Do you ever wonder how politicians can take such a simple “problem” and blow it out of proportion? I’ll get to that in a minute. There is no “voter suppression” as Democrats like to claim. There is voter indifference and laziness.
The reality is that making sure that the people who vote are entitled to vote, as well as making sure the people who want to vote are able to easily do so is not rocket science. The other reality is that no matter how strict voter registration and voting requirements are, there will be those trying to cheat. Additionally, no matter how easy you make it to vote, there are millions of people who simply will not vote. The two are not mutually exclusive and can be accomplished rather easily with four common sense changes.
First, let’s start with the corporate CEOs who jumped on the bandwagon to denounce the recent Georgia voting law, which is more liberal than many other Democrat run states. Back in the 1980s, I worked for Panasonic Corp. (a Japanese Company). One of the paid holidays that they provided every year was Election Day. I don’t recall anyone converting the first Tuesday in November trying to create a four-day weekend by adding a Monday vacation day. Why haven’t these CEOs instituted Election Day as a paid holiday. For that matter, why hasn’t Congress created a Federal holiday for Election Day. That would certainly improve the turnout and the counties running the elections could probably have more voting locations with fewer “early voting” days.
A second issue has to do with voter IDs. When I moved to Arizona in 2013, I was able to register to vote when I obtained my Arizona driver’s license. I was also able to choose permanent absentee ballot status. A few weeks later, I received a voter ID card with a specific ID number. These numbers could easily be bar coded, which could then tie into a photo database.
A few years ago, I went to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. You purchase your ticket at the ticket kiosk and then go to the entrance to the Park. The first time you go there, the person at the entrance knows that it is the first time using the ticket. They take an electronic photograph of you, which then feeds into their system. Thirty minutes later, you can leave the Disneyland Park and walk over to California Adventure, and when they scan your ticket, your photo appears on the screen next to the turnstile. We have the technology, and with a billion dollars or two, every state could implement such a system at the poling places. We have the technology.
One of the other big issues is “voter drop boxes.” One side says there are not enough of them, while the other says they are not secure enough. Unfortunately, Americans have gotten used to placing an order online and then driving up to the store to have their goods delivered to the car with “curbside pickup.” Let’s face it: the Internet has made people lazy and the efforts of businesses to stay open have created a mentality that they are not required to exert much effort anymore. It would seem to me that something as important as voting should require that at least a little effort, such as getting out of your car to deposit your mail-in ballot, is not unreasonable.
That being said, how difficult would it be to have a drop box for ballots only at every fire station in a given county. There is always someone there with some responsibility and they can close collection boxes at 7 p.m. This would almost eliminate the possibility of tampering with the contents of the collection box. They could drop their ballots off on the way to the market or McDonald’s.
Finally, how about cleaning up the voter rolls? One has to wonder if the fact that 25-35% of registered voters fail to vote in elections is because there are still deceased or people who have left a state are still on the voting rolls. We have read stories of people who received mail in ballots for a parent, who had lived with them, but subsequently died, and their children, who also had lived with them, but eventually moved out to lead their own lives.
Every county maintains the records of people who have died within their jurisdiction. Why can’t this information be transmitted to the appropriate agency within the state to have those names removed from the voter rolls? Furthermore, most people who move provide a change of address notification to the U.S. Post Office. Why isn’t this information transmitted to the Registrar of Voters in the district where that voter was once residing? This is common sense.
Which brings me back to the original question: Why do politicians can take such a simple “problem” and blow it out of proportion? When someone is elected to an office, no matter what the office, before they are sworn into that office they are taken to the hospital where they get common sense bypass surgery, and it is replaced with an insatiable craving to be re-elected. The fact is that politicians like to keep “We the People” arguing with each other to keep our attention off of the acts of the politicians.
