The long awaited day is finally, almost here. However, since I doubt the Presidential decision will be made on that day, is that the only thing we should be focused on as we end the 2020 election season?
This has been one of the craziest election seasons of my lifetime. I guess it seems that every Presidential election season is crazier than the last, but I think that says more about our society as a whole than the election itself. With competing claims of foreign collision and disinformation, shutdowns, mail-in ballots, and media meddling, I believe the craziness has only begun. So what are constitutionally minded Americans to do?
The Job Interview/Review
Since this article releases the day before Election Day, many of you have already voted, and most have probably made up their minds, at least about the elections for President, House, and Senate. So let me ask what the job interview, or in most cases job review, look like?
We forget that an election is the hiring of someone to represent you and your neighbors in some office, and to exercise the powers of that office in your name. So how did you go about reviewing the work of the incumbent and interviewing the new person who wanted the job?
Did you look at the record of the incumbent? What standard did you use to vet their performance? Did you compare it to the description of their job in the Constitution (state or federal)? Did you compare their actions to the promise they made, their oath of office, to support the Constitution of the United States, and possibly your state? If you did none of these things, then how did you vet your incumbent candidate?
How did you compare the people campaigning for office? Did you review their records in previous offices? Did you look for other situations where they were asked to stand for a Constitution and the rights of the people? Did you meet them and ask them to provide evidence that they would uphold the oath they would take? Sure, it is pretty hard to meet a candidate for federal office, but what about those running for state or local offices? Did you bother to meet with them? Did you bother to check the voting records of the candidates, either by going to their website or one of the numerous voter guides? Or have you succumbed to the spirit of party? Possibly participated a the primary, then decided to support your team’s “champion” for the office.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Washington’s Farewell Address 1796
Were you distracted by the shows and events your party put on? Were you agitated by jealousies, most of which were ill-founded? Did false alarms kindle animosity for your party’s opponents? Have you allowed party passions to cloud your voting decision? Are you willing to choose the lesser of two evils, just to make sure your party wins?
Or was your vote bought? Were you convinced to support a candidate because of the promises made to provide you with something? Promises of free healthcare, college, minimum wage, job creation, and support for some local project are little more than bribes of the American people to get their vote. Often, the office the person is running for could not deliver on those promise, even if they wanted to. For the most part, these bribes work, even though those running rarely deliver on their promises. That’s right, it seems that most Americans are more than willing to take a promise of a bribe in exchange for their vote, though it’s something they despise in their elected officials, and especially those of the opposing party.
So ask yourself this: Would you hire a babysitter for your child, or even your pet, the way you hire someone to exercise your sovereign power as a citizen of your state and the United States of America? Until we treat the process of electing someone to office as hiring an employee, elections at all levels will resemble a three-ring circus more than a serious attempt at governing.
Free and Fair Elections
How do you know that the election you participate in is both free and fair? Are you sure that the ballot you cast is the one that will be counted? How confident are you that only people eligible to vote (by law, not by your opinion), actually vote? Sadly, as Americans move father and farther away from a simple, in-person balloting system, the answer to both of those questions should be you’re not that sure at all.
I like ease and convenience as much as the next person, but you have to ask yourself what will you trade for that convenience? When you vote in-person, two very important things happen, or at least they should. First, your eligibility to vote should be verified. I am always suspicious of people who try to minimize or eliminate voter eligibility tests at the ballot box. I don’t mean proving you are eligible to vote should be difficult or tedious, but really, is it that difficult to register to vote before you show up at the polls? We won’t allow people on airplanes without a photo id, but in many places we let them choose who will exercise the citizen’s sovereign powers without it? If we want our elections to be free and fair, we need to do what we can to insure they are free from fraud, including making sure that those who cast votes are actually eligible to do so, and do so only once.
Second, when you vote in-person, there is a chain of custody of the ballot. When you are issued a ballot, you control that ballot until it is counted. Either you enter your ballot directly into the machine, or you place your paper ballot into a counting machine. When you vote by mail, your ballot is outside of your custody from the time it is issued until it reaches you, and then again from the time you place it in the mail until it is entered into the machine. Even worse, should you hand you ballot to someone else for submission, you have a third party, without any oversight, in control of your civic duty to help choose those who will exercise your sovereign power as a citizen. Sure, there are people whose job it is to insure election integrity, but they are not you. Someone else is handling the ballot, from mail carriers to ballot harvesters to office personnel. The majority of those people are probably honest people, working hard to make sure the elections are free and fair, but not all of them. Every election we hear about lost ballots, stolen ballots, destroyed ballots, and contested ballots. Whether these problems come from honest mistakes or malfeasance, they degrade the integrity of the election, making it less free and fair. Does that mean there should allow only in-person voting? I don’t think so. There are situations where in-person voting is not feasible, or even practical. Those are the exceptions though, not the rule, so exceptions for them should be made. That means every reasonable effort should be taken to insure the integrity of those exceptions as well; they may be a small percentage of the votes cast, but in some elections that may be the difference in who wins.
Why it Matters
As the American people have handed over more and more of their sovereign power to governments, the importance of who we choose to exercise those powers have grown as well. No longer are our governments “good governments”, at least as Jefferson described them:
Still one thing more, fellow citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Today, rather than restraining men from injuring one another, governments at all levels tell people how to live their lives. No longer free to regulate our own pursuits, we need government permission to build our homes, start our businesses, and even to exercise our skills. Rather than taking back our right to the blessings of liberty our Founding Fathers purchased for us, we seem more than happy to sit back and watch while actor after actor, like clowns in a circus, plays their part to entertain and control us. Not only the state of the campaigns for office, but what we have allowed the election process to become, leads me to the conclusion that the sacred fires of liberty are little more than a smoldering ember in 2020.
And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789
Who will join me in blowing on the smoldering ember? Who will eschew the easy and convenient for the moral and just? Who will place the causes of justice and liberty above their wallet or pocketbook? Who will show themselves worthy of the trust our Founding Fathers placed in us when they created this nation? Who will honor those who have paid for our liberty with their blood and their lives? Who will work to pass on to our children, not a smoldering ember of liberty, but a blazing bonfire that can be seen around the world?
