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As long as there have been elections, there have been people who have tried to beat the system. Some of them bought votes with as little as a cash bill or bottle of whiskey. Others bought votes by doing people favors, like arranging to get them, a family member or friend a job or another benefit. The worst at it have been convicted in ballot-harvesting scandals; the best use gerrymandering to rig the process.
All of the above schemes are designed with one specific thing in mind – to tilt the playing field to unfairly benefit one candidate over another.
Even though there has not been any evidence presented of enough fraud to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, that doesn’t change the fact that people on both sides of the political aisle have questions about the validity of our electoral system. As a result, Republican state legislatures in particular have changed many election laws, with most of the bills having the unfortunate consequence of making it more difficult for some people to vote.
Leading up to this year’s crucial elections, the nonprofit Braver Angels has worked to rebuild trust by seeking solutions supported by people across the political spectrum. From 2020-23, the group held 26 separate workshops across the country, either in-person or online, with an evenly balanced 194 “red” (conservative-leaning) and “blue” (liberal-leaning) participants.
What did the folks at Braver Angels discover, according to a release? First, the report focuses on three principles:
1. “Voting should be easy. Cheating should be hard.”
2. “Every citizen should have an equal say in who will govern them; this is done through free and fair elections.”
3. “The American government will fail if candidates refuse to accept any outcome other than victory.”
Using those principles as a starting point, the workshops revealed an astonishing 727 unanimous points of agreement, which Braver Angels distilled into 23 bipartisan solutions. Some of the most surprising include:
1. “All states should implement no-excuse-needed absentee ballots.”
2. “States should require a person to show voter ID when voting.”
3. “No state legislature or elected or appointed (non-judicial) official should be able to overturn election results.”
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Of the seven broad areas of concern, the one that struck me the most about North Carolina was redistricting. While voters should be able to decide who they want to govern them, today politicians and special interest groups draw gerrymandered maps, through which they pick their preferred voters instead of the other way around.
“This practice must end,” the report noted in quite an understatement.
The U.S. democratic republic is vulnerable, as it depends entirely on trust. Today, our system is facing an existential threat – many Americans no longer consider our elections trustworthy and, as a consequence, refuse to support the outcome. For details, visit braverangels.org/trustworthy-elections.
This report could provide a blueprint for how to ensure both conservatives and liberals trust and accept the outcomes of our elections. As Braver Angels put it, the results shows that when you put everyday Americans across the political spectrum together in one room, we can find a way to move forward on some of our country’s most contentious issues.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 828-837-5122; email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com; or on X @daviddBstroh.