The 2020 election demonstrates the strong need for election reform

Whether you voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump for President of the United States, or whether you believe that Trump was defeated by a more popular candidate or by election errors and dishonesty, you should want sensible and secure election systems in place to assure the results reflect the decision of the American people.

Few things are more deserving of absolute security than elections, especially when we are electing the president. And elections are a prime area for problems, as we have seen this year.

The pandemic of 2020 threw everything into chaos, including the election. Efforts to protect people led to a movement to send unrequested ballots — universal ballots — to every voter in several states, some of which had never done this before. That led to more chaos.

As a result of the craziness of the 2000 Bush v Gore controversy, the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform — known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission, named after former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker — was formed.

The Daily Signal explained that the commission “was created to address voting and election integrity issues raised by the tumultuous 36-day postelection battle of 2000, which was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision that resulted in awarding Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.” 

The commission studied the election processes, and in 2005 released a report with 87 recommendations. The Daily Signal reported on this study and noted that “had Congress and state governments adopted many of the panel’s recommendations, the 2020 post-election mess between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden might have been avoided, said Carter-Baker Commission member Kay C. James, now the president of The Heritage Foundation.”

James said that “simple protections against fraud, like voter ID and updated voter registration lists, make perfect sense if we truly believe that every vote must count. Election officials should take another look at the commission’s recommendations and make sure they’re doing everything possible to protect the integrity of our elections.”

While several state legislatures did respond to the commission’s recommendations, Congress was reportedly unenthusiastic about them.

The Commission offered seven recommendations that are relevant to the 2020 election. They include:

* Voter ID - “To ensure that persons presenting themselves at the polling place are the ones on the registration list, the Commission recommends that states require voters to use the REAL ID card, which was mandated in a law signed by the President in May 2005. The card includes a person’s full legal name, date of birth, a signature (captured as a digital image), a photograph, and the person’s Social Security number. 

“This card should be modestly adapted for voting purposes to indicate on the front or back whether the individual is a U.S. citizen. States should provide an [Election Assistance Commission]-template ID with a photo to non-drivers free of charge.”

* Mail-in and Absentee Voting Risks - “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud. State and local jurisdictions should prohibit a person from handling absentee ballots other than the voter, an acknowledged family member, the U.S. Postal Service, or other legitimate shipper, or election officials. The practice in some states of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots should be eliminated.”

* Election Observers for Integrity - In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, Republicans have complained that qualified election observers have been prohibited from watching the counting. The Carter-Baker Commission report stressed the need for election observers to maintain the integrity of the ballots. 

“All legitimate domestic and international election observers should be granted unrestricted access to the election process, provided that they accept election rules, do not interfere with the electoral process, and respect the secrecy of the ballot,” the 2005 report said. 

* Reliable Voting Machines - Voting machines have also been a significant issue in 2020, particularly in Michigan, as one county there flipped from Biden to Trump after a hand recount showed the machine count to be inaccurate. 

The Carter-Baker Commission suggested that machines print out paper receipts for voters to verify their vote was accurately counted. “States should adopt unambiguous procedures to reconcile any disparity between the electronic ballot tally and the paper ballot tally,” the 2005 report says. “The Commission strongly recommends that states determine well in advance of elections which will be the ballot of record.”

* Media Calling Elections - “News organizations should voluntarily refrain from projecting any presidential election results in any state until all of the polls have closed in the 48 contiguous states,” the report states. “News organizations should voluntarily agree to delay the release of any exit-poll data until the election has been decided.”

The other two recommendations were to avoid duplicate registration across state lines, and to prosecute voter fraud. Both, particularly the latter, should be required.

The Carter-Baker recommendations are sensible ones. It’s too bad that Congress and more states did not have the good judgement to implement some or all of them.

Today, the country is paying a high price for their failure to do so.

Is Election 2020 the most unusual presidential election in history?

If nothing else, the election saga is certainly interesting. It has created great misery and hand-wringing across the political spectrum. 

Based on the projections of news outlets relying on state voting totals, former Vice President Joe Biden, D-Pa., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Cal., were declared the winners. That, however, does not make them the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect.

The process has not yet reached the stage where any candidates are officially declared to have won.

Every election has problems, like human error and fraud. The question always is, how much of an effect do the errors and fraud really have?

This election was doomed to be controversial from the beginning, with the potential for more problems than usual due to the fear of the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it created. More people wanted to vote early or by absentee or mail-in ballot than usual to avoid the crowds at polling places. 

And then there were potential problems from the tens of millions of universal mail-in ballots sent out, many/most from states that were ill-prepared to handle that situation.

The dangers of mail-in voting are well known. We were warned about problems by such important voices as former President Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center, Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, and The New York Times.

And now that the voting is done, there are claims that confirm those warnings: Lost ballots, ballots found in trash cans, more votes in some precincts than registered voters, vote count observers prevented from observing the process, among them.

The Constitution gives the sole power to establish election procedures to the state legislatures. Yet in several states these procedures were recently changed by judges, secretaries of state and others who do not have that authority. 

Since changes were made by unauthorized persons, how many ballots were counted that were received after the previous -- legal -- deadline, or under previous requirements for signatures and such? Those ballots are not valid!

There are many charges of mistakes and fraud being looked into. President Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed multiple lawsuits challenging various aspects of the election process in several states. 

This has greatly angered Trump’s enemies; lots of people are urging Trump to concede, severely chastising him for not having already done so. This, despite that what he is doing is both legal and not uncommon. In the 2000 race, for example, Democrat candidate Al Gore challenged things for more than a month; Trump has done so for only three weeks, as of today.

And, given the array of false charges and hoaxes Trump was tortured with for the last four years, starting when he first declared himself a candidate, perhaps he has good reason to hold off conceding until challenges are resolved. Note: his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, still has not acknowledged Trump won, and she advised candidate Biden not to concede “under any circumstances.”

Democrats felt confident that a blue wave was coming, expecting that they would win the presidency, expand their House majority and perhaps win control of the Senate.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Republicans increased their numbers in the House, flipping possibly a dozen seats from blue to red, and leaving the Democrats with a very slim majority. 

While the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, Republicans may possibly retain their majority, depending upon the run-off elections for two Georgia seats.

Despite the losses in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., claimed victory, touting the popular vote tally showing House Democrats collected more votes than Republicans. Apparently, the number of votes for Democrats is more important than the number of Democrats that will be in the House.

Perhaps the most interesting, or the strangest, issue is the alleged massive fraud by voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems based in Canada. The Dominion machines are alleged to have actually thrown the election to Biden/Harris through manipulative software.

It is a complicated scenario that many people have discounted because of a lack of evidence having been revealed to support it. However, supporters say there is plenty of evidence, adding that evidence is critical and necessary for legal proceedings, but is not needed merely to assuage doubting reporters and Trump opponents. The Trump legal team cites dozens of sworn affidavits, filed under the threat of perjury, alleging vote fraud in some states.

Dominion has denied all charges, and its officials had agreed to testify before a Pennsylvania legislative committee. Then, Dominion strangely cancelled out the night before the hearing. 

These days computers are capable of doing fantastic things. But can they control the votes of tens of millions of voters in hundreds of different voting locations?

Georgia’s experience with Dominion computers used in the state’s primary raised questions and concerns over the company’s voting system. But Georgia stuck with them.

And the head of another computer voting system, Smartmatic, admitted in 2017 that his company’s computers and software created at least one million additional votes in the Venezuelan election.

Most view Trump’s efforts to prove he won as improbable. But with the vast array of problems and potential fraud, taking a few weeks to investigate them is not asking too much.