Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 01/15/24

Is this what the world is coming to? Campaign 2024 officially gets underway today in Iowa. Whatever the results, the year ahead is looking to be a wild one that will claw at the seams of the national fabric.

The upcoming movie Civil War offers a dark vision of impending national division that, unfortunately, is seeming less and less farfetched (except that film somehow imagines the unlikely scenario that California and Texas would be on the same side in a new War Between the States). The push by extremists on both side of the political divide to ferment such a nonsensical and destructive effort to unravel the greatest democracy in the history of the world (there I said it) may well deliver us an election in which the results are not believed or accepted by the losing side.

That’s why I opined last week that I believe the biggest issue facing the American electorate in 2024 is election integrity. There are, of course, a myriad of other extremely serious problems facing our country. The list includes border security, education, racial unrest, violent crime, healthcare (including for addiction and mental health), climate politics, abortion and others –  but we have little hope of solving any of those if our basic trust in the system’s ability (or even intent) to provide free and fair elections is not, as it has been for generations, taken as a given.

To this day, many people question the result of the 1960 presidential election (in which JFK defeated Nixon by just 9,000 votes Illinois and 46,000 in Texas). Likewise, lots of folks still don’t believe Al Gore really lost to George W. Bush in 2000 – but the results were ultimately accepted by the public because almost everyone believed in the basic integrity of the process.  In sports, if a ref’s controversial call changes the result of a Super Bowl, people may argue about it for decades but nobody expects the game to be replayed. You move on with the reassurance that there’s always next year.

So it has always been with our elections. There’s always the next one if we lose. That has been the secret sauce that has stopped revolution from gaining a foothold in the United States. Rioting, of course, is not the proper public reaction to a controversial court ruling – whether it be regarding an election or a police shooting. On the other hand, shutting down debate and discussion with loaded phrases like “The Big Lie” is not a proper government response either. Instead, it fuels a feeling that corruption may be involved. Phrases like “The Big Lie” and “misinformation” are the modern-day government and corporate media equivalent of the Catholic Church using the word “heresy” to come down on critics like Galileo 400 years ago.  Today, of course, just about all of us accept that Galileo was right about the Earth circulating the Sun – though you do have the constitutional to peacefully express disagreement.

In any event, regardless of one’s feelings about 2020, I think it seems obvious that those in power should be working overtime to make sure the issues that fueled so much doubt last time around are respectfully dealt with – not through intimidation but by principled rules that everyone can live by. If that is not done, we are very possibly heading toward another slow-motion train wreck come Election Day.

As I see it, here are some of the problems that need to be resolved pronto.

1. The overuse of unrequested mail-in ballots. Are these ballots being mailed to many voters who have either died or moved? The answer is, obviously, yes. Is it really beyond reason to concerned that several of these ballots could be filled out and sent back by persons other than the intended recipient? With people on both sides feeling as passionately as they do about this election, what does your common sense tell you?
2. Assuming the ballot is received by its intended recipient, how can a secret ballot be ensured? How many (perhaps frail) people live with lunatics of a left or right political persuasion (maybe an abusive spouse) who will simply bully them to vote for their desired candidate? Is there any real protection against this happening? What does your common sense tell you?
3. What about the accepted security principle known as “chain of custody“? In criminal trials, for instance, the prosecution is required to document that all evidence (i.e. DNA) is handled properly with an unbroken chain of custody. With in-person voting, that chain is essentially quite short – from the voter to the machine tabulating his or her vote. With mail-in voting, that chain is much longer and looser. There are legitimate concerns over the practice of ballot harvesting, a practice that allows political operatives and others to collect voters’ ballots and turn them in en masse to polling stations. What could possibly go wrong?
4. Once received, mail-in ballots are much more likely than those cast in a voting booth to be rejected for often controversial technical reasons (i.e. they lacked a postmark or signature, were somehow damaged or simply arrived too late). Shouldn’t anyone genuinely concerned about voter suppression be encouraging in-person voting over much more iffy mail-in voting?
5. Does anyone truly want to see a so-called “red (or blue) mirage“? That, of course, is the dreaded possibility that once again the Electoral College tally favors one candidate on Election Night but another when all the uncounted mail-in votes are factored in. The last thing we need is a scenario played out again in which  half the country is crying foul. Can that possibly be good for our democracy? What does your common sense tell you?

There’s actually still time to take the simple steps necessary to avoid election chaos. Unfortunately, to some in the political/media complex, it appears chaos isn’t the feared result of poor planning but is actually a calculated strategy to disrupt democracy itself. As citizens, we must hold our elected leaders accountable for ensuring that a basic common-sense and agreed-upon framework exists for ensuring an election that will be accepted as valid by the vast majority of voters.

Anyway, those are the changes I believe need to be made right away. Long term, there are other reforms that can be made. More on those on Wednesday.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.