Election Day, Every Year: Strengthening the Voting Process Through Permanent Employment

The Republican Party has decided to respond to the major increase in voting that allowed Trump to achieve record numbers within the party by—-

*checks paperwork*

——making it harder for everyone to vote.

The biggest goal of the Republican Party is to limit who can vote, how they can vote, and just how much time they have to vote. Their belief is that if everyone has easy access to voting, then there’s no way they can ever win another election. Republicans are the minority party, surviving strictly because there’s enough dark money to cause the corruption needed to try to improve their chances to maintaining power within American politics.

This stops being rumors and hate talk and doomsday talk, its literally happening as we speak. Nearly 200 bills nationwide are being drummed up to create more limitations on voting. Even Florida, which dominantly voted for Trump, has their craptastic governor proposing more restrictions. This also comes on the heels of his trash law about how those who served their time in prison STILL can’t vote until all their legal debt is paid off. He truly is an evil slimy snake.

The advantage of the Republican Party is that these elections are not every year, they aren’t full-time gigs with permanently established locations to receive people to vote. Voting is not like sending/receiving mail, which is a daily occurrence. We don’t have full-time employees on the voting booths helping out. All of these jobs are a mix of volunteers and temporary positions.

Even if we were to pass a second, stronger Voting Rights Bill in order to fill in the cracks that have been created by the Shelby vs. Holder case, I feel like that would not be enough to normalize the concept of voting, normalizing the idea of standing up for what you believe in and taking these beliefs to the polls (Now, on that note, we DO definitely need a second Voting Rights Act). United States still has low voting turnout, even during 2020 when it truly felt like the future of the image of the country was on the line. Even with overall voting records being broken to oblivion, we still couldn’t even crack 65%.

So why can’t we have elections every year? Here me out.

The United States Government should create an entire employed branch of poll workers, ballot counters, helpers and security that are paid every single year for helping set up, run, and maintain elections every year. We can permanently utilize all federal and taxpayer-financed locations scattered all over the country to become locations for elections; places like public libraries, public universities, postal service locales, and even sporting stadiums (which are almost always paid for by citizens, and not ownership). With the increased frequency of election services, it creates a larger, stronger, and more consistent workforce that strengthens the accuracy and organization of elections overall.

Under this idea, starting in August and running through the rest of the year, this Election Branch is in charge of ensuring that every state has enough locations and supplies and transparency to maximize the ease of voting, while minimizing the tensions also related to voting. Full-time security related to elections eliminates any trace of intimidation and will stomp out anyone that might cause problems while people wait their turn to vote. With this starting in August, this will also provide enough time to train, to prepare, and to be acquainted with the area. With the concept of elections happening every year and the federal government providing the funds and resources related to the positions, we can even transfer employees to different areas of the country if needed. For example, because of the size and vastness of Texas, they might need more staffing to ensure a smooth election cycle, so they might be able to pull experienced poll workers and translators from New York or California to help out Texans.

So of course, you must be asking yourself, if main elections are held every two years, what would the other two years consist of?

Well, the first idea is simple: hold the primaries the exact year before the general election. Instead of having the primary elections whether its House, Senate, and presidential candidate in different scattered dates throughout the year, why not just have them on Election Day the year before? Of course this means the primary process of selecting your representative to run for president becomes shifted and condensed to just one election instead of every state and territory holding individual elections on different dates, but personally I find that process so messy and stretched out---especially since the terms depending on what position you are running for alters.

Why not have every conceivable election, general, or primary, be on the actual Election Day? This fills in all the gap years by having the primaries and general elections constantly alternating.

Now, the United States is notorious for hating change, so the other option is that the permanent listing of employees under the Electoral Branch work throughout the year and get paid whether you are working or not---similar to how teachers can get paid during the summer/winter vacations. Having a full-time staff at your disposal for whenever elections are happening is a definite advantage and dismisses any fears of potentially being understaffed and caught by surprise.

But even then, not every year there is an election, as the primaries are usually held in the same year as the Midterms and General Elections. So what would we vote on during early November on off-years? Many, many potential options. You can also use this full-time election process to create polls of all kinds of topics, whether administered by the federal government, the local government, or both. You can use these off-years to grade the performances of the people the voters have hired---from people in the White House all the way to whoever is mayor of the town you’re voting in. Imagine the president of the united states as well as the state governor having hard evidence of what the public thinks, without depending on polls from news organizations or survey groups. Another potential great idea is to have the Census on the off-years and using the election staff to help expedite the process of collecting and distributing this data.

These off-years would make for good practice, and would also give citizens a chance to voice their opinions on things Washington D.C. may want to know. For example, in 2019, we could have used that Election Day to see the public’s opinions on the (first) Trump impeachment trial, on immigration, on controversial bills being floated around the House and Senate, on health care, and on what progress (or lack thereof) is happening in their lives, in their city, in their county. There’s been growing separation between what the voters want and what the representatives have been doing. Even today, almost 80% of ALL voters agree with Biden’s upcoming Covid plan----even though pretty much every Republican is going to vote it down.

Even better, having full-time workers whether throughout the year or in the second-half of every year, this allows for far stronger numbers on registered voters, prepared voters, and new voters overall. With these full-time staffs, they can help all the Supervisors of Elections all over the country with their availability and their resources to help those trying to participate. So even if a state like Florida demands multiple types of ID and maybe even a blood sample in order to be fully registered, we have extra staffing available to help with the registrations, questions, and any hiccups that may occur.

I think an increased permanent staffing of election-based employees would be an excellent way to improve the electoral process, and may even improve the image of the American election cycle to a point in which we’ll see far stronger voter turnout on not just the major elections, but even the smallest ones like mayor or sheriff.

Unfortunately, one of the two major political parties doesn’t agree with the concept of widespread and fair elections; the Republican Party mindset is that you have to go through hurdles so that your supposed vote has actual value. So I don’t see this being a reality unless there is a giant Democratic majority in the near future. But, an idea of yearly full-time electoral services would be something that benefits everybody, regardless of your political affiliation. I firmly believe having a stronger and more consistent process supported by a dedicated and federally-funded staff is the best way for these elections to have the strong turnout that truly evolves into becoming a proper representation of what the American people want. Whether it’s the half-year concept or the full-year teacher payment distribution method, this would also create lots of excellent jobs for people that like to be involved in the electing process.

Want stronger and fairer elections? Grow the procedure of elections into an all-year, full-time process.