I always like it when a sports team has completely screwed up and lost the plot — Dallas Cowboys and Manchester United, take a bow — and then when the new coach/manager joins the organization, the statement is pretty much always the same: “We’re going to go back to the basics”, as in the wisdom in the words of the old manager in baseball’s Bull Durham: “You hit the ball, you catch the ball, you throw the ball.”
So given that our current method of voting in the United States is a hopelessly corrupted process, completely open to fake voters, system hacking and the outright fraud made so easy in “mail-in voting”, anyone with a brain should welcome this pronouncement from POTUS:
“Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS! Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!”
So who could possibly object to so simple, basic and open system? Don’t be silly.
Critics of Trump’s election plans (take a wild guess who they are – K.) argue that such decisions should be left up to the states.
Yes of course. By all means let’s leave federal elections in the hands of such honest and decent states like Illinois, Michigan and all the Usual Suspects.
I find it interesting that when the United States sets up a system in foreign countries to ensure that the process is free, open and not easy to corrupt, it involves such artifacts as paper ballots and dyed fingers (to prevent repeat voting) in one-day elections conducted only in official, supervised polling places for registered and verified voters only, with ballots tabulated by hand and all results published by the following morning.
Yet when it comes to the United States itself… oh no, let’s use vulnerable and corruptible machines to collate and tabulate votes electronically, let’s allow the process to take place over weeks and months, and let’s likewise drag out the actual reporting of results over weeks and months, with no controls as to who was qualified to vote, and no guarantee of the integrity of the ballot papers trickling in from unprotected collection boxes.
Let’s just ask ourselves: who could possibly object to simplifying and protecting the integrity of the voting process for the most consequential elections in the whole world? Silly rabbit:
To ask the question is to answer it: it would be those groups and parties whose policies are unpopular, clearly destructive (to the country, its economy and its institutions) and cannot pass even the most simple and casual scrutiny for efficacy and common sense.
By the way, the only thing I don’t like about DJT’s announcement (apart from all those stupid exclamation marks) is that he made no mention of dyed fingers.
We need them too. And I don’t care how “primitive” it looks.
As with sports teams, the basics are critical — and none so critical as our elections.
you’re absolutely right!!
We need Congress to enact these executive orders and make them the law of the land
Somebody is going to have to give a little more thought to some of this. Standing for hours to vote in the heat in places like Arizona and Texas is not a good idea. For people like me, advanced in years and declined in health, making the trip to polling places just will not happen. Voter lists must be cleared after every state or federal election. Voter ID is a must.
We just had a push on here for the new federally approved state driver’s license. We had to supply all sorts of proof as to who we are (birth certificate, voter ID, utility bills, SSAN’s, etc.,) to prove who we are and where we live. Now that we have a star on our license, we can fly anywhere we want, just by showing our new ID. We should also be able to vote without question.
The former British colony of Somaliland was merged with Italian Somaliland to form Somalia. When Somalia collapsed, Somaliland set up its own functional government (which has never been recognized because UN/diplomatic arseholiness). Recently they had an election. Voters were identified by retinal scans, the results were in the same day, and there was IIRC a peaceful transition of power.
If a poor African country which isn’t even recognized can do this, there is no excuse for US elections being SNAFU.
As for voters with difficulty getting to a polling place: the polling place can come to them. A pair of election judges with a portable voting set-up can visit such voters at home.
I’ve personally assisted with such voting procedures: for nursing home residents and inmates of Cook County jail. (Even they are entitled to vote until actually convicted of something.)