The hot topic of today’s political debate is clearly being dominated by Election and Election reforms in the United States. It is at the fore-front of everyone’s minds. Democrats want people to be punished for challenging elections they feel were fair. Republicans want elections overturned that they feel are unfair. Thankfully, the election process does not take into account feelings when determining victors.

As most of our core pillars of society, it seems that Elections (as we know them today) started in the Roman Church while electing the sitting Pope. There were known systems dating back to Sparta where collective decision making was done, and it even resembled elections today, but there were some key differences that aren’t in the purview of this discussion. One of the biggest changes over the centuries to Elections is they’ve got a LOT bigger. Even when the founding fathers of the United States we’re building up the election system, they rejected the idea that “the People” would be able to vote directly for their Senator and their President. The idea is the state legislators should be electing the Senators and the two chambers of Congress would be able to, independent of the people, elect the President. This is also a point in time where they intended the President to basically be a figure-head and focus on Military and Foreign Affairs, and not to be involved in daily lives of the citizenry. (we see how long that lasted) But, regardless today we have a Election system here in the United States where people get to (at a Federal level at least) vote directly for all representative bodies. The issue with this is one of both scale and numbers.

As we have found in basically every election in the past 20 years or so, we constantly have challengers. The three biggest ones in our lives is Al Gore in 2000, Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Donald Trump in 2020. All three made claims that the Election process wasn’t fair or that a state(s) weren’t counting their vote right. In 2018 there were counts of Election fraud in Georgia, stating that the poll workers were making people wait to vote then turning them down once the clock went past the deadline. Now this was MOSTLY for the GA Governors race, but you also heard some scoffing at the house races federally. There was ballot issues in 2014 in Washington, where multiple ballots where being floated around asking the same questions differently causing a lot of voters to be confused. This has affected both Democrat and Republican strong-holds as well as candidates from both sides.

But this isn’t what is driving the news cycle right now. The obvious Elephant in the room is the January 6th Protest that turned the west entrance of the Capital building into a riot. Most people on the left side of the isle believe that this is a direct response to Donald Trump’s claim that there was fraud in the election. That if he would have claimed a fair loss after the November election that his supporters would have accepted the defeat. The right side of the isle believe it is backlash to a system that doesn’t hear their plea for help, and that Donald Trump’s message didn’t cause anything other than a exposure to the system. But this really isn’t the core issue, the core issue is people have lost what the American brand of Elections is designed to do as well as no one is realizing there is no quick and effective way to audit our Election systems to confirm a win/loss, or at least expose possible issues. One side seems content to just say “there was no fraud because I didn’t see it” and the other side says “fraud has to exist because this one circumstantial piece of evidence says so”. Neither side is able to say “Yes, we did the work, we checked ABC and XYZ, and it confirms 123 votes were cast legally.” I think possibly at this exact moment in time neither side of the isle has a interest in actually figuring out what happened in 2020. Both sides want to use it to feed and grow their base. With that in mind, we the People, need to take this discussion back. We need to control the narrative regardless of the side of the isle you sit on, and that narrative needs to be ensuring we have a secure method of conducting our Elections, a set of thresholds that are common to determine if the Election was successful, a system to review and audit the election quickly, transparently, and accurately, and then come to a common understanding of how our Elections process needs to work going forward.

How Does United States Elections Differ From Other Elections of Past, Present, and Future?

The first thing is as a society we need to come to a better understanding of how our federal elections are designed to work. We live in a Representative Republic. No more talk about “Democracy” or “Democratic Processes”. I’m even tired of hearing about a “Constitutional Republic” because all forms of modern government come with some kind of binding agreement. Some call it a Constitution, others call it a “Charter” or some other fancy word. No one should care about the specific word, it just needs to be understood as a mutual agreement.

Although this doesn’t have a huge affect on our understanding of our elections, the point I’m trying to drive home is we often times don’t have a firm grasp on reality. Our federal system of government has NO “democratic processes”, people conflate “Voting” with a democratic process, but this is NOT true. Voting predates Democracy by several centuries. Democracy is a system where the people vote on every issue that comes up. Often times there is a leader who proposes issues and the people vote yea or nay. Sometimes there is a system for issue submission, but that is insignificant. The issue here is the voting procedures. In a Democracy you vote for the ISSUES, not the people. In a Republic you either elect or have a trusted source appoint a individual to represent your group of people. And in a true Republic the people have no direct say in the laws, instead they have zero say in the issues, but rather appoint someone they trust that understands the issues to handle the business of government.

