In a piece at RealClearPolitics professors Chad Flanders and Kevin Vallier do a pretty good job of identifying the problem:
Indeed, we seem to be locked into a kind of a death spiral in election reform, where anything that changes how we run elections is looked at in terms of which side will benefit. Bills being considered – and passed – in many states, justified as improving election “integrity†and “security,†seem almost transparently designed to shrink the electorate to a more GOP-friendly core. The goal is not making elections more trustworthy but electing more Republicans.
In essence, this is results-oriented tampering with the election process. Long term, it can only increase cynicism about our elections while stifling other, more sensible, reforms. The same phenomenon plays out in debates over redistricting, where each side jockeys to draw districts not in pursuit of better representation, but to ensure more districts “lean†their way. That’s nothing new, although we may be entering an era of exceptional brazenness in this regard. Using increasingly sophisticated computer programs to design districts that maximize partisan advantage has become a perverse art form.
To restore trust in elections, we have to find policies that are not simply tilted in favor of one political party. Policy that increases trust in elections has to benefit both sides. This will not be easy: Election reform never occurs in a vacuum, and many reforms do help one side more than the other – much of the time, in fact, we know in advance which side will benefit more. This colors and corrupts debate over the policy. We must work hard to assess reforms on the merits, and not in terms of partisan advantage.
Like many such plaints, despite being able to see the problem clearly they fail to offer any solutions. I think there is no solution as long as the stakes are so high. Those at the top of the pyramid depend on winning for their cushy livelihoods, the media need to maintain a constant state of unhappiness to preserve their livelihoods, and so on.
Also the most transparent and fair election process is moot in the face of tortured electoral districts, carefully constructed to benefit one party or group and disadvantage others. I don’t remember which Chicago pol said it (probably the late Mayor Daley) but one map drawer is worth 10,000 precinct workers.
Finally, opinion being as closely divided as it is makes all elections look unfair. There is always a margin of error in tallying election results. Always. When the margin of error exceeds the margin of victory the winner of an election is actually indeterminate.
“I think there is no solution as long as the stakes are so high. ”
Agree with that. However, it is bizarre to think that in every election millions of illegals are voting and not getting caught and that this has been going on for years. It just isn’t in human nature to keep something on that scale secret for so long.
Steve
I don’t think there’s a meeting of minds on this. I don’t believe that the 2020 election was decided based on fraud or illegal voting. However, in the election more than 150 million votes were cast. I think that probably 1% of those or 1.5 million were bad and it’s extremely difficult to catch them. Some were caught; most weren’t.
Take my home precinct for example. There are about 400 people registered to vote in it. I think it’s quite likely there were 4 votes cast illegally—people falsely registered in the precinct, ineligible for one reason or another, absentee ballots cast for people who were dead or had moved, etc. It’s what I would call “margin of error” rather than systematic fraud. And very, very difficult to detect.
In other words it’s easy and credible to believe that Biden won the election (I do) but that there’s more fraud around than the apprehension statistics would tell you. For goodness sake, steve, the clearance rate on homicides is under 30% in Chicago and the clearance rate on burglary is much worse. If the clearance rates for crimes that are reported and easy to identify when they happened, doesn’t it stand to reason that it would be much, much worse for crimes that are almost completely unreported and practically impossible to detect?
Do you believe that NONE of the snowbirds who live in New York, New Jersey, etc. during part of the year and winter in Florida vote in both places? I can’t believe that.
What are the chances 1.5 million people are doing something deliberately illegal like this and none of them are talking about it? Remember that the claim is that this has been happening for years. None are bragging about it on social media? Zero. People talk. They talk to someone they think is a fellow conspirator and it leaks.
They actually catch the dead people, which as you probably know isn’t really a bunch of evil immigrants somewhere looking for dead people and using their names to vote. It is the spouse of a dead person filling out a ballot for the deceased. Or someone fills out a ballot and mails it in and dies before the day of the vote and state law says you have to be alive on the day of the vote.
Finally, in areas where they think all of this is real, they devote a lot fo time, attention and money to looking for fraud. They arent finding the large scale fraud we are talking about. They find someone who casts a provisional ballot, that never even got counted, 30 days before parole ended and put them in jail for 5 years. They find that kind of stuff because that is mostly what is out there. So sure, a dozen snowbirds probably voted two places, but not thousands. The risk reward just isn’t worth it.
Steve
I, personally, reported the same people who had died in every election over a period of a decade. They remained on the voter rolls nonetheless. And I’ve seen people whom I believed to be non-citizens voting. I was required to allow them to vote provisionally. That’s how the law was interpreted here. I didn’t think they were evil. I just think they thought they had the right to vote.
On this we are in agreement.
As the voting standards and protocols become weaker and weaker, so does one’s trust in elections being conducted honestly. However, once a standard is reduced or waived any attempts to refortify the rules, making elections less subject to fraud, are immediately labeled as racist, or eliminating voting access to the less fortunate. This is the mantra abundantly voiced by Dems, over the years, especially when voter ID is brought into the picture. Now we can add VBM, universal voter mailings, changing the threshold for signature verification, elongated periods of early voting, same day registration, motor voter conveniences, ballot and granny harvesting, and in CA, the ability to print your own ballots (instituted just prior to the Newsom recall).
Again, most of the hacking away of voter safeguards are either introduced or demanded by the democrat party. Their latest attempts to control election outcomes, falsely called “We The People Bill,†basically federalizes our elections, legalizes and dumps into practice everything that literally makes voting a joke. But, as Dems are the squeaky wheel party, realigning the quality of voting, and restoring confidence in having an unbiased system in which to cast your vote, is a steep hill to climb. Just look at the barbs and accusations cast in the direction of any state passing election integrity reform, in the aftermath of the 2020 election – an election becoming the template Dems would love to have copied and put into concrete throughout all 50 states.