Elections to the office of the president, vice president, members of congress (house and senate), state governors and state representatives should normally be a non-partisan process. However, the media and members of political parties have designated states as traditionally blue (meaning democrat) or red (meaning republican) states depending on how the majority of the people in the state have voted in the past. As per the constitution, states have the primary responsibility of administering federal and state elections. In recent years, there seems to be a significant degree of distrust in the conduct and outcome of elections when a blue candidate wins in a red state or vice versa. The suspicion is compounded by the fact that the elections division in each state comes under the authority of the secretary of state and, on the face of it, partisan to the party in power in the state. Even though, broad congressional authority exists to regulate how states administer elections, especially for president, vice-president, house and senate, a lot of variations and scenarios are possible in the conduct of elections in each state. Each new scenario in every state needs to be examined and legislated by congress since the constitution is silent on what needs to be done. The states are ill equipped to provide a solution to the problem and every solution is viewed with suspicion by the party not in power. Many times, the issue at hand would finally end up in the Supreme Court for arbitration and judgement even before congress could undertake the legislation. A detailed report here – https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL30747.html – describes the articles and amendments to the constitution and analyzes Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate how states administer elections.
There is clearly a need for uniformity of administration of elections across all the states including defining and setting a national standard for: What is the procedure to file for a candidacy? What is the timeline? What do candidates have to disclose before their candidacy becomes eligible? Who can be disqualified and on what grounds? Who can cast the vote? What document or identification is needed to cast the vote? How many ways and methods one can use to cast a vote? How mail-in-ballots are processed without double counting? How do you determine a valid vote? How will the integrity of vote data be maintained and verified? How would you detect, minimize or eliminate voter fraud? What is the equipment to be used for voting? How could the results be verified beyond dispute? There could be many more questions as technology becomes more developed and accessible by the average citizen.
To answer all the above questions and find solutions in a comprehensive way that is a standard across the nation, there needs to be a non-partisan collaboration between the states and the federal government. One such collaboration is envisaged in the set-up of a joint federal-state independent regulatory board called the National Elections Board (NEB). The NEB will have the full but distributed authority and oversight of all elections across all districts, counties, states and nation. In such a collaboration, all existing elections divisions come under the domain of the NEB and no longer report to the secretaries of state. The board would be led by a non-partisan NEB Chairman who is supported by non-partisan State Election Regulators (one from each state). The process of installing the non-partisan board leadership has to be thoughtfully designed. The suggested mission, vision and values for the NEB is as follows.
NEB Mission: To protect the integrity of elections at every level, oversee compliance and conduct of the voting process in all states through strict enforcement of regulations.
NEB Values: Openness, Collaboration, Inclusion, Trusting, Efficiency, Consistency, Fairness, Guidance
NEB Priorities: Grant funds to all states’ election division(s) for operations; Voter Registration, Process Compliance, Inspections, Audits, Investigations, Accountability of the board (to Voters, to State Governors, Congress (Senate and House), Vice-President and the President); Developing Regulations and Methods for Voting; Certification of Results; Maintaining voter records; Communication (Internal and External); Efficiency; Cost Reduction; Fairness; Competency; Consistency; Customer Service (to all).
How could “we the people” participate in the process to bring about this change for the benefit of all? The answer is simply, a national referendum, as described under the section on Transition to DSC.
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