Other forms of Government, both past and present, have a clear issue because there are no others like the United States. The key difference is the sovereignty of each state, and the federalist intermingling that happens. Countries like Brittan, Germany, and the others don’t have something similar, yet they (for some reason) like to comment on American Government policies. In the past, other forms of government that are similar to ours (like France) had one key difference is they had no form of representation for the people (this is also why they so many revolts). The United States has the House of Representatives which are a direct representation for the people. Traditional Republics only offer indirect representation based on a “Senate” style of representation usually reserved for the cities, regions, or other city-states. They core idea behind the legislative body of the United States is both the regions have say and the people have say - but neither have ultimate say, and neither have advantages over the others. They should (by all purposes) be equal in their powers and capabilities. This is why we live specifically in a “Representative Republic”, a Republic system where the people have direct representation, thus the original name “House of Representatives”.

Although in past years, one of the things that we’ve seen that isn’t happening is how the two bodies are suppose to oppose one another. It seems like more and more they’re working more and more together, and are unable to separate to a healthy opposition of one another. This is why I feel like future forms of government are going to try to create even more checks and balances between the different forces. One I keep on hearing in modern times is direct voting on bills. Eliminating the House of Representatives, and just providing a “application” or “website” where people get to provide their popular vote. This is something I’m certain will be tried in the future and I’m uncertain of it’s successfulness.

The key issue I have seen with our way of elections that other people don’t understand that they should avoid voting for issues, and instead vote for people. I guess people are able to vote however they want, but it is folly to not understand how the system works. It is easy in the United States to get so confused, because State and Local Governments often have legitimate democratic processes. You get to vote on both your city counsel members and city ordinances, and state officials are able to be voted on as well as state legislation that meets certain thresholds. So it often feels like the whole system works together, but this isn’t true they all work individually.

When evaluating candidates that are going to Washington DC, you should avidly pay attention to their character over their issues. I would even suggest that identity politics has some sway here. Not the “You should vote for people that are like your skin color" or some other silly reason, but rather someone who you legitimately identify. A legitimate internal identity (such as a “Hard worker” or a “Book Worm”), these types of identities are FAR more important than some of the “surface” ones we hear about today. But, I think this just isn’t enough by itself. Finding someone who you identify with and someone you trust is the key.

The second key issue that most people see today, but don’t fully understand, is the lack of quality candidates. Most people feel like in any election they’re always picking the better of two evils. When this is the case, you need to run. Run for a lesser race if you need to, maybe instead of running for Mayor run for a term of city counsel. It might help you realize how not so bad the candidates really are. But another key point to take away is don’t miss the forest because of the trees. Often times being in the public eye is how everyone’s accomplishments are forgotten and everyone’s failures are amplified. The end result is we should stop accepting poor candidates, and focus on ways for more people to be involved from the beginning.

Now, there is a very important last element. The elections. It is clear that they’re coming into question, and they need to be made better in every possible way. If that means more days, okay whatever. If that means voter ID, okay whatever. But, the most important things is setting rules that are common and mostly agreed upon, and establishing a system that meets all of the predefined thresholds. A stronger election system, with even improved election processes, are KEY. But first, we have to come to these fundamental understandings about our government and how it works, it’s advantages and disadvantages, then understand how we can personally impact it along with bolster the people and system.

Common Thresholds To Determine Successful Election

I’ll never forget the first time I learned about how people view things differently. I was working as a cook at a restaurant in high school, and everyday when I came in after school to start my shift I would be cleaning up eggs and grease from the breakfast shift. I finally decided to work up the courage to tell the manager about it and really raise it as a issue (I mean they kept on cooking beef and chicken within 2-3 inches of 6-8 hour old eggs, it was gross!). And about 20% of the way through my initial discussion he stopped me, and basically told me that he wasn’t going to do anything. He said specifically that “it’s not that people don’t clean their workstation, its that everyone has a different definition of clean. What you think is ‘clean’ is ‘crazy’ to others, and what they see is ‘clean’ is ‘messy’ to you.” I’ll never forget the dumbfounded moment where I realized my boss thought that cooking two entirely different species of protein within inches of each other was okay. The point is translating this to the Election process, one person might have a idea that 1 in 10,000 fraudulent votes is acceptable, but someone else might say 1 in 100. But those are factors of 100 in difference. I was just discussing this with a family member 2-3 months before writing this and they suggested to me they wouldn’t accept a claim of voter fraud unless they could prove at least 30-40 thousand votes. Except in 3 of the 6 swing states in 2020 (more than enough to win it for Trump) was separated by less than that total number collectively.)

The key here is to determine what is acceptable AND reasonable on these thresholds. It is the FIRST single step in fixing this system. Without these thresholds, we can’t possibly continue to discuss other solutions. 1 in 100 isn’t a acceptable threshold. There are seats won by margins of <0.5% all of the time. And once we set acceptable thresholds, it will incentivize cheating up to that number. Also saying there won’t be any fraud (either by malice or even by honest mistakes) is unreasonable as well, setting a idea that any single vote that is miscounted throws the whole election in question, which isn’t true. There will always be some level of mistakes, but we need to confirm a threshold that is ACCEPTABLE by the majority of the population to confirm a valid election and REASONABLE to both parties (the people and the voting workers) to be able to achieve.

