In 2016 Hillary said, “the election was stolen.” In 2020 Trump said, “the election was rigged.”
The 2024 election has the potential to be an existential threat to America. Mail-in ballots, drop boxes, ballot harvesting and out of date error-ridden voter registration rolls will be in-play and threaten, as a minimum, to further divide the nation and as a worse-case scenario take it into an uncontrollable downward spiral.
Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the U.S. had a 2022 population of 9,861,224 residents. So far so good, it’s just a big number. Of those 9.9 million folks, about 4.3 million of them are supposedly registered voters. OK so far, what could possibly go wrong? During the 2022 election cycle L.A. County election officials mailed out about 5.7 million vote-by-mail ballots to those 4.3 million registered voters. This could be taking the old Chicago adage, “vote early, vote often” to a new level.
The states are in charge of their voting rules which is a good news/bad news situation. States’ rights is a good thing. When taken to an extreme it can be bad, harmful and out of control. There are two distinct voting processes in play going into the 2024 election cycle:
One, though all states offer some form of voting by mail, nine states, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washinton state and Washington, D.C., now mandate that every registered voter be mailed a ballot ahead of an election by default; it’s called all-mail voting. All of the listed states but Utah are controlled by Democrats.
This all-mail voting system claims to increase voter turnout by expanding voting accessibility, especially among disabled people, rural residents, older people and members of the military.
The second system in play is request-required mail-in ballot systems, traditionally known as absentee voting. It requires eligible voters to initiate the process of receiving a mail-in ballot. Dozens of states allow voters to mail in their ballots without specifying why they are doing so, but several states, mostly in the South, require voters to provide an “excuse” for mailing in their ballots, forcing more people to vote in person at polling places.
All of the above could be OK if, and this is the big IF, the voter registration rolls were up to date (no dead people), correct (actually living at the recorded address) and are in fact eligible to vote (U.S. citizens).
Fact: across the nation, voter registration rolls need to be correct if mail-in voting is going to be free of potential massive voter fraud.
This data is a few years old but there is every reason to believe it is still a huge problem.
In 2017 the Public Interest Legal Foundation found 17 counties in Illinois that have more registered voters than residents who are eligible to vote which is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act. Franklin County, Illinois, for example, had an overcount of 190%. There were 21 states with over-registered counties. Michigan had the most with 24,
In September 2020 just prior to the last presidential election, a Judicial watch Study revealed that 353 U.S. counties in 8 states had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.
An actual case of fraud associated with mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting is well documented for a U.S. Congressional race in North Carolina. The North Carolina State Board of Elections refused to certify the results after evidence of what it called “concerted fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail ballots.” The fraudulent activities included “collection of absentee request forms, collection of absentee ballots, and falsifying absentee ballot witness certifications.” Corrupt incentives were built into the scam in that those participating in the activities were compensated based on how many absentee ballots they corrupted.
The Election Board ordered a new special election after determining that the scheme was “enabled by a well-funded and highly organized criminal operation.”
The board further determined the election “was corrupted by fraud, improprieties, and irregularities so pervasive that its results are tainted as the fruit of an operation manifestly unfair to the voters and corrosive to our system of representative government.”
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:
Right now, 13 months from the election, we seem to be in a state of expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Considering the potential downside of contested election results throughout the country, doing nothing is distasteful, ignorant, irresponsible and cowardly.
The first element of solving a problem is to define it. Here is the problem. The basis of election fraud is the pathetic state of voter registration rolls throughout the country. While not interfering with states’ rights to define their election processes, the federal government should pass a law right now that mandates two things. First, as of 1 January, 2024 every voter registration role in every state will become null and void. Secondly every eligible voter who wishes to vote in 2024 must reregister between 1 January and 5 November, 2024; election day. Simply stated, we desperately need a one-time, 100% reboot of the voter registration system.
The law will then go on to specify how the voter will go about proving in person that they are in fact, an eligible voter.
BACKGROUND:
In 2005, Congress passed THE REAL ID ACT 2005:
In accordance with that law (finally) on May 7, 2025, U.S. travelers must be REAL ID compliant to board domestic flights in the U.S.
Secure driver’s licenses and personal ID cards are a vital component of our national security framework. The REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses.”
Every state is required by this federal law to provide the facilities capable of providing REAL ID drivers licenses or personal ID cards. The applicable parts of that law are:
TITLE II, THE REAL ID ACT 2005, IMPROVED SECURITY FOR DRIVERS’ LICENSES AND PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION CARDS
SEC. 202. MINIMUM DOCUMENT REQUIREMENTS AND ISSUANCE STANDARDS FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION.
