Selections have consequences

The way it was

Originally, elections were the preferred way to decide issues of importance to a group of people. Lots of other ways had been tried over the centuries - reading patterns in cast sticks, throwing dice, contests of skill and strength, consulting oracles and deities, and numerous others. All fell short in one way or another. Majority choice arose in Athens, the birthplace of democracy as a way of settling disputes and making choices with the greatest appeal.

It didn't always give the best result, but in the Agora of Athens, people could meet, discuss, evaluate, and come up with better ideas. Improvement was just another vote away. That system worked well for quite a while, and reached something of a peak about the end of the Roman Republic, just before the time of the Empire.

It was around this time when people discovered that in a pure democracy, they could use elections to do all sorts of mischief by rewarding the majority at the expense of a minority. The problem has been encapsulated in the example of two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Majority vote wins.

Elections in transition

It appears that elections were in limited use throughout the middle ages until the time of the American Revolution. Leaders were determined in the traditional manners of force and heredity. Kings and Emperors were not generally elected, and if there was any dispute about who should be king, it was usually settled by force of arms and conquest.

The period after the fall of the Roman Empire up until the late 1700s was a time of decades long wars, constantly shifting political boundaries, and even Islamic invasion on the south and east of Europe. The latter portion of the period was also a time of exploration, not only geographically, but also of what constitutes good government. It was from this exploration that our own founders drew much of the philosophy behind our own government, including a revival of the idea of elections.

A new beginning

It is difficult for most of us today to appreciate just how radical were the ideas behind the founding of our United States. For centuries, government had always been in the hands of kings and emperors and aristocrats of all stripes. Our founders brought forth the radical idea that we, as a people, could govern ourselves—no monarchs need apply. The idea seems obvious today, but was almost inconceivable at the time, and it ignited a storm of reform across Europe that led to the French Revolution, among others.

Central to the idea of self-government are elections as a means of selecting those who would represent our interests. Having the benefit of history and knowing the problems that previous democracies experienced with elections, our founders understood that what we now call "direct democracies" were recipes for disaster.

To avoid the prior problems, they set up a representative democracy where the people would elect representatives who would then serve to perform the functions of government. It would be the job of the representatives to act as moderators and to evaluate proposals to determine if they served the good of all, or if they favored one group at the expense of another. Representatives were thus expected to be people of experience, thoughtful, and of good character.

Keeping our friends close

It was expected that individual citizens would communicate with their representatives to convey their concerns and desires, and those representatives would act according to their understanding of the best interests of those whom they represented, while avoiding the "tyranny of the majority" problems that plagued direct democracies.

Remember that this was a time when the representatives who were chosen were readily available members of their communities. Anyone could stop by Ben Franklin's printing shop and speak with him. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington had farms and were regularly seen in their towns. The same was true of all the other founders. Elected representatives were accessible.

As time passed, though, our population grew, and the ability of individual citizens to interact directly with their representatives diminished. About the time of Democrat president Woodrow Wilson, many thought that our centralized government had become too remote and unwieldy for a representative democracy to function properly. Wilson responded by proposing that the duties of government be carried out by a class of "professional" regulators trained and experienced in the principles of good governance. He thus laid the foundation for the modern administrative state.

Where we are today

With that, we cross the threshold to our current situation. It has been necessary to review a bit of the history of how and why elections arose and evolved. Deciding where we go is influenced by where we have been. Only by obscuring history can the enemies of freedom present the old, discarded methods such as direct democracy as fresh, new, and desirable. We have many today who would have us implement mistakes of the past since repeating those mistakes would facilitate their efforts to exert control.

Despite a few ups and downs, what we consider our traditional election system has served us well for most of our history. The system has made a few transitions, as those who could participate in elections were initially limited to landowners and business owners who had a recognized stake in whatever policies might be adopted. That was one of the provisions of the founders to prevent the "wolves and sheep" problem—it made everyone share the same fate.

The franchise —right to vote—was later expanded to include women, and former slaves, among others, ultimately ending in universal franchise limited only by such things as age, citizenship, mental competency, and criminal record.

Under the traditional system, the voter would show up to the polling place on Election Day, be given a ballot to fill out in private, and the completed ballot would be placed in a ballot box to be counted after the polls closed. The totals would be reported to a central facility, added to results from all the other locations, and final results reported, typically on the same day. This is how the system, with a few variations worked for many decades until electronic voting systems started to be introduced.

At first, the machines used replaced hand marking of ballots and simplified the tedious process of counting voter selections. As computer systems grew in capability, they began to be used to store and manage voter rolls. That was where the first significant problems arose. Unlike paper files, computer records are very volatile and easily altered.

The ghost in the machine

As we have learned in the last few years, one of the most significant alterations has been the introduction of "ghost voters" into the voter rolls. The rolls of most states today contain enough ghosts that can be brought out to support fraudulent ballots to alter the outcome of even national elections.

