For 20 years now, whenever an American election period approaches, a feeling of concern invades us all, and the rest of the world is reminded of what a broken electoral process looks like.
America, the most powerful country and the oldest democracy (by several criteria), is not able to deliver certainty in the voting process anymore, or ensure clarity on how people get informed about the ballots in play, the requirements to register in time by state, how the voters data is collected and processed by certain platforms used by political parties, how to sort out fraud cases, handle local and foreign interference, paid for polls, how to approach the aging of the voting machines, and even how the votes are counted, discarded, etc.
Our system is a real mess, with every county, and even city’s freedom to decide what to do about deadlines, documents to be shown, where, when, and how to obtain those documents, number of polling stations, novel “experiments” on how to decide who gets elected, and a long list of other issues. In every recent election the world has laughed at us.
No one can conceive how in America we can have had cases such as the Bush-Gore election, claims about fraud when DJT was elected, and the idea of foreign interference. The incredibly messed up 2020 process that brought impeachment initiatives upon the country, and the now midterms with counties forced to certify results that should be clearly under investigation, and still do nothing about it.
After all these years, nothing has been done. On the contrary, it seems we have gone backwards and created new holes into the system. It is amazing that we as Americans have to watch how in the name of “voters rights”, and “for the good of our democracy”, the security of the process is jeopardized by unjustified failures, that only seem to weaken our capacity to trust the system:
- Double counting votes,
- Dead voters “voting”,
- Missing votes,
- Printers that don’t work,
- 5 hours long lines,
- Mailing ballots to ghost addresses,
- Non US Citizens voting,
- Unwillingness to implement voters ID,
- Open borders to harvest future voters,
- Politicization of our justice system,
- Suppression of free speech,
- Torturing and extortion of protesters,
- Over investigations of rivals allies,
- Crime, and crisis fabrication,
- Character assassination,
- Media misinformation,
- Last minute changes to the election & votes counting process, etc.
Just with the way Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, has handled its process, we should be very worried. Just by looking at what some officials in Pennsylvania said about being under lots of pressure and forced to certify results, we should wake up and react. But no. We are numb. We don’t see the dangers of letting all of those disturbing claims about electoral fraud die in the name of “for the good of our democracy”.
The highly politicized environment doesn’t help us understand clearly the dangers of our broken electoral system, and screaming fascist from one side and communists from the other, only prevents us from even discussing the possibility of an electoral system reform.
In Georgia just a few days ago two different polls showed very different trends: in one, Walker was up by 1%, in the other Warnock was up by 4%. In a razor-thin margin election, those “little” details, with a system we can’t count on, might open the door to complaints from either side, to extend the certification period, and yet again make us look like incapable of holding a regular election in front of friends and foes.
But our image is not the main issue. It is our very democracy that is in danger. It is our inability to sit down and discuss those needed electoral changes that will prolong the agony of the very process that keeps us a democracy.
We seem to be losing our country to known and unknown enemies. Some of them with the help (even complicity) of some in the media, rushed the certification of results under the pretext that āwe must respect the results of an electoral processā that we cannot trust anymore!
That was, is, and will again be a big mistake.
“The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything” that is a phrase attributed to Stalin, and with so many interested in changing our way of life, that have already infiltrated America.
We should consider the serious consequences of doing nothing to clarify, standardize, and protect our election process.
Remember:
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics, is that you will end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato
Study your candidates by their actions and accomplishments. Not by the opinion of others.