The stakes in election reform are higher than any other type of legislation, and we can't afford to believe the magician's act. Bad election reform legislation can destroy our democracy, as evidenced in the disastrous 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) (2). HAVA "reformed" the very meaning of our right to vote, turning it instead into the opportunity to verify a voting machine's vote.
To restore and protect the American Republic, election reform must flow from the guiding principles of democracy.
We don't need magic to solve our election crisis. We already have the solutions. We just need the will to implement them.
Constitutional Election Reform – Scaffolding of Democracy
Recalling democratic principles helps us see through the smoke and mirrors of 21st century election reform.
The nation's first successful election reform, the revolutionary ratification of the Constitution, supports democracy with hardy scaffolding: governance by the consent of the governed, checks and balances, citizen oversight of government, and decentralized power.
The Declaration of Independence affirming our inalienable rights, states
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Declaration empowers the People over the government:
Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.
The Constitution guarantees government deriving its power from the people
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government.
Many of the founding states reinforced these principles in their own constitutions.
The New Hampshire Bill of Rights:
All power residing originally in, and being derived from, the people...Government, therefore, should be open, accessible, accountable and responsive.
Democratic elections were the protective shield defending the new American Republic. Public control and citizen oversight are nowhere more important than in elections.
Both the New Hampshire and Massachusetts constitutions declare that in elections the election officials shall "sort and count" the votes in "open meeting" and "make a public declaration thereof."
In more recent times, Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act reinforces public governance and asserts the requirement for an observable vote count (3).
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