As citizens in a democratic republic, our government knows the will of the people only through the votes that they cast. Accordingly, voting is a civic duty not to be taken lightly. There are three main steps you must take to fulfill this duty:
Registering to vote
Researching the issues and candidates
Casting your ballot
It is nice to imagine that after taking these steps that your vote will be counted and weighed in the outcome of the respective election. The key to fair elections is the concept of “One person, one vote”. However, the value and impact of any one vote is predicated upon the belief that the person voting is:
Eligible to cast a ballot
Has not voted previously or subsequently in the same election
Has completed and cast their own ballot
Every time a person fraudulently participates in an election, that person is negating the choice of a lawful voter. Every time a fraudulent ballot is discovered to have been cast, the confidence of the people in an honest outcome is diminished.
I confess that on occasion I have not voted in an election due to not having fully researched the issues and candidates. Having not taken the time to know the facts, I would have considered it inappropriate to cast a ballot and in so doing potentially ignorantly skew the outcome of the election.
Fundamental and tangential to the right to vote is the secret ballot. What and whom we vote for should be a matter for of our own conscience. We should not be subjected to criticism and possible repercussions for our views or beliefs. Though we often forfeit our anonymity by placing yard signs or contributing financial support to causes and candidates we believe in, that is a choice we make.
Unfortunately, a secret ballot invites the possibility of fraud. Let’s imagine that Candidate A and Candidate B are running for office in your district/community. You strongly support Candidate B and cast your vote accordingly. So long as the election results in your district/community show that at least one ballot was cast for Candidate B, then the election may have been fair. However, you may doubt the outcome if only one vote was counted for your candidate, though that one vote may well have been yours and perhaps you were the only person in your district/community that voted for Candidate B. So, to lend credibility to the election results, there are frequently poll watchers who observe the counting of the ballots. With partisan poll watchers, each representing opposing sides in the election, the counting process can usually be deemed to be fair.
However, ballots are rarely counted in real-time. In most circumstances, they are collected and taken to a central counting location. There is typically an audit between the number of people who signed-in to vote in a district/community and the number of ballots collected. However, this number need not be even if voters with absentee ballots have dropped-off their completed ballots at the polling location. An added complication is that these voters, though registered as absentee voters, are eligible to vote in person should they so choose. This suggests the possibility of double voting – one person, two or more votes. If you voted by mail, you additionally have to trust the U.S. Postal Service to have properly delivered your ballot to the Registrar of Voters in your county/district. It is not unheard of for mail to go undelivered by mail carriers through simple laziness. If you live in a postal ZIP code that trends toward one party or candidate, and your mail carrier favors the other candidate, it is not beyond the realm of belief to suspect that your mail-in ballot might not reach its destination, if you even received your mail-in ballot at all.
Now, having cast your ballot, you have to trust that your secret ballot, with no identifying marks to potentially void your anonymity, will be safely transported and counted. In the criminal justice system, there exists a chain of custody regarding evidence, meaning that you must be able to demonstrate where the evidence was gathered and the consistent chain of custody within the criminal justice system before that evidence is presented in court. Break that chain, and the evidence is out. So, in our electoral system, the physical ballot is the evidence, including any accompanying documentation in the case of absentee ballots. However, there is no chain of custody. By the time your ballot reaches the counting station, there is no proof that the ballot you cast is the ballot being counted. Similarly, there is no proof that the absentee ballot counted was cast by the voter to whom it was mailed. In truth, there is no proof that your ballot ever reached the counting station.
Hoping though that the process worked and the poll watchers have watched the handling of your ballot, you have to trust that it will be counted correctly. Typically, the paper ballots are fed into an electronic machine that tabulates the votes based on the marks on the ballot. The programming of these machines is done behind closed doors by persons not vetted by either party. Additionally, the machines may or may not be connected to the internet, opening the door for even more chicanery.
In our effort to make voting easier and more accessible, we have made it far more possible to perpetrate fraud. With easy voting comes a lessening in trust. I cast a ballot in the last election. I trust that the process worked as it should. Looking back, though, there were a number of documented anomalies that have caused reasonable people to question the result. Although this is a concern, history has shown us that if an election is stolen, it stays stolen.
I did have confidence, though in our voting system here in the State of California. However, my faith in our local electoral system was recently shaken. I recently received notice from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters that I am now registered to vote in San Diego County, though I live in Riverside County. Lest I be concerned about not receiving voting materials, they indicated that they would mail my voting materials for San Diego County to me in here in Riverside County. Proof of this, they also mailed me a mail-in ballot for a special election occurring in April in San Diego County.
I predictably called the San Diego County Registrar of Voters to enquire as to what triggered my registration in San Diego. The very courteous woman to whom I spoke (I love San Diego County public employees, having been one for more than 30 years) informed me that my registration had been changed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Looking at the timeline, I saw that it roughly coincided with the renewal of the registration on my car. Strangely, nowhere on the renewal was any address other than my address in Riverside, and I received my validated registration at my address in Riverside. Stranger still was that the address to which I had been registered in San Diego was not an address at which I had ever been licensed to drive or had registered a vehicle.
I confess that I was unwilling to invest the time required to contact the Department of Motor Vehicles. Their customer service is nowhere near that of San Diego County and, when you encounter a giant cauldron of stupid, it is best not to stir. Sadly, though, I will have to invest the time to re-register to vote in Riverside County. I have always been too trusting, and I will continue to hope that any votes I cast are counted. I am reminded, though, of the quote from that famous socialist leader Josef Stalin who is reputed to have said “He who votes decides nothing, he who counts the votes decides everything”.
Still, the Bible teaches us that the just shall live by faith.1 As Christians, we should vote by faith as well. Not faith in an imperfect and irreparably bent earthly system, but faith that all is unfolding according to His plan. I find that reassuring and calming when I am anxious. I pray that you do, too.
1Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
In a dry and thirsty land 