What measures would you like to see put in place to secure the legitimacy of our elections?

[Afromania]

This is something I have been thinking about posting for a little bit and was hoping the smart folks here at DU would help flesh out some ideas on what we could do to secure our elections. I'll get the ball rolling with some of my thoughts on what we could do to make our elections more resistant to kerjiggery.

Some of these ideas are already in play around the country but I'd like to see them used nationwide. Anywho, feel free to add, expand, modify on any of the ideas because I'm sure some of you out there know far more than I do about these things

New Voters Right Act passed into law by congress
-Automatic registration at 18
-Federal Law for how many machines a voting site should have
-Federal Law for how many sites should be in any given area based on population.
-Federal Law for regulating polling location changes
-Federal election watchdog/investigator/office for each state(they don't run the elections just make sure they don't get out of hand)
-Federal Law for reasonable recounts and the time allotted for recounting based on population size.
-Federal Law regulating the creation of voter id laws.
-Federal guidelines on how to grade hand counted votes.


Uniform Voting Machines
-needs to be from vendors not directly, or indirectly, affiliated with any politician, lobbyist, or entity with heavy political involvement.

-needs to be uniform in build and require generic perishables (ink, paper)
-needs to be designed and assembled in America
-no internet connection of any kind
-screens with push buttons off to the side (think atms)
-clear and concise of vote choices
-ballot receipts enabled on every machine
-universal ballot designs
-locked box design (zero i/o ports)

[unblock]

1. once you get the vote as a citizen at age 18, it can never be taken away.

you only lose it if you voluntarily renounce citizenship.
governments should not have the ability to determine who votes and who doesn't vote, that's a recipe for corruption and unequal treatment of americans. we have seen this time and time again.


also, some way to fix gerrymandering. independent commissions, or some allocation of representatives that isn't dependent on geographical districts.

as for voting machines, i think a webcam should be on them at all times.
voting machines should also give positive feedback when the vote is counted.

old fashioned mechanical voting machines used to have numbered wheels (like an odometer in a car) and you could see only the last digit, so you couldn't tell what the count was or who was winning, but when you pulled the lever you could literally see the count of your candidates go up by one.

if they can't get electronic voting machines right, with widespread voter confidence, then we should just revert to the old-fashioned machines. expensive, but people trusted them.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. This and Paper Ballots

The need for speed in getting the results escapes me.

[mopinko]

7. there is an ev that

just marks a paper ballot, that you then put in the box w all the rest. that is the only one that should be allowed.

[ScratchCat]

2. The op already hit my #1

Which was "no internet". There is no reason for anything related to voting to be connected to the internet. There shouldn't even be the potential for any "internet hacking" of our voting roles or systems.

The other is a basic, minimum set of qualifications for President. Tax returns must be released. The person must have had some basic level of prior public service. This nonsense of having someone who is virtually "unaccountable" to the voters because they are rich and don't have to depend upon a political future can't keep happening.

"Open voting" in all States from two weeks before "election day" until election day. Meaning, you have two weeks to vote. Many States do this, I'd like to see all be required.

[CrispyQ]

4. Publicly funded elections.

Because of their two year terms, our Representatives are basically in campaign mode constantly. With publicly funded elections, they could focus on legislation instead of raising money to keep a job that they don't have time to do anyway.

Clearly defined campaign seasons that are much shorter! After Christmas the 2020 election campaign will start for the president. That's almost two fucking years of presidential campaigning. Gag. I'm even political & I get sick of it.

Early voting starting two weeks prior to Election Day & make Election Day a national holiday.

I personally am against mail in ballots & I think people should go to the polls to vote & here's my reason. I can see situations where there's a bully in the household who collects all the ballots & votes them. In the privacy of a public voting booth that can never happen. That said, we must fix these issues of inadequate polling places & voting equipment in democratic areas.

Agree with the poster above who questioned why the need for speed in this process? I suspect it's media driven more than anything, for ratings.

[ooky]

14. This, plus establish non-partisan Board of Elections

to assure the democratic process. In no instance should we ever have candidates supervising their elections at the same time they are running for office like Kemp in Georgia. My proposal would be to separate parties from the oversight of the election process altogether and instead establish independent non-partisan election commissions who would be in charge of voter registration and all election processes, including drawing the lines to assure the elimination of gerry-mandering.

[RockRaven]

5. Election day as Federal holiday with mandate that employers make accommodations for

every employee who IS working that day to make it to the polls, with severe penalties if they do not.

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Ethics rules prohibiting candidates from overseeing their own elections.

That’s an obvious conflict of interest and invites abuse of power. So we might have to make Secretary of State or its equivalent a one-term position.

We also need to address the Rick Scott model of abuse of the levers of office to influence counting and ballot handling. If he had successfully impounded voting machines, the recount could have been altered or even stopped.

[mopinko]

8. or make them off year or something.

or make it appointed.
or eliminate it, and have a committee of county level clerks or whoever is in charge of elections in the county.

such a conflict of interest.

[beachbum bob]

9. A week of voting and no single Election Day and all the hoopla...

Automatic voter registration at age 18, 4 year renewal periods just like drivers license...min standards for polling places and voting machines for locations.

[LakeSuperiorView]

10. Have to disagree with you on design.

-Direct mark voting machines should be banned.
-Only exception is devices that can enlarge and/or read the ballot aloud for people with vision issues. This machine marks their ballot, but does not count it.
-Paper ballots, marked by voters, read by machines.
-The ballot readers should be able to report results via secure hotspot.
-The wireless results are backed by USB stick, paper tape reports, and the ballots themselves.


The direct mark voting machines can not be made secure. Period. Full stop. End of story. Selecting buttons on the side of a screen or by touching the screen leave no physical evidence of the choices made. Paper ballots, marked by pens, are a simple, secure way of recording votes and preserving evidence of the vote that can not be done with electronic voting machines.

[Eric J in MN]

11. Votes publicly hand-counted. NT

NT

[Takket]

12. Every voting machine should go through a verifiable commissioning process

Day before the election. A Democrat, a republican and election officials. The machine should be fed 100 ballots with known counts and if the machine does not total the same count it is pulled. After certifying, the machine is locked up until voting begins the next morning.

[duforsure]

13. Mandatory sentences for election fraud

And make all have consequences for doing it, especially for candidates, and people already in a position of power. Corrupting our elections have to have consequences, and that have no way out to be gotten away with. Corrupted elections have to be stopped.

[mopinko]

15. standards and guidelines might be better than fed laws

on poling places and machines.
they have to be uniform throughout a county. no fiddling w one place or another to discourage voters.

absent irrevocable auto registration, uniform same day registration.
placebo ballots always were a scam and a runaround. you can let people register and vote in any polling place, instead of running them around looking for the right polling place.
would require a machine set up like the early voting machines, w all ballots, but....