I am offended by what I consider is NPR’s biased and one-sided representation of this issue:
After Record 2020 Turnout, State Republicans Weigh Making It Harder To Vote
Like others, I have concerns with respect to the last election. I believe that our election system needs to be made more secure, particularly with respect to mail-in ballots, so as to restore confidence in our elections and eliminate claims of potential vote fraud. And while it is possible that some changes to improve and secure our election system might make voting more difficult for a small few, that is not the intent of of the changes. NPR’s characterization of any proposal to secure our election system as intending to “make it harder to vote” is insulting to those of us who believe that our ballot system can and should be improved.
I’ve outline my specific concerns as well as proposed solutions below.
1) Mail-in ballots
How do we know that the voter to whom a ballot was mailed actually completed the ballot? A large number of ballots were mailed out in the previous election to the last known address of registered voters, but in many cases verification of their continued residence at that address was not performed. Also, the only identity check performed on the ballot when received was a signature verification by polling staff who have no standardized method or training for signature analysis. In addition, in some cases the signatures were discarded or separated from their ballots after “verification”, making a subsequent verification (for instance, during a recount or statistical sampling) impossible. As a result no reliable mechanism exists to confirm that the registered voter actually completed the ballot. For all we know someone else harvested the ballot and completed it themselves.
We can easily resolve the concern noted above by moving away from a signature 1st level verification process. We should instead turn to a much more common approach long used by the banking system: a PIN. The voter’s PIN could be sent out at the time of registration, when the voter’s identity is first determined and their address confirmed. Then, in subsequent mail-in elections the voter would simply enter their PIN as a part of the ballot process.
If a PIN is used to confirm the voter’s identity for the mail-in ballot, then ballots could be safely sent to the all registered voter’s last know address without concern for illicit use; the PIN requirement would prevent anyone else but the registered voter from successfully using the ballot. A signature should still be required, but it should be placed on the ballot rather than the envelope to ensure its availability during subsequent recounts or for verification using statistical sampling.
A PIN would be a very simple and effective way to improve the security of our elections, and would not have any effect on voter registration or one’s ability to vote.
2) Voting only once
How do we know that people aren’t voting in multiple states in federal elections? For instance, what’s to stop a student from voting both in their home state and in the state of their college? This is possible because there is no centralized voter role at the federal level; instead, voters are registered at the state level only. Thus, duplicate voter registrations for national elections cannot be detected.
This is a simple problem to solve: voters registered to vote in federal elections should be compiled in a federal-level database, and the database compared for duplicate entries. The suspected duplicates could be provided to the states for further investigation. This could be accomplished without any effort by the voter, as state registrars would be responsible for forwarding their voter rolls to the federal government.
This would provide confirmation that duplicate votes were not being considered, and help assure the integrity of our elections. It would have no impact on the ability to legally vote and require no action whatsoever on the part of the voter.
3) Voter ID
Voter ID is a no-brainer. If you want to vote in an election, you should be required to prove that you have the right to vote. It’s by far the world standard, as pointed out in this 2015 Nation Review article on Voter ID:
The argument that some potentially do not have the required identification is not a persuasive argument against voter ID. Indeed, while some political entities have spent millions of dollars to defeat voter ID programs, if they had instead spent that money organizing programs to assist voters who lacked the required documentation then this whole conversation would be moot.
The fact of the matter is that unless we know who is voting in an election we can’t be confident in the outcome. And while voter ID may make it more difficult for some few to vote, that is no reason to leave our ballot system unsecure. We can develop systems to help people who do not have the required identification, and to establish identity when conventional means do not suffice, but in the end if they cannot obtain the necessary proof of their right to vote then perhaps they shouldn’t be voting.
These are common-sense measures designed to improve security and confidence in our elections. I’m sure NPR would disapprove, but frankly – based on their clearly biased view of election reform – I just don’t care. In my opinion NPR is less concerned with the security of our elections than they are with expressing their bias.