Voting

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” Joseph Stalin

Stalin’s chilling quote about elections is as much a cynical concept as it is an observation of how corrupt regimes conduct elections. This has been the case historically both in the democracy of ancient Athens and the republic of ancient Rome, so there’s little reason to believe that without effective security for the electoral process as can be made and enforced under law, we should discount the possibility of fraud, intimidation or violence in the electoral process.

There’s a reason why we called the time for voting “Election Day”, and that was to limit as much as possible the time for anyone to mess with the electoral process; for the same reason we also organize and designate voting locations called polls and devise strict rules of behavior in and around them. We need mail-in ballots but reserved and limited only for those who have physical, medical or security reasons that prevent them from getting to the polls on the given day, but such ballots need to be posted before the end of election day. Most importantly voting needs to be reserved for US citizens, whether for federal, state or local elections for the simple reason that citizens from any other country have no right to vote for or about anything or anyone in the US because the consequences of the vote become the responsibility of US citizens.

Now as obvious as all the above may seem to reasonable people, we need to wonder about the various irregularities there have been, and still are, especially of late in California with the LA Mayoral and US Senate primaries. The 2024 national elections in India were held in phases for various offices and the results were tabulated the same or following day of the elections; in California, with a population of about 20M people compared to India’s 1.5B people, we only learned the results a week after the elections…and they’re still counting…and worse, still accepting late ballots.

Many polls show that the main reason most eligible voters don’t vote is because they don’t trust the process. Among the reasons given, the main one is distrust in the supervision over counting; the other reasons aren’t any more encouraging, like fraudulent rules made literally to exclude minority parties through the primary process of open ticket rounds, but in which only the top two voted can be on the ballot; this is the rule in California…and in many “Third World” countries. In the LA Mayoral primary, the results were predictable as you now have the choice of voting for a Democrat…or alternatively a Democrat; what happened to diversity and inclusion? Why was there a sudden dump of about 24K mail-in ballots in the Mayoral primary that had only votes for the Democratic candidates while the Republican candidate had been clearly in second place? Regardless of the reason, this does not instill credibility in the outcome.

Then there is the argument about the Electoral College that it does not guarantee that an election will represent the majority of the popular vote; what is missed in such arguments is that the constitution was designed to assure against majoritarianism. In a democracy, the popular vote provides the majority with power but does not provide protection for the rights of the minority, while in a republic such as the US there are mechanisms constructed to do so such as the Electoral College. This system provides a balance of power among smaller and larger states, highly populated urban areas and less populated rural areas; this promotes national unity by giving political candidates the incentive to address the concerns of all in a diverse population, which in turn provides more broad-based support for those elected. It also organizes, simplifies and facilitates the electoral process for a quicker and therefore more credible outcome.

By law only U.S. citizens can vote in federal and state elections, but as of 2024 there are 19 counties and municipalities that not only allow non-citizens to vote, but also to hold public office; this means that those who are not US citizens in those locations have rights equal to those who are. Not only is that blatantly unethical and depending on the location also unconstitutional, but it devalues the essence of being a citizen and adds to the cynicism about voting; couple that with the opposition to voter ID and you have not just the appearance of electoral malpractice, but the reality. When you hear progressives chant about saving democracy, beware, it doesn’t get us to a good place.

“The most important thing to acknowledge about Hitler is that he was a politician. The second most important thing about Hitler is that he was a socialist. The third most important thing to acknowledge about Hitler is that he had a democratic mandate.” Alice Smith