Recently, the West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner denied the U.S. Department of Justice demand to turn over state voting records.
The department cited the Help America Vote Act, passed under former President George W. Bush due to the Florida presidential election controversy of 2000 (Bush v Gore). Trump’s DOJ should be devoted to helping us have accurate elections, but demanding these records is unhelpful.
Trump’s administration is simply running in circles. Meanwhile, according to Gallup, an amazing 61% of Americans are dissatisfied with democracy and their government. As recently as 1984, 61% were satisfied, major about face in just four decades.
President Donald Trump is a populist billionaire who was elected twice due to broad public discontent — and the mind-boggling political incompetence of two Democratic nominees and their strategic advisors who ignored issues like the economy and immigration. Trump says once again that he wants to drain the swamp and return our government to the people, so he and Musk created the Department of Governmental Efficiency fiasco. We know how badly that turned out.
Now, he is raiding the Atlanta elections office, confiscating 2020 election records. It is a county with a very liberal, heavily black voting base and Trump lost decisively there. That Fulton County office has been audited repeatedly, proving Trump lost. Plus, he is now asking West Virginia for state election records that the feds have no business obtaining. What is next for this administration?
We were not originally set up to be a true democracy by our Founding Fathers. Instead, we were founded as a republic that would be dependent on a vestige of the feudal system — the Electoral College.
The Founding Fathers had little faith in the average American voter. Isn’t it time for supposed “man of the people” Trump to embrace real electoral reform that enables the people’s will to be heard (as a true populist should do)?
Here is the real issue. The Republicans (my former party) have lost the popular vote twice in the last few decades (2000 and 2016), but won the presidency anyway via the undemocratic, unrepresentative, antiquated Electoral College.
Republican politicos give inane and transparent excuses, such as using the popular vote would cause domination of the presidency by a few big blue states. Of course, the corollary to this statement is that the current system provides for unfair domination by smaller red states (like West Virginia). Is an unrepresentative dictatorship of smaller states better than “one person, one vote?” The next time it could be a GOP nominee for president denied by the Electoral College. If he so chooses, Trump can use this as a talking point, pushing reform.
If he so desired, with his control of the Senate and House, Trump could fix a few of our other ills related to our national, state and local elections, such as
- Mandating early voting and absentee provisions, making it easier to vote
- Changing voting days to include weekends and make Election Day a holiday.
- Ending discrimination against minorities. End removal of voting privileges for felons.
- Automatically issue photo IDs to all citizens. Institute automatic registration of Americans at birth.
- Allowing phone, email or mail registration of any citizen.
- Halting gerrymandering. Stop creating artificial gerrymandering lines disenfranchising minorities.
These reforms can increase the representative nature of our government. The only question is whether our supposed populist president will advocate for them. So far, he is going in the opposite direction, towards authoritarianism.
