COVID changed education and healthcare, and it changed how we work, socialize, and practice religion. COVID also changed how we vote. Many of our COVID-era election practices would not pass muster with even the most permissive of election observers. Transparency, security, and perceived fairness of the system across states and key counties could suffer unless we plan changes now.
Ballot drop boxes without tamper-evident seals, secured with $8 hardware-store padlocks in Washington, D.C.? Week-long delays in regional results reporting? Handfuls of automatically mailed ballots subject to no or only cursory signature verification? Those practices could have sparked revolution in many of the countries where I have worked with national election commissions.
Many election practices engineered in strange times no longer work when normal life reasserts itself. For instance, people in several post-Soviet countries were duly suspicious of the “mobile” ballot box once used by Soviet authorities to juice turnout and enforce party discipline in local precincts. Most of those boxes were abandoned for reasons of transparency, public confidence, and sloughing off of near-compulsory voting. Ideas pitched as simple matters of convenience, of course, always have their partisans. Mobile ballot box canvassing, for instance, resurfaced with Soviet flair in Moscow’s September 2022 sham referendum in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
In countries with little or only intermittent experience in competitive democracy, my colleagues and I helped build election commissions as credible institutions of governance. We contributed to discussions of mechanics in open parliamentary sessions and behind closed doors when asked by national leaders and election managers. Every country’s case called for carefully negotiated processes that kept fairness and transparency top of mind. In several cases, those who forced new procedures without due deliberation were shocked by ugly outcomes (e.g., delays, missing materials, deluges of complaints and lawsuits) on Election Day.
Building on my international election work with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, I worked with the National Association of Secretaries of State to convene more than twenty of the country’s top election officials soon after the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision. Most of these officials set aside partisan perspectives and local idiosyncrasies for at least part of our working sessions as we detailed potential areas of change.
With the 2022 midterm elections now behind us, and before the next cycle begins in earnest, state and national leaders in both major political parties should have a good-faith discussion about how well the elections went and how they should be conducted next time. One principle to guide future changes to post-COVID election mechanics in the U.S.: “Fairness to each and fairness to all.”
Fairness to each voter means that registration and voting should not place a disproportionate burden on any eligible voter or group. Fairness to all requires that only eligible voters take part so as not to dilute the value of any individual vote cast. Both parties could embrace this simple idea as they hash out the changes which might or might not unfairly advantage one side or another.
So, how can fairness in elections be achieved as we make changes? Each state will have its own answer on election specifics. That’s the nature of our federal system. Power dynamics and the savvy and persuasiveness of party leaders, their technicians, and their lawyers will impact the design of how we vote. With COVID set aside as a driving force, the states now have a chance to build systems that reflect the fairness-to-each-and-all principle.
Are drop boxes, automatically mailed ballots, and door-to-door collection of ballots right for post-pandemic times? Do they maintain integrity and create trust? Are they fair for all, or are they leveraged for the benefit of only some? Do they compromise the perception of secrecy needed for people to vote their conscience or to withhold their votes altogether?
With the pandemic behind us, let’s challenge the states to determine which practices from the strange times of COVID should be abandoned. Ideas for change can come from across the country and abroad. Let’s take the time to examine the fairness of COVID-era practices and retire those that stand in the way of an election that is fair for one and all.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA
Chris Siddall is a Washington D.C.-based management consultant. He has worked with national election commissions, government ministries, and large enterprises for thirty years.
