Control of the U.S. Senate is at stake in next year’s elections, as its current 50-50 split hangs in the balance. Already Republican senators in Alabama, Ohio, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have announced they are not running for reelection. Many other states are up for grabs in elections that will depend on the voting procedures used. Since 2016, polls have shown that there are few undecided voters in our nation. Consequently, election outcomes depend more on the voting process than on political messaging. Consultants make big bucks for themselves by taking commissions for placing political ads on TV, even though these ads have no effect on voters who have already made up their minds. Securing elections is a much bigger fish to fry.
Fortunately, the U.S. Constitution grants state legislatures the full authority to govern elections for the presidential electors who ultimately choose the president. Courts dominated by liberals at the state level and in most federal venues have no role in that process. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has made election integrity a priority for the biennial legislative session there. Specifically, curtailing fraudulent mail-in voting is high on his agenda. Stuffing the ballot box with mail-in votes has caused the Republican margins there to dwindle. It seems that with each new election cycle, Democrats are becoming more and more adept at milking votes from election shenanigans.
States should enact legislation specifically basing the selection of presidential electors on in-person voting, except for military personnel on active duty and narrowly justified absentee votings, like what we see in Idaho House bill H0105. States should be willing to get creative. Nothing requires that the voting process used to select presidential electors be the same as the process for electing a town’s dog catcher. The important thing is to recognize that no one but state legislatures are to blame when presidential votes do not get counted properly. It is their job to get it right, so citizens should hold them to account. There is no better time than now for grassroots activists to make sure their state legislators know that securing the next presidential election is their duty as representatives of the people’s voice.
