California’s system of voting is absurd.
It should not take more than a few hours to count the ballots.
Yet here we are, several days after the election, still wondering what the results really are.
It is unfair to the candidates and to the voters. And it makes the system look easy to manipulate.
Around the world, most democracies hold elections on one day, in person, with photo ID required.
Usually, you have to register to vote in advance, and there is no voting by mail.
That ship has sailed in the US. People are used to the convenience of voting early or by mail.
But there is a trade-off between making access easier for voters, and protecting the integrity of the voting process.
California goes too far in the name of access. And as voters lose faith in elections, they may stop participating.
That defeats the goal of access.
And we can’t blame people for giving up on a system that looks like it is set up to fail.
It is ridiculous to accept ballots after Election Day, even if they are postmarked.
It is ridiculous to allow strangers to harvest limitless numbers of ballots from other people.
It is ridiculous to wait until the voting is done to start counting the absentee ballots.
It is ridiculous to watch Election Night leads become late-ballot defeats.
It’s not enough for “experts” to tell us that fraud is impossible. Voters have to believe it.
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The least we can do to restore the trust of the electorate is to adopt voter ID.
This November, there will be a ballot initiative in California to bring voter ID to the Golden State.
It is much more flexible than the system Republicans proposed in Washington.
It would still allow voting by mail, with a personal PIN number to verify the identity of the voter.
It will speed up counting, bypassing the messy process of verifying signatures on envelopes.
We need to make other common-sense reforms as well, like requiring ballots to be submitted by Election Day.
We should also get rid of ballot harvesting, and count absentee ballots as they arrive.
All of that will make counting easier, faster, and more credible than a process that stretches out for weeks.
We also have to stop stigmatizing these ideas as “racist.” Gavin Newsom called voter ID an attempt to bring back “Jim Crow” earlier this year.
There is nothing racist about wanting to be able to have confidence in your vote.
In fact, protecting the integrity of the vote is the essence of civil rights.
We need voter ID, and the endless delays in counting ballots remind us how urgent the need for change really is.
The post Ballot-counting debacle shows need for voter ID appeared first on New York Post.
