Covid is past. The exigent circumstances that made states alter their voting patterns by introducing early voting, late voting, drop boxes, ballot harvesting, and all the other gimmicks associated with casting votes should now come to an end. Former Obama aide Rahm Emmanuel once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste, ” and the Covid pandemic afforded an unparallelled opportunity for undermining the integrity of our electoral system. Never was this issue more in focus than in the 2020 presidential election.

Traditionally, every four years Americans from Minnesota to Texas, and New York to California went to their respective polling places on Election Day and cast votes for the electors of the president, vice-president, and whatever other offices are being contested. The only voters able to cast absentee ballots were either active-duty military personnel serving overseas, or non-military American citizens living or working abroad. All across the U.S., the polls opened for specified time periods, and then closed, as in CLOSED! Similarly, absentee ballots prior to Covid had to be postmarked and received by certain dates in order to count in the tally. Let’s be brutally frank, COVID-19 provided the once in a lifetime excuse to alter and subvert elections, using the argument that people needed alternatives to voting other than congregating in one place at the same time. Fair enough, but we don’t hear anything about COVID anymore, and consequently, voting procedure should return to what it was before the pandemic hit.

Another major consideration is the type of ballot used in the voting process. Fortunately, since the debacle following the Bush recount of 2000, most every state in the union now resorts to the use of a paper hand marked ballot with digitized scanning backup. Every state should go to a hand marked ballot. Poll watchers from both parties observe to ensure that the vote is being cast in compliance with election regulation and law. This system insures for transparency and verification of the actual vote. Critics have long argued about the inability of being able to accurately count and verify handwritten votes, but this is a specious argument. In the last round of French national elections, over 46,000,000 paper ballots were cast, recorded, and tallied on the same day. If the French are able to successfully conduct a national election in this manner, so can the United States.

Lastly, Voter I.D. should be an absolute mandatory requisite for voting in any election. One of the great cornerstones of American democracy has always been the execution of free and fair elections. Given the size of the number of eligible voters across the U.S., it is only natural to expect that there may be instances where irregularities and close counts require further scrutiny before declaring a winner. Fortunately, these instances over the course of our history have been few and far between; however, as the right to vote is among our most precious rights, it is not unreasonable to insist on voter identification. Critics make the absurd argument that I.D.s are a form of voter suppression against people of color and other minorities, about as retrograde and lame an argument as anyone can make considering more people of color voted in the 2020 presidential cycle than in previous history. If we demand people produce I. D.’s to drive motor vehicles, register for school, apply for loans and collect social welfare benefits, why wouldn’t we demand an I.D. from anyone about to elect those who wish to govern us? The answer is simple and is the same rational behind the reasons for changing the rules because of COVID. By not adhering to a standard, universally practiced application of voting procedures for elections, the potential for all types of fraud and dishonesty can came into serious play. There are those who believe that never letting a crisis go to waste is a good thing for preserving power and control by whatever means possible, and the only way to restore ironclad integrity to the system is to end the COVID era perversions of our most cherished right.