World

AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL

How to ensure a free and fair election in the US

How to ensure a free and fair election in the US
US President Donald J. Trump recalls the glasses worn by Chinese officials working with Chinese President Xi Jinping on 25 February 2019. President Trump was speaking at the 2019 White House Business Session. (Photo: EPA-EFE/JIM LO SCALZO)

With the possibility of civil disunity from the rapidly approaching US presidential and general election, and given the fears of an election that is neither free nor fair, radical moves are necessary.

Imagine for a moment, a nation in the grip of a sudden, deep economic collapse, a vast national epidemic killing people by the thousands weekly, a nation seemingly deeply divided into two, largely geographically based, cultural groups, and rolling cultural unrest breaking out across the country over long-unaddressed cultural disparities in their treatment by authorities. Add to this, a huge national ecological and environmental disaster destroying millions of hectares of valuable forests and forcing the mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents.

Now, for good measure, throw in a growing threat of armed militia groups eager to take the law into their own hands, quiet electronic interference by outside powers bent on disrupting the results and contributing to a belief that this election will be neither free nor fair, as well as an increasingly desperate incumbent president betting on the idea that feeding great fears of a sinister “other” may be his only chance of victory in an election less than two months away.

Former US Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks during his first campaign event, at the Teamsters Local 249 Banquet Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 29 April, 2019. EPA-EFE/DAVID MAXWELL

It all sounds like the perfect recipe for an election doomed to fail, or, at best, one whose results will be deeply flawed by charges and countercharges of ballot tampering, illegal behaviour and, unending legal challenges, and, just perhaps, even aspects of a low-level civil war.

By most measures, this is a sadly accurate portrait of the current state of the United States, not some fictitious low-income nation. In fact, if this were any other place besides the US, by now there would be a growing torrent of international concern over the state of this election and the likelihood it will lead to even greater instability and economic chaos in this strategically important nation.

As The Economist, among so many other observers, has noted, “Having adopted a strategy built around profiting from fears about unrest, the president has an interest in stoking it. Many Americans worry that November could herald not a smooth exercise of democracy but violent discord and a constitutional crisis.

“…In the case of a landslide win for Mr Trump or Joe Biden, about half of America will be miserable. Many Democrats view Mr Trump as a threat to democracy itself. If he wins again, millions of them will be distraught. Among Republicans, by contrast, Mr Trump still enjoys an 87% approval rating. If he loses, many will grouse that the other side cheated. But that need not stop a smooth transfer of power if the margin of victory is big enough. If Mr Trump were to lose by eight points, as polls currently suggest he will, there will be no way to challenge the result plausibly – though he may try anyway, possibly fomenting further unrest.

“…If the election is much closer, things could get even uglier. America is unusual in the degree of power it gives to Republican and Democratic partisans to administer elections. Decisions over who is removed from lists of eligible voters when they are updated, the design of ballot papers, where polling stations are situated, whether early voting is allowed and how many people have to witness a postal vote – things which in other mature democracies are in the hands of non-partisan commissions – are all taken by people with a d or an r by their name. If the election is close then all this will be litigated over, and ultimately end up in courts presided over by judges who have also been appointed by Republican or Democratic governors and presidents.”

Now, in one of those other nations, with the election less than two months away, there would be increasingly urgent consultations among foreign ministries of friendly and neighbouring nations, along with many international and multinational bodies such as those most concerned with international economic and security issues. There would already be emergency plans, worked out and on the go with leading foundations around the globe and similar bodies, undertaking funding of a large contingent of international observers and election monitors to help ensure the election is both free and fair.

In fact, an array of organisations such as the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, foundations related to the major German political parties, the National Endowment for Democracy, the political action arms of major labour union federations around the world, Japan’s Sasakawa International Peace Foundation, the US Institute for Peace, Human Rights Watch, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and many more would almost certainly be eager to support such an effort. Moreover, there is already a large body of internationally experienced election monitors and skilled observers worldwide – with experience gleaned from electoral observer missions undertaken in many nations – with backgrounds in political party behaviour, law, communication, electronic monitoring and pretty much every other type of conceivable expertise that might be required.

Job seekers are seen in the reflection of the door as they stand in line to attend the Miami-Dade County Elections Department Temporary Election Worker Job Fair at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department Main Office in Doral, Florida, USA, 05 September 2020. EPA-EFE/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH

The historic opportunity to participate in such a project, massive and complex though it might be and brought together on an emergency, urgent basis, would almost certainly be too tempting for most to turn down. This would be true, even if it meant completely reorganising professional schedules and postponing everything else in their lives, save for surgery to deal with life-threatening conditions.

