's up to the people of Pennsylvania to fix it. Maybe they did?
I don't think it's just up to the people of PA; PA is part of the federal Union, if its system is corrupt, it affects the entire Union. Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution seems to be premised on that reality.
Yes, but. The Constitution itself doesn’t say much about how Electors are chosen, nor does it require them to vote according to the popular vote (which is why NE and ME can allot them by district while the rest do it winner-take-all). In principle the PA legislature could appoint Electors independent of the popular vote. If it chooses not to clean up the Philly machine, it’s arguably not unConstitutional.
The PA constitution is another matter, of course — but it’s far from clear that there’s any Federal recourse. The Constitution guarantees PA a republican government but it’s not clear that a bit of corruption, especially in regard to the federal elections rather than the state elections, is enough to say it doesn’t have one.
All this may of course just be me trying to tell myself we still have a republic despite all the shenanigans…
i also suggest that the majority of those who count the votes be (1) unaffiliated with any political party or advocacy group (eg. naral), (2) neither participants in nor donors to any partisan campaigns or issue advocacy groups, and (3) private citizens who receive no income from government entities, political entities, advocacy groups, office holders, or candidates.
Not a bad idea, but where will one find these people? I imagine that most people who are willing to volunteer for something such as this are also volunteering in other political organizations/causes.
if there aren't enough volunteers, treat it like jury duty
The more typical process is to have people who are willing to declare for one of the two major parties, and then have them work together in a check and balance system.
Title of proposed legislation should be 'Common Sense Integrity in Voting Act CSIVA or CoSIVA)
Absolutely. There should be no doubt in a voter's mind that the election is fair. That certainly is not the case now. In fact we know the Democrats cheated. I witnessed a cheat in the 2022 election. My vote was run through the wrong voting machine. The "helper" showed me the machine to put it in after seeing my vote. She looked guilty as hell but I didn't know what to do.
Top"ish" priority. Making the NFL less lame and federally mandating the return of McDonald's All Day Breakfast* are ahead in line. These are problems that are direct threats to our nation's shared values.
*This is Anthony Fauci's fault. I'm not kidding look it up.
Australia does not require photo ID to vote, but…
The pool of registered voters unlikely to vote is small because voting is mandatory. ~90% of Australians vote.
Vote by mail requires a good reason.
Early voting is limited to a few days in a few polling places.
Consequently, vote fabrication at scale is harder than in the US.