I understand the argument about states rights. However, it’s a federal election.
I’ve been saying this several times over the past few days (past decade or 2, actually) that our voting system is a mess.
The rules are too lax. Just the fact that a state/county saying “they found an additional xyz ballots” is reason enough to reform this. What do you mean you found 59,000 ballots?? Why were they lost? What kind of control over chain of custody is that?
The mail in voting, combined with the poor maintain election of voters rolls (how the F are you gonna have 200,000 people on the rolls that are dead, moved away, etc?), the lack of controls such as not needing ID or not needing a signature, etc... piss poor quality control. There is tighter control and more safeguards with your bank account, your taxes, your medical records, etc.
Every four years, one side or the other feels the other cheated, and has lots of examples of things that AT THE VERY LEAST appear very suspect (and maybe some are). This appearance alone should be reason to tighten things up.
We, as a nation, can not have half the population feeling they were cheated every election. It’s one thing to lose an election. No one likes to lose, but losing fair and square is one thing. You accept your loss, you regroup and try to convince others of your beliefs and prepare for the next election. But losing when there is the appearance of fraud/cheating is unacceptable. It leads to the citizens of the country becoming polarized and tears at the fabric of society.
We could fix this if we wanted to, but we won’t. The politicians don’t mind it, because if there is cheating it gives them the abilityto cheat, and let’s be honest, politicians aren’t exactly known for the moral character. And if there isn’t cheating but just the appearance of it, it gets people to demonize each other. People divided are easier to manipulate and control.
And we the people, at this rate will never come together and demand it is done. That’s because the winning side adamantly denies anything is wrong with the system because they are defending their candidate/side. Never mind the fact that 4 or 8 years ago they themselves were screaming about cheating/fraud. And the side who is screaming about fraud now will be claiming they won fair and square the next 4 or 8 years. And so on and so forth.
If people would just be honest and acknowledge the system is broken, perhaps we could get somewhere.