Dakota Beacon

I more or less grew up in various political party headquarters.  I leave it to the reader to guess which ones.  As a multi-functional campaign worker I got a very up-close acquaintance with the nuts and bolts of elections.  By the time I was 15 I knew the whole process, from the preparation of canvass sheets from raw data in card files based on past voters and the city directory to late summer canvassing, which in those days meant a door-to-door survey - a lot of sweat and shoe leather went into that - to processing the returned canvass sheets which meant updating the cards, adding new ones, etc., and typing up the resulting information onto poll sheets - to the final show - election day.

On election day these poll sheets went with poll watchers to the polling places and the intensive work of getting the vote out began.  I assume much of this is unchanged, although I’m pretty sure the card files are gone.  The poll watchers took the poll sheets and when the runners brought them back to the headquarters the callers would begin their work, reminding those who had not been checked off to vote, offering a ride to the polls if needed.  At the polls, the poll watchers dutifully caught the names of voters and checked them off.  Our lists had people who indicated they would be voting for our candidates; the other party had lists of people who would be voting for theirs.  The system wasn’t foolproof by any means and we all knew that.  But it was as good as we could get it on both sides.  I recall one long day when I was pollwatching at the armory.  A very nice gentleman approached me, assuming because of my age that I was on his team, and brought me lunch - courtesy of the local union affiliate.  I had to tell him, with considerable regret, that I wasn’t the one he intended to treat.  The elderly lady at another table was his poll watcher.  Some poll watchers actually are more equal than others.  I never got lunch.  

The point of this is that in living memory we had an “election day”.  Whichever candidate we supported or whichever measure we promoted or opposed, we were united in this one thing - this was the day we peacefully cast our ballots and made our voices heard, collectively, but individually as well.  In those days, where I lived, voter fraud was possible and we knew it happened.  It was statistically rare but not unheard-of.  

There is much to recommend the system then in use.  It could be and has been streamlined, I’m sure.  I recall one such effort back in the early 1970s.  The party sent its favorites to Washington to a seminar on conducting the canvassing by telephone.  I wasn’t among the favorites.  If I had perhaps I might have been convinced.  But I had done this for years and I knew the vagaries of the city directory.  The inaccuracies which would result in skipping the labor-intensive canvassing, where a party worker would be face-to-face with potential voters on their doorstep, would be disastrous, especially in areas where there was considerable turnover in residents, such as the south end of Grand Forks which was already exhibiting the trend away from single family homes and toward high-density, transient housing.  A city directory would always yield two-year-old information at best.  In two years many people would have moved in or moved out and the information was useless for this purpose.  It was basically local history, not current data.  

I proved right.  And we did lose one very grumpy state representative.  Interesting story - she blamed me!  As fate would have it, she was the mother-in-law of the woman who would become my stepdaughter, so I found out what she was telling people.  At any rate, not all changes are improvements!

Why do I suddenly find myself reminiscing about this?  The recent discussion of Trump’s opposition to mail-in voting came up again today.  Twitter is censoring his tweets.  Twitter is wrong on this.  Trump’s issue is voter fraud.  This is, or should be, of concern to all of us, regardless of our party preference.  Election fraud steals our right to self-government.  There are many ways to corrupt the vote - in-person fraud is not unheard-of either.  In fact in northwestern Minnesota it thrives.  People are bused around from polling place to polling place, voting all day.  Thugs in places like Philadelphia intimidate in-person voters.  People are impersonated for the purpose of voting more than once.   It happens.  But it is not happening wholesale.  Does it matter?  Of course it does.  Lyndon Johnson rose from his humble beginnings to the presidency because of the famous “ballot box 13” in his home state of Texas.  And there is a reason that one of the last polling places to complete its work is Cook County, Illinois.  There are “hanging chads” and other evidence of irregularities and oddly enough, they tend to happen in swing states.  Go figure.  In a close election, a corrupted voting system can change history.

But by far the most corruptible form of voting is by mail.  We have a long history of allowing people to vote absentee.  Connecticut introduced absentee voting in 1864, to allow Civil War soldiers to vote.  It is only right that we make provision for soldiers who are serving our country and protecting our right to vote be able to participate in it themselves.  This is now basically a universal right.  It extends to the bed-ridden, those who are disabled, who are elderly, who are not physically present in their home district on election day, such as soldiers, students, business people and others.  All that is required is that the person who wishes to vote apply.  An application can be sent out on the strength of a phone call.  Then the application is processed and the ballot is mailed out.  This is probably the best we can do to ensure that everyone who is qualified has the opportunity to vote.  We should continue to support this system and do all we can to make sure that no American citizen is disenfranchised.  