Personally I break this down into a few categories, but I would be willing to add/remove one or two of these if the right person was to make the right argument:

And I believe that each of these steps in the Election process should be tabulated individually, and tackled differently. Ensuring that the individual showing up is a “valid voter” is the first real step. In most places this would be something like ensuring that a voter registration process has been established. But, what is the right threshold to confirm that this was done adequately? For myself, I see this as one of the most restrictive parts in this process. You get the whole year leading up to the election day to set up a ledger of legal voters, establishing voting locations that match the areas, and set any rules and processes that you want to follow. Because of all of this time to prepare, it is the one that I really feel gives the least room for error.

But, validating the voter hasn’t been bribed, threatened, or otherwise harassed is one of the situations that we should allow for the least slack. This is a slippery slope, and can’t be allowed for obvious reasons. So with that said, these two for me are of the strictest threshold. No more than 1 in 10,000 voters should be allowed to vote, that aren’t legally allowed to vote. A example would be a convicted felon. In a town of 10,000 voters, they should be able to confirm no more than 1 convict voted. And if only 1 did vote, with no other examples, then it would be declared a secure, all-be-it not perfect, election. And I would set the threshold of tainted voters even higher to no more than 1 in 100,000. This should simply not be allowed. If you’re catching people getting paid to vote a certain way, or being threatened to vote a certain way, then it is happening far more often than you’re detecting and there is no telling the maleficence that is happening. This is one that just can’t be tolerated. So if someone is allowed to vote who has been bribed, threatened, or harassed to the point of giving up their choices, then it must be below this threshold. This would also include people that chose to not vote due to the harassment. So it would be a lot more tricky to track, another reason the threshold should be set so aggressively because 1 confirmed case will almost indefinitely indicate ten’s if not hundred’s of unconfirmed cases.

One thing to keep in mind, even though we set these common thresholds, there is no reason they shouldn’t change. As technology improves and as our culture shifts these items should become even less tolerated. Additionally, even with these threshold’s set, just because a instance of a crime (and yes, almost all of these are considered voter fraud) is below the threshold doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. So even if in a major city like New York or Chicago you find that 1-2 people were bribed to vote a certain way, it would certainly not throw the whole city into chaos. But those individual cases should still be put before a judge and a jury of peers should determine the guild of the accused.

Conducting Secure, Transparent, and Private Elections

After these thresholds are configured the next thing to do is determine how we’re going to make these systems to actually achieve these goals. There are three key goals: security of the vote, transparency of the process, and privacy of the selection. My solution is extremely simple for Federal elections, and we really already have the rules in place (mostly) to achieve this goal. Let the states handle it individually. Some of the astute among you might actually be listening to that and think “so we just went through all of this to establish new goals and we’re going to keep on doing the same thing, you’re a waste of time!” Just hold on with me a bit longer.

Right now each state gets to decide how they determine their elections are ran. Some smaller states still do paper ballots, some larger states use exclusively electronic voting. Some allow you to register to vote on the same day, others make you register months in advance. But, if we set these thresholds and then tell the states that they can operate them however they want, but they must guarantee to the people that they will at least meet this level of election integrity. Being the only addition to the rule is that if a federal candidate can prove that in any voting location the level of election integrity wasn’t met, then the entire location (both legal votes and illegal votes) are discarded. This one change can make a massive difference in how voting is performed along with the clear give and take that can happen.

First states with lax systems, like Wisconsin where they allow same day voter registration, might need to toughen up that system a bit more than they have been. Forcing their voter rolls to be more up to date. Or states like Florida to move away from paper ballots because hanging chads can cause a flurry of invalid votes. Because if they don’t, their citizens will be LIVID that their vote was nullified because of the poor system that was put in place by the State legislator, and poorly executed by the Governor, poorly prosecuted by the Attorney General, and poorly policed by the local Sheriff.

Notice that I also specifically said the voting location is what should be in question, not the state as a whole or even the city/county. Because a lot of these issues are going to be localized to a specific location where the quality of workers is far lower, or the intent to commit fraud is much higher. And by saying the specific location was corrupted, it helps narrow it down to a specific group of people to investigate and a specific area to figure out what was going on. Allowing for real arrest and action to be taken. If you specify “Chicago had a voting issue in Ward 2 Precinct 12” then you’re very specifically saying Manierre Elementary School had a issue. If you were generalizing that Chicago had a issue, then there could be 100 other voting locations that did everything right and those people shouldn’t be punished because of the sins of the few. Also it allows you to review the camera footage at the location (if available) to find witnesses and perpetrators, or maybe even a short list of poll workers who were allowing invalid votes to be counted, or switching votes.

