Our Elections Are NOT OK

On this very terrain, four years ago, I asserted that we can “never again” allow an election like 2020 to happen. I’m back to say that despite Trump’s near landslide, America’s election system is still broken.

And the time to fix it is immediately, while President Trump has the wind at his back with a Republican Congress and the public on his side.

You most clearly see a broken election system when the margins are extremely tight. We saw it in 2020 when approximately 40,000 votes in key states tipped the election, and not so much in 2024. But rest assured, the public still lacks confidence in the integrity of our elections, and rightly so. They are only partially transparent. The tools to cheat are still on the table and able to be used. This is a ticking time bomb that could throw America into chaos in a future close election.

The main problems are ridiculously extended voting periods, mass absentee ballots, lack of voter ID, flimsy signature verification, unsecured drop boxes, voting machines with opaque software and connectivity to the internet, and sloppy, inaccurate voter rolls. We wouldn’t accept any of these third-world standards in our personal banking or accounting practices – why are we OK applying them to our precious votes?

Under our Constitution, we entrust election administration to the states. Some, like Florida, run a tight, efficient ship, counting all votes on Election Day in a few hours and posting ballot movement online in real-time. The public trusts those results. Others, like Arizona, have created a bizarre process that takes days to count the ballots. Even if there is no fraud whatsoever, the public is distrustful of such a Byzantine system. It boggles the mind that in 2024, in the United States of America, we are still counting votes days and even weeks after the election in Arizona and several other states.

The incoming Trump administration must make election integrity a top priority through federal legislation or persuading states to pass reforms. Standards such as voter ID, accurate and transparent voter rolls, and shortened voting periods should be emphasized publicly and perhaps incentivized by the federal government. There are constitutional issues at play here, but there are countervailing constitutional issues when blue states affect federal elections by relaxing their standards to enable cheating.

We are at a crossroads. More people are using absentee ballots and getting used to them. However, as the Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, concluded in 2005, mass absentee ballots invite voter fraud. Many other civilized countries agree – they ban them or sharply limit their use.

Like with money or other valuables, flawed human beings will steal them if you don’t provide strict guardrails and safeguards. In one-party areas without oversight, partisans will be tempted to break the rules and steal votes if they think they can get away with it.

Part of the reason there were fewer voting irregularities in 2024 compared to 2020 is that our organization and others dispatched tens of thousands of lawyers and volunteers to keep an eye on things. And, of course, it helped that the margin was “too big to rig” this time.

Let’s act to close the gaping security holes so we can spend more time debating the issues rather than paying hundreds of lawyers. Our great country deserves a great election system. It is within our power to make it happen in 2025.

Doug Truax is founder and CEO of Restoration of America, one of the most active and effective political organizations in America. He is a West Point graduate, successful entrepreneur, and former Army Ranger.

As I've said before...

Why doesn't Visa or Mastercard manage the counting of our elections? They each process at least 150 million transactions per day.
Each voter who registers would receive a credit-card like card as their voter ID, with a one-time PIN sent to them in a separate mailing. They can either vote in person or on-line and use their PIN to authenticate themselves. Their vote will be counted instantly.
Within an hour of the closing of the polls, the result can be announced by the credit card company.
Then, within 90 days of the next election the voter can go online and request a new PIN (or the PIN can be mailed to the last address on file but is unusable without the physical card and CCV code).

I detailed this idea in a November 2023 post:

Here is a high-tech solution.
Let a company like Visa or MasterCard manage the elections.
The process would go like this:
Citizen registers to vote.
County processes the voter registration.
Credit card company sends a voter card to the citizen. The voter's PIN is sent in a separate mailing within 90 days of the next election. This card is a permanent voter registration until such time as the voter leaves the jurisdiction or dies.
For each election:
For in-person voting:
The voter checks in and swipes their voter card into the reader. They enter their PIN.
If the PIN is accepted, the voter signs the precinct log book and receives a local voting sheet, computer code, or whatever device is used to vote. The PIN is marked as used.
The voter proceeds to vote.
For absentee/mail-in voting:
The voter completes the absentee/mail-in ballot and signs the ballot. The voter also writes their voter card number and PIN on the ballot.
The voter seals the ballot in a return envelope and signs the envelope.
The voter mails in the ballot or drops it in a ballot box.
The ballot is received by the county and entered into the tabulation system. The PIN is marked as used.
The voter receives a confirmation notice that their ballot was processed. This could be either via text message, automated phone call, or direct mail based on the voter's designation when registering.
The credit card company tabulates the ballots immediately, using the same technology that processes billions of credit card transactions each day.
Election results are published within two hours after the polls close in a state. The credit card company nullifies all the PIN numbers.
Ninety days prior to the next election, the credit card company resets all the PINs to new numbers and mails the new PINs to voter for use in the next election.
This should make it very difficult harvest ballots, since PIN numbers can't be made up or reused. The voter will know if their absentee/mail-in ballot was processed or not based on whether the PIN was used or not.
The technology exists to do this now.

-PJ

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