This is neither a column about “Stop the Steal” or “there was no fraud.” At this point, whether there was a sufficient level of fraud to affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election is a moot point. Nonetheless there were, and continue to be, legitimate concerns about election integrity in the United States.
If this nation is to survive as a constitutional republic, those concerns must be addressed. The problem is that our nation is currently so divided that there exists little trust in any remedy that may be proposed by one side or the other. Just how deep is that mistrust? Consider this.
In a Politico/Morning Consult poll taken shortly after November’s election, 70 percent of Republicans rejected the notion that it was conducted in a “free and fair” manner. Before the election, just 35 percent of Republicans held that belief. The shift was opposite among Democrats, where 95 percent believed the election was free and fair afterward, compared with 52 percent who said the same before the election.
Despite this divide, there is a workable template for election reform that was the product of a bipartisan commission. Several of its recommendations are worthy of consideration.
After the 2000 election debacle culminating in the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore, a Commission on Federal Election Reform was formed. It was a continuation of a previous commission created by former President Jimmy Carter. Co-chairing the new commission was James A. Baker III, who served as Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration and Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush. The commission’s twenty-one members were a who’s who of political heavyweights and academics from across the political spectrum.
In a 91-page report, the commission put forth 87 recommendations to secure fair elections. Key among these proposals was the recognition that voter ID laws are important to preserve election integrity. Granted, with the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a perceived need to rely heavily on mail-in voting last year, but that does not mean that we should ignore this important recommendation for future elections.
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