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Election fairness seems to be an increasingly contentious topic in the U.S., with many on the right alleging that democracy is being undermined via election fraud and many on the left alleging it is being undermined via attempts to disenfranchise people and throw out legitimate election results. Meanwhile, independents and supporters of alternative parties see a system that has long discriminated against them. Here are a few proposals for maximizing election fairness and security that don't just side with the left or the right:
• except for voters out of the area (e.g. overseas) or disabled (e.g. bedridden), voting should be done in person on Election Day
• voting should not require government identification; rather voters' fingers should be dipped in ink to deter repeat voting in the same election, as is done in some countries
• all candidates should have the same number of words in voter pamphlets to present their platforms
• candidates should not be charged any fees for ballot access or to have their statements published
• all party-based ballot access restrictions should be abolished
• all write-in votes should be counted, with the name of each such candidate published in the results with the number of votes received
• electronic voting should be abolished, and all ballots hand-counted (computers too subject to hacking or biased programming)
• custody of ballots should be videotaped and the video streamed online from the moment a ballot is submitted to the moment it is counted
• all candidates should be included in official debates and given equal time
• all government-funded media should be required to give equal coverage to each declared candidate
• multi-round elections and debates should be used to winnow initially large numbers of candidates that would presumably result from the implementation of some of these reforms
• seats in legislative bodies should be allocated on the basis of proportional representation as is done in some countries (e.g. a party whose candidates receive 5% of the votes gets 5% of the seats)
I am so baffled by American debates about this. Why the hell don't you want to use IDs to vote? Anyone too stupid to get an ID shouldn't vote.
The charitable take is that this supposedly disenfranchises vulnerable communities who might have difficulty obtaining government IDs.
The realistic take is that all the other government programs designed to help these vulnerable communities (such as subsidised housing, food stamps, medicaid, etc) all themselves require government IDs, and even in countries like India which have far greater challenges to providing voting access to all their citizens still require IDs. At this point, I'm pretty convinced its just a bargaining chip for Blue Tribe to offer up at some future legislation, because the alternative is there is a non-trivial amount of fraud being enabled by the lack of ID checks, which would be a whole different kettle of fish.
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