Features on each driver’s license and identification card issued to a person by the States:
(1) The person’s full legal name.
(2) The person’s date of birth.
(3) The person’s gender.
(4) The person’s driver’s license or identification card number.
(5) A digital photograph of the person.
(6) The person’s address of principle residence.
(7) The person’s signature.
(8) Physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes.
(9) A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements.
(10) An expiration date.
As millions of Americans already know, when you appear to get the REAL ID, you must have in your possession proof of all the above information; birth certificate, U.S. passport, social security card, a current bill addressed to you at your legal address, etc.
Here is how the existing REAL ID law can be used for the voter registration reboot. At some point after 1 January 2024, every eligible voter will appear at a voting office in their area or download their REAL ID data onto an online application form that can be mailed to their local election office. The name, address, expiration date and most importantly the number on the driver’s license or personal ID will be entered into the new state voter registration data base.
It is the number on the ID that will make voter fraud very difficult. As part of this new voter fraud law, every single ballot, either mail-in or in-person voting will have that number on it. Every single ballot will have a number on it that directly links it to one eligible voter. Period.
This new law, let’s call it SECURE THE 2024 ELECTION ACT, will also specify that every voting machine in the nation will be updated to reject any ballot that does not contain a voter ID number, that the number corresponds to a particular individual whose name and address is on the ballot and that the number has not been previously used in that election cycle.
Under this system, part of the on-going process with the voter registration roll is that upon reaching an expiration date, that person will be dropped from the rolls. Also, each time a license or ID is renewed, that data will be automatically forwarded to the state voter registration to put that individual back on the voter rolls. On a continuous basis, this cleans out the dead voters.
THE PERSON WHO DOES NOT WANT TO GET A REAL ID BUT DOES WANT TO VOTE.
The SECURE THE 2024 ELECTION ACT will provide for in-person election day voter registration (to include early in-person voting dates). That voter must present the same documentation required for a REAL ID and present it at the voting venue. The documentation must include a Social Security card and the social security number will become the voter number used on the ballot.
CONCLUSIONS:
What this all boils down to is this question; are you, an eligible voter, at least patriotic enough that you will make the same effort for the right to vote that you would make for eligibility to get on a U.S. airliner?
If this program gets some traction in Congress, stand by to be called a racist by democrats beginning with Biden and Kamala even though by saying it they are implying that minorities are not capable of executing the REAL ID process; which in and of itself is a racist statement.
This is going to be a difficult sell in Congress in that they do not think in terms of doing something quickly or for a longer-range impact. And also, because they are currently overwhelmed with the fact that there is no FY 2024 budget in place. There are reasons for not having a budget passed on time. It’s called laziness, unaccountability, lack of attention to details, lack of prioritization, ignored deadlines by most committees and generally sloppy, ineffective leadership. In any other organization, leaders acting like this would have been long ago fired.
Next to amnesty-for-all, open voting is what the democrats want across America. For example, December 2021 in New York City, the Democrat-controlled city council passed a measure known as “Our City, Our Vote.” Noncitizen green card holders and individuals with workers permits who have lived in the city for at least 30 days will be allowed to vote in city elections. They were describing themselves as a, “model for the nation.”
BOTTOM LINE:
This law, SECURE THE 2024 ELECTION ACT, can/should be an easy, quick fix to offset what could/might end up being an election that completely crumbles one of the most sacred foundational elements of this country; free and honest elections.
The basis for this new law is already on the books, THE REAL ID ACT. The states are already performing the functions to produce IDs for eligible voters. Tens of millions of Americans already have a Real ID. All that is needed is a requirement to reboot the voter registration rolls during 2024.
One more time; during the 2022 election cycle L.A. County election officials mailed out about 5.7 million vote-by-mail ballots to 4.3 million registered voters. Wake the hell up America and take off your rose-colored glasses; voter fraud is out there just waiting to be activated.
I know what many of you are thinking; this might be a good idea but it will never become law. While you are probably correct, the Republican party needs to be on record and talking to the we-the-people about this problem. The House of Representatives can and should pass this proposal right now and thereby show the nation what the Democrat party is all about as they argue against it in the Senate. Or, if by some miracle it did go to Biden for signature, we could watch him put another disgraceful paragraph in his legacy. A final thought is that the Republicans currently controls 54.86% of all state legislative seats nationally and this dialogue could convince them to pass and implement this program in their states.
Note to subscribers: If everyone who believes this will be a positive move sends a copy to their Congressperson, perhaps one of them will take the concept and run with it. Thank you.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.