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OPINION:
Democrats love to copy whatever Europe does. They dream of single-payer health care and centralized economic planning. They pine for a forced shift to the metric system. When it comes to the election security measures adopted on the Continent, however, their affinity for all things European vanishes without trace.
President Trump earlier this year signed an executive order directing the attorney general to go after states that accept mail-in ballots after Election Day because doing so violates the federal statute setting the day for the final tabulation of votes. He also asked the Justice Department to investigate jurisdictions that make it easier for noncitizens to vote, contrary to federal law.
The order also withholds funding from states that refuse to take commonsense steps to prevent illegals from voting by, for instance, adding a question about citizenship to the voter registration form. “Without proper enforcement of Federal laws, illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error dilute the votes of lawful American citizens,” the White House explained.
Enhancing voter ID requirements and reducing mail-in voting would align the United States with our allies around the world.
Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution recognizes that the states possess the primary authority over the places, times and manner of choosing congressional representatives and senators. That doesn’t mean the executive branch can’t encourage states to implement consistent standards to keep things honest.
At least 172 countries reject in-country mail-in voting, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. The only 11 democracies that allow no-excuse mail-in voting are Canada, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and, of course, the United States.
Nearly every European nation asks prospective voters to show a government-issued photo ID. Some even add extra requirements to ensure only the most reliable forms of identification, such as passports, are verified before allowing that person to influence the nation’s future direction.
Two decades ago, importing such ideas to the United States wouldn’t even be considered controversial. Mail-in voting was reserved primarily for edge cases such as military personnel stationed outside the country, but opportunists exploited the mechanism for less salutary purposes.
The Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission, recognized the problem. “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud,” the panel’s 2005 report concluded.
Named for former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and former Republican Secretary of State James Baker, the commission called for a ban on ballot harvesting, stating, “The practice in some states of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots should be eliminated.”
Those words were prophetic. Most adjudicated cases of ballot-box swindles — the ones resulting in overturned elections and convictions — involved mail-in ballots. Although the bulk of these incidents involved local candidates, it takes only a handful of rigged races to tip the balance of power in a narrowly divided Congress.
In 2018, a U.S. House race in North Carolina was voided after a ballot harvesting scam came to light. Because the scheme’s mastermind was a Republican operative, Democrats temporarily suspended their denial of the existence of voter fraud to point fingers. They have since resumed denial.
Yet, in their Orwellian fashion, these same Democrats remain preoccupied with global sentiment. They will even insist Mr. Trump is a threat to democracy when he is promoting internationally recognized standards to strengthen it.
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