This country is divided as never before in modern times. The one place it seems to come together is at the ballot box. Even then, this midterm election has been clouded by controversy.
This is not new! The election of George W. Bush over Al Gore for the presidency and the ‘hanging chad’ controversy that took place again in the same voting districts in Florida.
The contested 1948 Democratic primary runoff for the Senate in which Lyndon Johnson was accused of stealing the election by massive fraud when supporters stuffed Box 13 for him in Jim Wells County. That lone precinct in the dusty South Texas town of Alice provided LBJ with an 87-vote victory. It earned him the nickname ‘Landslide Lyndon’ and sent him to the Senate and a position of power that eventually put him in the White House.
With all the technological advances over the last 70 years, it would seem voting irregularities would be more uncommon. Unfortunately, it appears to have become worse; not with recording the ballot itself, but with the people who vote and those who count their votes.
The first is with the voters themselves. It is only an estimate, with no valid proof to substantiate the claims, but it has been suggested that between 2.5 and 3.0 million voters in California were not U.S. citizens and not eligible to vote in the most recent presidential election. There also claims of multiple votes cast by individuals who vote multiple times in different locations with a copy of a utility bill serving as their only means of identification.
This last election appears to be an example where those that count the votes participated in nefarious activities in an attempt to alter the outcomes of several elections, specifically in two Florida counties in the races for the Governor and the Senate. First is by not turning in the votes within the allotted time as specified by Florida election law. Second is by mixing provisional ballots, which can’t be traced back to the voter or the location at which they voted, with certified ballots. Usually provisional ballots are not counted. Thus, this makes it virtually impossible to exclude the provisional votes from the regular vote count.
It seems both Parties are becoming even more desperate to gain power over the electorate, and will not let anything get in their way.
Other than just prosecuting those who intentionally commit election law violations, the other options to curtail these growing violations of election laws are individual ballot accountability and adopting a voter ID program as in Mexico. If a private concern can determine where each lotto ticket is sold and the numbers selected, it should be in the realm of technology to know where each ballot originated and probably even who cast the vote. The claim against adopting voter ID is that it discriminates against the poor, the elderly and those with language barriers must be balanced against voter credibility. The argument of costs incurred by the individuals who participate is not valid either, since Mexico is a poorer country than the United States.
The only things that seem to be holding this country back are the legislatures in the ‘blue states’ and the liberal district court judges across the country. This may be the last opportunity for those who support a conservative agenda to call for a referendum to pass voter ID requirements, and also possibly ballot tracking measures. Because once the liberals flip the ‘red states’ to ‘blue’, this potential control of election fairness will be no more. If Mexico passed voter ID requirements for essentially the same reasons, there is no reason the current ‘red states’ can’t do the same. With Kavanaugh now on the Supreme Court, the odds are much better, the Court would be more favorably inclined.