This method both brings some accountability to individuals, as well as gives those individuals some power to make these things that we need to happen, happen. It also ensures that we’re not unnecessarily stepping on the feet of states and local governments that like doing this their way. Some towns like having a single location to vote in, and are willing to wait in line for that extra security. Other places want to be in and out as quick as possible. Some places want a ID to be shown, other places see it as a major inconvenience. And this system allows for that, so long as you’re meeting these basic requirements in doing so. And if a candidate is ever able to prove that you didn’t achieve those requirements then your entire operation is thrown into question.

• A system allowing a voter to see how their vote was actually counted, when it was counted, and where.

• A system allowing a non-voter or voter to see if they did vote.

• A system where citizens can see (relative) up to date/live statistics on voting locations (number of voters as a example, or % of turnout, maybe even the current wait times) then revisit this information at the end of the day to confirm how many people actually showed up and how many votes are being reported from that location.

• No centralized counting. All counting is done at the location, and is reported to a single transparent system.

• A registration system that requires a minimum 30 day waiting period before registration. To help ensure that felons or other ineligible voters don’t slip through the slow systems.

• Each polling location requires at least 1 observer from each party.

• Effective bans on ballot harvesting. Possibly replace it with a city wide pickup service (maybe the post office can do it!)

• Effective bans on campaigning 3 days before election day.

Choosing a System to Audit Elections Quickly, Transparently, and Accurately

The last part of this system is really the hard part. Even as the January 6 hearings are going on, we’re seeing more and more light being shined on the fact that Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election might actually be (at least somewhat, in a sense) possibly based in some level of reality, although no one has been able to PROVE that yet. Within days of the election there was a Time’s magazine article about how “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” and then goes on to explain how media literally lied and mislead people to get them to vote a specific way, possibly in collusion with Democrat leaders. (This alone isn’t illegal, if you report it as advertising and follow all of the rules of campaign finance and advertising) But there are other developments along the way, for example deleted data from the Arizona audit that is still ongoing. And the new 2000 Mules documentary that is at least questionable. But, this is all circumstantial evidence at best and does NOT tell us how many votes might be illegitimate much less if any of them are. All of this being said, the core thesis of the January 6 hearings is Donald Trump incited violence because he said the election was stolen without proving each vote needed in each state.

The key issue here was the last word of the thesis sentence, “yet”. And the reason why it is key, is there is no clear way to audit the system that is in place to retrieve accurate results and analyze them to determine if fraud of any kind happened. Because if Donald Trump came out with all of the circumstantial evidence out there today, on November the 4th or 5th, the narrative would have been wildly different through the coming weeks. But instead the evidence that is available now was released over the course of nearly 2 years and to be quite honest loses it’s sting. In short, there is no way to audit a system quickly, in the open so everyone can see the process, and with any level of accuracy currently.

In 2020 Donald Trump asked for a recount in Wisconsin and was approved if he paid a large sum of money. That was his ability to audit Wisconsin, not very transparent or accurate. If the votes are there, they’re there. It doesn’t confirm if the votes were legal, duplicates, or even if some where thrown away. It can only correct votes that were counted incorrectly.

In Arizona, they’re still undergoing a audit. Georgia essentially gave up on finding any fraud even after they found several incidents of individual fraud. Pennsylvania had a whole legal mess with their late game law changes that a judge threw out because “it wouldn’t make a difference nationally” so they dismissed the case with no standing. And Michigan had dozens of people sworn under oath testifying about poor behaviors. Nevada was proven to have at least several dozens of registered voters just not exist at all. But all of these instances put together make up about 10% of the total votes needed to overturn these states, and 90% of the gap to fill. This is all that was able to be proven in the 3-5 weeks after the election where state legislators could have voted to not certify their elections. What I’m trying to prove is it takes time to prove fraud.

At best we’ll see the Arizona audit end some time around October this year. It could even spill into Summer of next year (2023). We just saw a few weeks ago that what Pennsylvania did with the mail in voting might have been illegal and against their constitution. And this is well after the fact and nothing can be changed. The speed to audit needs to be improved.

As previously mentioned, this all starts with setting common standards that we accept as a whole. Or at least setting the standards and using them even if we don’t accept them. Then it results in systems to help achieve those goals and proper punishment/rewards for achieving the standards we want to achieve. My suggestion of a NFT system would be a ideal use of the technology to ensure that you get 1:1 voters with registered voters, it would also be ideal to ensure that each vote is counted and counted only once. But, if a smaller state like Rhode Island or Vermont wanted to do something different, as long as they can meet the goals they’re allowed to do what they want. The end result is these mature systems need to be created where we can accurately and with confidence confirm that “yes, this location had 1000 people registered, 600 people showed up, we had 300 votes for each of the two candidates”. And lastly, we need a quick solution for actually validating this data where candidates can freely verify their races and address any grievances.