Our election system is in need of a major overhaul

In 2016, Americans experienced the nastiest election in history. The candidates clashed both personally and on virtually every issue.

But the one area where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton agreed, albeit for different reasons, was that our election system is “rigged.”

It’s not. But it absolutely needs an overhaul.

Here are ways we can improve it, enfranchising more people while safeguarding each legal person’s vote:

1) No early voting. Not only does this practice add considerable expense to local governments, it is also unnecessary. From a common-sense perspective, what happenswhen a citizen casts a vote weeks before election day, and subsequently learns something distressing about his candidate? In 2016, the FBI director’s announcement about Hillary’s emails comes tomind, as did the Trump “sex tape” revelations. Now, it could be the president’s battle with COVID, or Mr. Biden’s newly-revealed tax policies.

Voting should be easy — but not too easy. There should be some level of responsibility to participate in ourmost hallowed right.

2) The Electoral College must stay. Period. Those complaining that it needs to go are, not surprisingly, almost exclusively in the Democratic camp. In arguing that the popular vote winner should win the presidency, they are ignoring the wisdomof the Founding Fathers with acute shortsightedness.

The point of the Electoral College, inwhich electoral votes are awarded to thewinner of a state’s popular vote, is to protect smaller states, as well as demonstrate each state’s uniqueness.

3) Abolish the electors — they are unnecessary. The system works well by allottingwinnertake-all electoral votes for each state. Injecting the agenda of 538 individuals, who can choose to ignore tradition, and even the law, by casting their vote for whomever they please, creates a dangerous situation. The Founding Fathers and the citizenry didn’t have 24-hour news and socialmedia to inform them about their candidates. But we do. Electors are antiquated and pointless, serving only to potentially undermine the will of the people.

4) No one supports states’ rights more than this author, but some things must fall under the auspices of the feds.

All federal elections — president, Senate, Congress — should be standardized by being brought under federal control. States should not have the ability to change how electoral college votes are awarded (they do, and some have, such asMaine and Nebraska). They should not have different ballot requirements for federal offices. And they should not be permitted to allow their electors to cast a vote for anyone other than the candidate who won (yet 21 do).

Additionally, no more straight-ticket voting. Good policy should never come down to just a “Democrat” or “Republican” one-second lever pull. Voting for individuals over party may yet inspire citizens to take a more avid interest in who will represent them. Huge kudos to Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the GOP Legislature for doing just that last year.

6) Revolving primaries. Enough kowtowing to Iowa and New Hampshire, which allows them to unduly influence who will and won’t be president. Instead, four groupings of states, encompassing varied geographical regions, would vote on four primary dates, which would rotate so that a different group votes first every four years.

Reforming our election system would likely ensure better candidates, and protect our right to cast a vote that counts. Maybe then we could finally vote for a leader, rather than the lesser of two evils.

Who wouldn’t vote for that?