We should build on successes of 2020 voting

The people have spoken. And, despite worries here and around the country, they largely were able to do so without much difficulty.

That’s a good thing, and those responsible for making sure voters in Ohio and other states could make their voices heard in the 2020 election — from elected public officials to the tens of thousands of anonymous and unheralded, but invaluable, poll workers — deserve our thanks.

The architecture of our democracy can be messy and slow, all too often resembling a Rube Goldberg machine. Its gears don’t mesh automatically or smoothly, and can grind to a halt if not properly monitored and serviced.

But that didn’t happen last Tuesday, despite a national turnout that was at the highest rate in 120 years — even in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed more than 240,000 Americans.

The system worked. Claims of mass fraud are not grounded in reality. We can be assured that the will of the people has been expressed.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that those pre-election worries were unfounded. On the contrary, it was the steps taken to address them — from the emphasis on early voting to the use of mail-in absentee ballots — that helped the system function more efficiently.

Still, not everything worked perfectly.

The lines for early voting were too long, and many waited two or three hours, or more, to cast their ballot. Absentee ballots for many in Northeast Ohio and elsewhere were received too late, forcing some to give up waiting and vote in person, despite the risk of contracting COVID-19.

And it should go without saying that the manufacturer of those late-arriving absentee ballots should not be a visible supporter of one of the presidential candidates, especially when that candidate was casting doubt on the validity of voting by mail.

Moreover, we think Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose erred by refusing to allow ballot drop boxes at multiple sites in each county. That was a missed opportunity to make voting easier — and safer — for many.

But we are hopeful the obvious success of Tuesday’s voting will lead to additional steps to help even more Ohioans exercise their right to vote. We can even recommend a good place to start: enacting — finally — automatic voter registration, which would electronically update the registrations of eligible voters anytime they interact with a government agency. Multiple early voting centers in larger counties also would be a helpful public service.

We suspect President Donald Trump, during a March appearance on “Fox & Friends,” gave voice to the fear of many in his party when he said Democrats want ”… levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

We now have ample evidence that fear is groundless. In Ohio — where an unprecedented 5.8 million-plus cast a ballot — and around the country, record levels of voting led to more elected Republicans, not fewer.

Not that that should matter. Our concern should be to encourage and make it easier for more of our fellow citizens to make their voices heard, and we will all live by their judgment — whatever it may be.

That is the lifeblood of a functioning democracy. Let even more people speak.