In Reply to: Why has voting never been a problem until Trump? posted by Bruinfan4ever on February 15, 2026 at 09:35:22
is a very important topic and should not be dismissed simply because of it's an article of faith that says "our elections are safe and fair". We have had quite a few articles of faith that have been exposed as sources of a false sense of security [gestures at Trump's America].
I think stomping our feet and insisting that our elections are safe and fair as a leverage against common sense changes is a losing argument in the long run, and in the big picture. There are some conceptual problems about relying too much on electronic vote counting (whether mail-in ballots or on site), especially through some proprietary software without backups (a paper print out is *not* a solution) is an inherently risky proposition. I understand that some people think that we have not had a clear and meaningful discrepancy between machine counts and hand-counts of ballots in disputed districts thus far is a good reason to have faith that there won't be any such discrepancy in the next election. Unfortunately, that's an assumption that implicitly presupposes that there are no first times. We can't wait for a plane crash to start thinking about fixing a problem that has not showed up yet. Maintaining institutions entails anticipating problems before they show up.
I think the liberal mantra that elections in teh US are always be safe and reliable because they have been safe and reliable in the past is a huge mistake.
I think we need to spend time thinking about potential weaknesses in our current system and develop our own model of election integrity. Because as long as we don't have a counter-narrative and a counter-proposal, the right *will* win the argument. Why? Because if there is one fact that I know about the American public, it is that they think the systems we have in place are failing. I don't quite grasp how and when the Democratic Party became the party of "everything is actually hunky-dory, so stop complaining" party (I think the through line is the Bill and Hillary Clinton dominance, but that's maybe just me being a lefty), and that makes DP a small c conservatibe party,. It is also at the root of why it is fundamentally not a credible force in American politics any more, why it keeps advancing the losing proposition, election after election, and why the only case they can make for themselves in big elections is "we're not the other guys".
We need to do some serious rethinking about how we run our elections, instead of insisting that there are no (potential) problems. If for no reason than because perception matters and confidence in elections is foundational in a functioning democracy.