Americans Need Their Confidence in Voting Restored

Election 2024 looks as though it will be held in the midst of a pandemic, with the names Joe Biden and Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.

As baseball great Yogi Berra once remarked, “It’s deja vu all over again.”

A new strain of the H5N1 avian (bird) flu has been detected and is rapidly spreading throughout the United States, infecting both wild birds and domestic poultry in every state, and is now infecting cattle.

A Texas dairy worker has now contracted the virus, and scientists predict that a bird flu pandemic could be “100 times worse” than COVID was in 2020.

Now for the topper: Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, announced in February that U.S. taxpayers gave China at least $1 million for gain-of-function research to make avian flu more infectious and jump from one species to another.

Just like the COVID-19 strain jumped from bat to human.

The U.S. funding agency she questioned issued a denial — just like the government denied funding Chinese gain-of-function research on COVID.

Yup, “it’s deja vu all over again.”

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted states — including many battleground states — to issue "emergency" election measures, such as universal mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, and the use of unmonitored drop boxes to drop off ballots.

Signature verification was ignored, and in some cases unsigned and undated ballots were counted as genuine, as well as ballots with other deficiencies.

Since the 2020 election debacle, Fox News host Sean Hannity often listed five measures states should adopt to maintain election integrity and restore confidence in the results.

They are: photo ID, signature verification, chain of custody integrity, voter roll updates prior to every election, and partisan observers at every polling location.

To those I would only add this — a unique serial number printed on each and every ballot, consisting of a 2-character state code, a 2-alphanumeric county code, a 4-digit precinct number, and a 4-digit ballot number.

What’s a dollar worth? Not much, especially in today’s economy.

If the government can print a unique serial number on each dollar bill, it can do the same with each ballot. The voter would then be given proof of voting with the ballot serial number, and the ballot itself would also be identified with the same number.

This is especially important given American attitudes toward elections.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen asked voters a simple question earlier this year: “Would you rather have your candidate win by cheating or lose by playing fair?”

He remarked that it was “the most terrifying poll result I’ve ever seen.”

Seven percent of respondents said they would want their candidate to win by cheating. And who made up that 7%? They include one-third of what he called the elite 1%, which he defined as well-educated urbanites who make more than $150,000 a year and think President Joe Biden is doing a great job.

And at the moment they’re panicking. Former President Trump is ahead of Biden in six out of the seven key swing states, according to the latest Wall Street Journal poll, and another pandemic — especially one “100 times worse” than COVID — could be their life ring for four more years of Biden.

According to the Constitution, the places and manner of holding elections is determined by each state legislature, so if they want to make them fair with results the electorate has confidence in, now is the time to do it.

Photo ID, signature verification, chain of custody integrity, voter roll updates, partisan observers at polling locations, and unique serial numbers.

The brutal Soviet dictator Josef Stalin once observed that “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Make the vote-counting fair, beginning with the battleground states that typically decide each presidential election.

Restore confidence in the system.