Yes, of course, the US is already awash with thousands of journalists – both domestic and foreign, despite the difficult work circumstances due to the pandemic – reporting on this vote. But most of them are focused closely on what is usually called the “electoral horse race”, whether nationally or at the state and local levels, rather than larger systemic questions of whether or not the election is being conducted in a manner that can reliably be certified as “free and fair”. And very few of these reporters will be in a position to report on the more difficult questions of voter suppression efforts, bottlenecks or worse with mail-in/absentee voting, and any other impediments to the kind of electoral process Americans have historically believed they participated in for the selection of national leaders and officials.

One major benefit from such a monitor/observer effort, even if it is a rushed one, since less than two months’ time is left before Election Day itself, could be the impact an army of foreign observers would have on the candidates and parties. With all those impartial, inquisitive, non-partisan eyes monitoring every move, candidate and party behaviour could become less obviously provocative and – hopefully – less willing to violate the norms and values of elections, as well as the laws that govern them.

Observers poking their noses into everything, responding to charges of cheating or other violations, monitoring actual polling places in a highly visible fashion, even spot-checking post offices to see that mail-in ballots are being handled expeditiously, all could encourage better behaviour. Uniquely among democratic nations, there is no national, presumably non-partisan bureaucracy that handles elections in the US. Instead, per the Constitution, each state is responsible for elections, and ballots are not nationally printed, standardised, distributed, administered or counted.

This is confusing, but as a result, there are dozens of different ballots in use across the nation, and often, within each state there are different ballots in different cities and counties due to different local- and state-level races. This welter of different ballots makes national, system-wide cheating much harder by a blizzard of fraudulent mail-in ballots, but it does provide many access points for possible fiddling at the margins, even if history shows such finagling has been relatively rare, beyond old-style machine politics in big cities or from Southern states’ efforts historically to deny African-Americans the right to vote.

But there can be another possible benefit that could accrue from a large, diverse cohort of independent, non-partisan, international observers travelling across the nation. They will be able to investigate charges of both voter suppression and a flawed mail-in ballot process without it necessarily being seen as a partisan effort.

Voter suppression largely comes in at the point of registration or voting, such as deliberately limiting accessible polling places or through efforts to disqualify voters on largely spurious grounds such as subtle mismatches between the signatures on a voters’ roll and the signature sign-in on the date of voting. Then there are, simultaneously, claims by the president (largely unproven, deliberately distorted, or demonstrably false and definitely partisan) of mail-in voter fraud in which multitudes of illegally obtained or filed mail-in ballots are cast.

US Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on ‘The Justice Department’s Investigation of Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential Election’ on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, 01 May 2019. EPA-EFE/SHAWN THEW

Both problems might well be addressed by an effort not affiliated with either party or any candidates, rather than relying upon spotty media reports and the possibility of cumbersome, lengthy court challenges by the aggrieved party. Careful international observer monitoring efforts might well make a real contribution to restoring some trust on the part of citizens (and the rest of the world) that the US electoral process is not riven with cheating and fraud. Or, if or when such efforts are detected, they are aired swiftly and investigated and dealt with quickly.

Of course, there will be enormous challenges in carrying off such a project with essentially zero time left to get organised. Turning support pledges into actual financial support will be crucial if it is to get off the ground, as will an ad hoc organising and administering body. Recruiting, screening, selecting, visa processing and actually transporting all the people needed for this effort in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic clearly will be a herculean effort.

Something like this actually should have been started months ago, but organisers could treat this as if they were dealing with the emergency rescue personnel and supplies needed to deal with a natural disaster of epic proportions – instead of a simple, quotidian civic act undertaken by two hundred million Americans.

But there could be some hidden side-benefits as well. Just as with the once-in-a-decade census count, there would be a demand for temporary places for the monitors to stay, and the drivers, guides, caterers, backroom admin support and so forth, all of which could help with the dire unemployment numbers in the US. And participating up close and personal in monitoring the country’s electoral process, and restoring faith in it, could be a real boon for young adults willing to take some time off from their boring online classes in universities or who are in the midst of a gap year, looking for stimulating, rewarding and remunerative work. And just possibly it might increase public trust as a whole in the country’s increasingly battered electoral process.

Time is very short to get this done, and the whole thing should be underway within days, not weeks or months. As The Economist noted last week, “There is so much riding on this election– for America and for the rest of the world – that state officials must do everything they can to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible, remembering that they owe loyalty to the Constitution, not their party. Even a landslide election win will be fraught. In the event of a narrow one, America might not be able to generate losers’ consent. And without that, democracies are in big trouble.” With this much at stake, surely it makes sense to do everything, absolutely everything, possible to make the outcome of this impending election one that the country and the rest of the world can actually believe is an accurate reflection of the population’s will. DM

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  • Sydney Kaye says:

    Either, the US constitution and its various amendments and legal precedents are not clear enough in respect of the right to vote, or its courts do not interpet indirect interference with that right as a breach, or there is no quick way to enforce it. If the executive tried to supress voting in any way in SA ( one of Trump’s shit hole countries) an urgent application to court would put a stop to it. The contempt for the rule of law and the norms of governance now happening in the US is disappointing and mystifying.

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