Voting in America -Advocating for (almost) Same Day Voting

A genuinely Non-Partisan Look at Voting

Taking a brief hiatus from my usual focus….Elections and American politics are very-much not my central area of expertise. However like most of us; I have views on many things! Sometimes uninformed views! I don’t believe this is a “conservative” vs “liberal” issue. Obviously both parties want to win. But if they truly believe in democracy and the voter decides; they should want to win because they were the candidate most people voted for.

(There’s always a spectrum of things people shouldn’t do in politics. But would hope that we can all agree that parties and candidates shouldn’t try and steal elections! Not even to achieve the results we want. That’s not democracy.)

Politicians, the media and social sites keeping talking about “The November 5 elections” even as some of these same sites report that about half the voting population had already voted before actual November Election Day. 75 million at latest report. (Early voting dates)
So November 5th is really just the last day to vote. And for some unknown number of those who already voted might change their vote would very-possibly have voted differently if they were to have actually have voted on November 5th.

There should be a far greater -effort should be made to work around some of the voting problems there are and have people voting within the same rough period of time. So that everyone is voting at the same time with the same information. A true “snapshot” of the electorate at a certain moment. And then take steps how to bring that about (while remembering why “Early Voting” became popular and has become increasingly-popular.) Perhaps make election day a public holiday as they do in some countries. Or perhaps extend the voting period to a 48 hour or 72 hour period but require the vote been made in that period. Perhaps if there could be some fool-proof and cheat proof (Sci-Fi) version of Electric phone from home. (I won’t sweat the details or ignore how it coule be cheated on.)

Perhaps also have mail in ballots have to be dated on November 5th (or very near to before it.) Personally I decided to actually vote on Election Day itself, November 5th. (I think I know who I am voting for!)

There are all kinds of reasonable voting reform suggestions out there (and there are probably many others I haven’t gone into - such as “Ranked-Choice Voting.) Having to be a US citizen to vote is obviously a no-brainer. (Sad that anyone would seem otherwise). Voter ID doesnt seem unreasonble - it’s required in many countries including the UK. But nor does it seem unreasonable to make obtaining such id extremely-easy. And to make registering to vote and remaining registered-to-vote, far easier. Kicking people off the electoral rolls seems to be done in too political manner. I have problems with efforts to disenfranchise voters which harkens back to the old days of (non) Voting Rights. Should make it easier to vote; not harder. Convicted Felons shouldn’t be rejected from voting just because people think they might vote for one party or the other. And Just ensure that the votes are fair (and accurately counted).

I’m not going to get into the issue of money in politics or campaign contributions or what the Supreme Court “should have done” (or what can be done in the future regarding “Money in Politics.” Or the whole issue of gerrymandering. There’s are valid arguments that the candidate or party that wins the majority of the vote should determine who governs (rules) a country. But the United States is far from being the only democracy where not infrequently because of the system of “first past the post” in districts;

Suggestions like “Get rid of the Electoral College” might have merit; but that requires a Constituional ammendment and seems hard to see how this would be ratified by the states. The whole concept of “Gerrymandering” might be problematic but as always its’ a question of “Whose oxe is being ; Those who want paper ballots rather than machine should forghet the “hanging chads” of the 2020 Election!

In a massive nation with 150 million+ voters; there are always going to be some anomalies; some vote-counting mistakes. But not-every mistake is pernicious. And nothing is infallible. But the idea that one party is pure as snow and the other is engaged in mass voter-stealing remains to be seen. So many of the voting claims; some wildly-conspiratorial are distractions not based on anything proven. In fact oft-times; the courts have proven them wrong.

So we should be far-less concerned with knowing immediately who won the vote; and far more concerned that the election is a true “referendum” on how people at the same time feel about issues. A true snapshot of the nation. And that the vote is accurate. Yes it might delay the vote count and knowing “who won.” But as we’ve seen; we don’t anway always learn on election night who won an election.

As I say; not my expertise. Not deeply thought through. But just some thoughts. And I imagine there are very good arguments including by “experts” why this would be a bad idea!