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The election is over, the results are in and the country has made a decision. Remarkably, there were few problems at the polls despite the extremely high turnout. This shouldn’t be taken as a sign that the country has left the polling woes of four and eight years ago behind – there are still problems aplenty in the U.S.’s election process.
There needs to be more federal guidelines on election procedures. Laws vary state to state, and even within each state in the areas of electronic voting, ballot design, early and no-excuse absentee voting, emergency ballot procedures and voter registration. In order to reduce confusion at the polls and provide for the smoothest possible elections, Congress must debate on and pass laws addressing the following issues:
Laws must be passed to ban Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) voting. Such machines are notoriously unstable and easy to hack, and even the DRE machines that provide a paper trail can be manipulated. Multiple independent security companies have tested multiple DRE machines and proven how easily elections can be artificially swayed. In early voting in several states, reports surfaced of “vote switching” – voters casting their ballot for one candidate but having the machine select another. This usually happens because the machines are not calibrated correctly, but it illustrates just one of the many problems with DRE machines. The standard should be to vote using paper ballots with optical scanners. This method provides quick results on election night and a verifiable paper option for manual recounts.
States that continue to use DRE machines must print a sufficient number of paper ballots for when the machines inevitably break down. In the South Carolina primary, 80 percent of the DRE machines broke down, leaving voters to cast their ballots on scraps of paper.
States must be prepared for 100 percent voter turnout. This means printing enough ballots for every registered voter and providing more polling places with more voting booths. Five-hour lines should be illegal – waits should be a maximum of one hour at peak times. Not surprisingly, the long lines are often the result of broken DRE machines.
Federal laws must be enacted to ease voter registration. All state laws requiring picture identification must be struck down, as many already have, in order to protect low-income voters who do not have licenses or passports. Voters should be able to register easily until a week before the election, with stricter guidelines for voting on Election Day. Letting voters register on Election Day will increase first-time voting and will let voters who have been wrongly purged register again.
Federal law should mandate that early voting begin at least a week before the election. Allowing early voting a month before the election – as Ohio does – is a bit much, but early voting has greatly eased Election Day stress on polling places and provided options for people who either cannot get time off work to vote or can not afford it.
These and other steps must be taken to protect the integrity of our country. Without consistent elections, our social experiment called democracy is liable to fail.
William P. Davis is a first-year journalism and violin performance student.