To further complicate matters, recent elections have extensively used vote by mail systems. With vote by mail, most of the mechanisms that would prevent fraud in a traditional election are either seriously compromised or missing entirely. These two changes alone have created vast new opportunities for election fraud. In many cases, the likelihood of detecting fraud has also been greatly reduced.

There have been many who have recognized the opportunities for election manipulation inherent in these recent changes and have been quick to take advantage of them to ensure that candidates and initiatives of their choice were selected, rather than those candidates and initiatives chosen by the legitimate voters.

Government authorities have been quick to claim that such fraud doesn't exist and we can trust our election results. Unfortunately, they have consistently put forth their statements without actually investigating to see if fraud is present. Some of those claiming to be part of a conspiracy to perpetrate fraud in the national election of 2020 even boasted of their efforts and success in a widely distributed news magazine.

Elections are too important to be left to popular choice

The question becomes what to do about the situation. A return to a more traditional system of elections would eliminate most of the mechanisms that support such massive fraud. However, through use of the mechanisms many of those who benefit from fraud are now in positions of power sufficient to oppose any attempts at election reform.

From their perspective, they are the ones best suited to exercise power, and to put some amateur in their place through an honest election would be a horrible mistake. It is only proper that they should arrange things so that they will remain in control. It's not cheating, it is only prudence in making sure the right people have power instead of some celebrity amateur.

Why elections matter

Most of us would, I believe, think that honest elections are vital to the existence of our nation. I doubt that many understand why that is so.

Elections serve to legitimize the authority of those chosen, as well as of any proposals or initiatives. Even if a candidate was selected through fraud or illegal manipulation, many feel it better to accept the results than to question them and prolong uncertainty. Conflict over election results can extend over long periods, even years. This bias to acceptance has often been exploited to forestall challenges to election results.

On the other hand, if there is broad opinion that the election results were not an honest reflection of voter choice, serious erosion of necessary trust in government can result, leading in turn to breakdown in compliance and even significant social unrest and collapse of rule of law. The typical response of authority is such situations is increased application of force to ensure compliance which leads to further resistance in an ever widening spiral which can lead to actual revolution if the conditions are uncorrected. Use of more force is not corrective. Only restoration of public trust through transparent and fair elections has proven effective in stopping and reversing escalation of social discontent.

The United States, in its increased persecution of conservatives and MAGA proponents, and Canada, in its ongoing persecution of truckers and others involved in the vaccine protests last year have taken significant steps in the wrong direction to restore public trust in government. It remains to be seen how those circumstances will progress.

The idea that an improper election result can be corrected in a subsequent election is built on the idea that elections are generally fair and honest, and any fraudulent results are limited and rare. This assumption is invalid if the election systems employed are themselves biased or encourage substantial fraud.

In this case, once a group is established in power, subsequent elections can be manipulated to ensure they remain in power. Many suspect this to be the case in our American elections, as well as in other elections around the world. The recent elections in Brazil are a case in point, as well as elections in Venezuela and others in Africa and Latin America.. This situation is and has been the case in elections in Communist and Socialist countries where candidates are often from the same party or otherwise indistinguishable.

Playing against the house

Expecting honest elections once a party has established itself in power through election manipulation is like playing cards against a dishonest dealer with a stacked deck. A smart dealer will let the mark win a few times to convince them that the game really is honest. When the mark has made his ultimate maximum bet and stands to lose all, the crooked dealer will then deal a stacked hand.

Some feel this is the situation currently existing in America. Few today have any great confidence that the 2020 election was fair and honest, but the close races of the 2022 election have lulled many into believing that our elections really are fair, and the dealer is really honest.

The reality is that few reforms of our election systems have been implemented since 2020. Most of the fraud promoting elements, such as dirty voter rolls, widespread vote by mail, dropboxes, and ballot harvesting are still in place. In fact, some states, such as California with its "Voter Choice Act", are actually expanding opportunities for fraud and manipulation.

In the last few years, those who would subvert our elections and thwart our will have had opportunity to learn what worked for them, what failed, how to correct their errors, and to devise new ways to manipulate. We cannot assume a static situation. There is good reason why it is said that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

A citizen's duty

We must no longer be satisfied with the warm fuzzy feeling that we have done our civic duty by voting in rigged elections. It is up to us, starting at local levels where we can have real effect, to demand that our elections be transparent, free, and fair so that our voices may be heard and our will made known in reality, and not just in theory. We can no longer blindly accept the assurances of those who seek or hold power that everything is fine and we can trust them without actually checking.

Do we trust the fox to provide an honest assessment of the health of the henhouse? We need to count the chickens ourselves and hold the foxes accountable. If we truly want a government of the people, then we the people need to exercise the power to monitor and correct the actions of those we hire to govern. Otherwise, we elect rulers, not leaders.

To do otherwise, is not only to invite tyranny, but to welcome it with open arms. In the words of the immortal Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."