However, the absentee ballot provides a much greater opportunity for fraud than in-person voting.  My own experience of out-dated data being used in preparing poll sheets - in a time when there was much less fluidity in residence - would indicate that sending out applications for absentee ballots en masse is a prescription for voter fraud.  We greatly amplify the possibility of corruption with every extra hand in the process.   Mail delivery is notorious for untimeliness, misdirection  (either their fault or someone else’s) and the occasional dumping.  In West Virginia this past April, a mail carrier admitted to falsifying absentee ballot applications.  In Mississippi and other states there have been issues of absentee ballots being sold.  Up to this point most of the absentee ballot fraud was fairly localized and also fairly rare in the bigger picture.  But the present issue of attempting to elicit mass voting by mail presents a much different level of risk.  

Our right to vote is precious.  People around the world in less favorable circumstances would die for this right.  Sadly we regard it as a pain in the behind, an inconvenience, not a right.  We complain about long lines, about the time it takes.  Look.  We do this at most every other year - usually once, unless we participate in primaries.  We should be able to handle it.  Here is my prescription.  It is not perfect and it won’t stop people from cheating and it won’t fix everything.  All we can do is clean it up to where our elections are legitimate and actually reflect the will of the people, for better or worse.

First, we do need to provide for those who cannot vote in person.  If you believe you will not be physically available to vote on election day, if you are disabled, etc., pick up the phone, call your county clerk and ask for an application for an absentee ballot.  Don’t wait for someone to come to you.  Then fill it out, return it and when your ballot comes, vote.  Remember, though, there is no such thing as a “secret ballot” if you vote absentee.  

We need to beef up voter registration.  States that don’t have it need to pass it or they run the risk of voter fraud.  We should remember that voter fraud equals disenfranchisement of legitimate voters.  We need to check credentials before allowing people to vote in person.  This is time-consuming and maybe even irritating, but we need to do this.  Once election fraud has occurred it is impossible to fix.  We need to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place.  Yes, election fraud is a felony, but so what?  Who gets caught?  And even if they did get caught, you can’t undo the damage.  

We should end the nonsense of “early voting”.  Election day used to be a “day”.  People were allowed to take time from work to exercise their right to vote.  We make time for it.  On election day.  This business of extending it to a season instead of a day invites fraud.  There are other reasons we should vote on one day.  We would then be voting in the same time frame.  We would be voting on the same basis of knowledge.  If everyone is voting early at different times, they are voting on the basis of different information.  Perhaps their vote is “yesterday’s vote” and might be different by election day.  A lot happens in a few days.  

Sure, this is all inconvenient.  But how convenient should voting be, anyway?  Shouldn’t it be worth a bit of exertion?  Shouldn’t it mean enough to us to take the time to vote?  We are becoming so detached from our process and our nation that it seems almost abstract to us.  We need to return to the affirming process of in-person voting on election day.  We can provide for those who can’t and care enough about it to make a phone call and start their own process.  Political campaigns are still free to help people access their absentee voting rights.  I’m very much in favor of everyone voting, once per election, of course.  If we don’t vote we really have abdicated our right to self-government and have no right to complain when we don’t like our leaders.  

Trump is right.  Mail-in voting presents a very real danger of election fraud.  We have never had mass mail-in voting before.  The virus is being used as an excuse for just about every other abridgement of our rights - now it is being used to promote a plan that is likely to result in election fraud.  It is true that the Republican Party has generally favored absentee voting.  Historically, the more effort it takes to vote, the more it favors a Republican candidate. There have always been more Democrats than Republicans.  When voter turn-out is high a Democrat victory is anticipated; when it is low, we expect to see a Republican victory.  Republicans tend to get their vote out.  At least this is what history tells us.  Before we start tearing into Trump over this issue, we should remember that our elections need to be protected for all of us.  We aren’t always going to win them, but we must protect their integrity in every way we can.  The idea of mass mail-in voting should frighten any thinking person.   

And regardless of who is calling it out, voter fraud is not a one-party offense.  Republicans and Democrats have been involved in election fraud.  The interest we have in the integrity of our elections crosses all party lines.  Whether you like Trump or not, he has raised a valid point on this and we should avoid the knee-jerk anti-Trump sentiment.  We all need to think here.

And make no mistake - sending out mass absentee applications is just the prelude to mass absentee ballots.  Voting shouldn’t necessarily be effortless.  We should be required to actually put ourselves out a bit to vote if it is to mean anything.  It’s not too much for an individual to make a phone call and initiate the absentee ballot.  Everyone else needs to just show up - on election day - and vote.  We should stop having voting going on for days.  This simply encourages abuse.  Make room and make time in your busy life for election day.  Unless you want to live in the kind of hell that is China.

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