EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD HAVE A VOTER ID CARD

I have been thinking a lot about how to have honest presidential elections.  A recent blog, WE NEED A NEW LAW FOR NATIONAL ELECTIONS 20 November, 2020, provided a solution in the form of new federal law. In case you missed it, the essence of the proposal is as follows:

There will be only two authorized election possibilities; in-person and absentee ballot requested by the voter.  The election period will be the first Saturday, Sunday and Monday (a national election holiday) in November.  The presidential candidates will be on a separate ballot.  When finished filling out the ballot the voter will hand that ballot to a 3-person counting team where the ballot will be immediately numbered, initialed by the three team members and a tally of who the vote was for recorded.  That will take about 15 seconds at which time the ballot will be placed in a storage box.  When the box is full it will be sealed, numbered, signed and placed in a locked limited-access secure room.  There will be a time-stamped chain of custody for every ballot, in-person or absentee.  This is easy and doable.

I followed that on 30 November with a blog, CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM.  The key point of that blog was to point out that the 2020 campaigns spent about $14 billion with out-of-control spending by Super PACs and billionaires. Under the new federal law campaign financing for all federal candidates will consist of one, and only one, source.  The source is the voter who is geographically associated with the candidate.  The proposed new federal law would limit campaign contributions to $1000 per person per candidate in their state.  Scrupulous records would be required by every candidate matching money contributed and money spent.  It is all about accountability by the contributors and the candidates.  In that blog I recommended tracking the contributions with an individual’s social security number. 

Using SSN is doable but I have determined there is an even better way; individual Voter ID numbers.  Thus, this blog, EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD HAVE A VOTER ID CARD.

I believe we can make the voting process even more simple and free of fraudulent activities with a new federal law requiring Voter ID Cards. 

Think of it as a picture ID (like your driver’s license) with a “swipe” capability (like your credit card) that will display on a screen all of the times the Voter ID Card has been “used”.  We need a federal law to make Voter ID Cards happen.

The intent of the Voter ID Card Law is to positively identify a voter at a voting site with a current photo, a valid state Voter ID number, current address and a history of voter activity.

Under this federal law everyone who is eligible to vote must have a Voter ID Card in order to perform in-person voting or to apply for an absentee ballot, the only two voting methods that would be authorized.  

The Voter ID Card will be obtained from a State Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) facility and it will expire simultaneously with the expiration of your driver’s license.  Both can be renewed at the same time. 

The Voter ID Card will be the same size and quality as today’s driver’s license. The Voter ID card will present a photo, full name, date of birth, address, sex, eye color, height, hair color, expiration date and, most importantly, an individual Voter ID 10-digit number beginning with the two-letter state abbreviation such as TX-456-789-3322.

In order to obtain a Voter ID Card, you must be 18 years of age and present: A valid passport or birth certificate proving identity and date of birth.  One document confirming full name and Social Security Number. Two documents with a current physical address proving state’s residency.

The State DMV will immediately provide the State Election Headquarters with all Voter ID Card data.

When a voter presents their Voter ID Card at the voting site, the voter administrative assistant will swipe the Voter ID Card and ascertain if that particular Voter ID Card number has already been used during the current election period.  If not, the assistant will print out an individual ballot which has the voter’s full name, address and Voter ID Card number printed on the ballot.  In the presence of the voting assistant, the voter will sign the ballot acknowledging that the data is correct.  Fraudulently signing a ballot will be a federal offense.

Once the voter has filled out the ballot and it has been read by the vote tabulating machine, any subsequent ballots presented with that Voter ID number will be automatically rejected. 

Those who are physically unable to travel to a DMV processing site may sign a sworn affidavit requesting that another person assist in getting them a Voter ID Card. 

Across America the states’ voter registration rolls are terribly maintained and highly inaccurate. The Voter ID Card system will solve those problems and be self-policing.  That is, when a Voter ID Card hits the expiration date the software will automatically delete that voter ID number from the system.  Furthermore, when a voter gets a new card or renews an expired one, the system will automatically add the voter to the registration rolls.  So what?  The so what is that we will no longer have dead people voting. One method of voter fraud struck down. 

Ballot stuffing: Casting illegal votes or submitting more than one ballot per voter.  That cannot be done with this system because every ballot must have a Voter ID number on it and that number can only be used once during an election cycle.

Voter registration fraud: Filling out and submitting a voter registration card for a fictional person, or filling out a voter registration card with the name of a real person but without that person’s consent and forging his or her signature on the card. None of that can happen with the Voter ID Card system in place because of the voter identification requirements at the DMV site.

Voter impersonation: A person claims to be someone else when casting a vote. The Voter ID Card prevents all of that activity.

Fraud by election officials: Manipulation of ballots by officials administering the election, such as tossing out ballots or casting ballots in voters’ names.  Each ballot will have a valid Voter ID number on it.  If not, the system will not accept it.  If it does have a valid number, the system will only accept it once.  Another fraud problem solved.

Absentee ballot vote fraud: A person attempts to fill out and turn in an absentee ballot containing false information. The Voter ID Card will not allow this because an absentee ballot application must contain a valid Voter ID Card number.  The only way absentee ballot fraud can exist is if a registered voter has their Voter ID Card stolen; an insignificant number.

With respect to campaign contributions, the change is simple.  Every eligible voter who wishes to make a campaign contribution will need to have a Voter ID Card because under the new federal law, the contribution cannot be accepted by the candidate without a Voter ID number.  And that ID number will be the key to auditing a candidate’s contributions. 

Bottom line:

1. We have seen the videos of ballot counting rooms with dozens of people milling about, workers carrying stacks of loose ballots, tables piled high with hundreds of ballots and workers taking ballots from one stack and placing it on another stack.  Zero ballot security.

Under the new proposed federal election law, the voter will relinquish a completed ballot into the hands of a 3-person counting team and literally within seconds that ballot will be numbered, time-date stamped, initialed by each team member, the vote tallied to the correct candidate and the ballot secured in a storage box.  Seconds, not hours or days. 

2. Under the new federal Campaign Finance Reform law, throughout the campaign, auditors will be active in every state.  Candidates running for US House and Senate seats and for President must keep scrupulous records and be able to match contributions totals with campaign expenditures and prove that no voter has contributed more than $1000 to their campaign.  The Voter ID # is the key to making this work.

3. Voting is a civic responsibility.  We value our freedoms: freedom of speech, religion, bearing arms, assembly, etc.  But freedom is not free.  We all need to play a role.

Voter apathy is rampant and disgusting.  In the 2016 election an estimated 100 million eligible voters did not vote.  In the 2020 election a record number of Americans voted but still an estimated 80 million did not. 

With this Voter ID Card law in place, the Department of Education should initiate an on-going national campaign to get every high school in the country involved in voter registration.  Most high school graduates are age 18.  Every high school should have a program that encourages every student who turns 18 to immediately get a Voter ID Card.  Encourage them to participate in elections beginning with the first election following their eligibility and make it a life-time civic duty response. 

A note to subscribers:  There are four imperatives to getting our national elections under control. 

Part One was:  WE NEED A NEW LAW FOR NATIONAL ELECTIONS, 20 November, 2020.

Part Two was: CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, 30 November, 2020.

This is Part Three: EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD HAVE A VOTER ID CARD.

Coming soon, Part Four:  CHANGE THE WAY WE CONDUCT PRIMARY ELECTIONS.

If you agree with any of these proposals, I encourage you to contact your US Representative and Senators. Thank you.

LT GEN, MARVIN L. COVAULT, US ARMY retired, author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders.