2020 Recount: America Needs Uniformity In Voting Laws

Here is yet another PERFECT and PRIME EXAMPLE why America needs a National Uniform Voting Standards law.

In the story below, read for yourselves the inconsistencies in the various states on the single topic of election voting recounts. And those are just the handful of states in which the race is “too close to call,” per se, even though some have already been “called” by the Associated Press – though their call is NOT OFFICIAL. Their call is, however, widely respected because of its veracity and consistency. And to be widely respected for those reasons is good.

Point being, is that in the 7 states mentioned below, there are 7 DIFFERENT laws.

Here’s a friendly reminder:
We have 50 states.

A National Uniform Voting Standards Law would eliminate the variances and differences in the 50 states with regard to matters touching upon voting.

Here’s an example of something that would be a good compromise:
I think that it’s a good practice to be able to have requests for recounts by the interested parties, i.e., the candidates, rather than being court-ordered. In states where recounts may be requested by either candidate (the requestor), and in which the state pays, that could be modified to be a shared expense, borne in equal parts by the requestor(s) and the state, and perhaps even, in the case of a Federal election, in an equal third part by the U.S. Government. But again, these are things that merit, warrant and deserve significant further discussion.

There is LITERALLY NO SENSE in having 50 DIFFERENT sets of laws governing something common to us all as citizens – voting. If our nation had a National Uniform Voting Standards law, it would help establish unity in our nation, by creating uniformity, and it would similarly streamline many states’ operations, as well as significantly reducing questionable matters, and increase efficiency.

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https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/11/07/election-recount-rules-state-margins-biden-trump-georgia-arizona-florida-georgia-nevada-pennsylvania/6190424002/

usatoday.com

Georgia is heading for a recount over close Trump-Biden race. How does that work? How long will it take?

By Karina Zaiets, and Janet Loehrke, USA TODAY
Updated 8:24 a.m. CST Nov. 9, 2020

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On Friday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said the state would have a recount because of the slim vote margin. The margin is currently  0.2% with 99% of votes counted. The state had about 4,169 votes left to count, according to Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager. A [full statewide] recount could take until the end of the month, he noted.

Sterling said counties will hand-count a deck of ballots as a test, which will then be sent through high-speed scanners located at the central county elections office. If the tallies match and the election workers determine the scanner is working accurately, every single ballot will then be rescanned. According to AP’s research, there have been at least 31 statewide recounts since 2000. And of those, only three changed the outcome of the election. The initial margins in those races were all under 300 votes.

Rules for recounting

The laws governing recounts  vary by state and a handful of states do not offer a recount process at all. Here are the rules in key states:

• Arizona

An automatic recount is triggered in Arizona if

Why America Needs A National Uniform Voting Standards Law

How many voting-related laws are there in our allegedly “united” United States?

You’d likely be shocked to find out.

Maybe, maybe not.

And frankly, I don’t know how many voting related laws there are in our nation, and I’ve neither read, nor heard of any compendium on the subject, nor have I ever heard anyone directly or indirectly address the topic.

But, laws are finite – there are only a fixed amount at any given time – so it’s entirely possible to make a reasoned determination of that number. So let’s work it this way:

There are 3141 counties and county equivalents in the 50 United States.

If each county or county equivalent had only 1 law pertaining to voting related matters, that’d be 3141 laws.

If each state had only one law pertaining to any voting-related matter, there would be at least 50 laws.

And on the local level, Governing magazine wrote on May 31, 2019 that “nationally, there were a total of 38,779 general-purpose governments in the United States in 2017, along with another 51,296 special districts.” (Governing magazine also has a “heat map” of U.S. Local Governments from data provided by the 2017 Census of Governments, U.S. Census Bureau. Check it out. You might be amazed at what you find.)

So, if the 90,095 total general-purpose governments and special districts, 3141 counties/county equivalents and 50 states each had only 1 voting-related law, that’d be a GRAND TOTAL of 93,286 laws.

But I assure you, there are MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY MORE than just one voting-related law in each of those areas.

So, purely for illustration purposes, let’s just hypothetically say there are at LEAST 100 voting-related laws in each of the 50 United States. Doing the math, that’s 50 x 100 = 5000. Again, that’s at a minimum.

But, what if there are 200 voting-related laws in each of the 50 United States?

That’d be 10,000 voting-related laws. And that’s only at the state level.

Perhaps already you’re beginning to “get the picture,” to understand the size, scope, nature, and extent of the problem.

And to be utterly certain, and without question, the problem is the variety and number of voting-related laws, many of which are contradictory among them.

There’s LITERALLY NO justifiable, commonsensical, rational reason to have so many DIFFERENT – even blatantly contradictory – laws on just one subject over which the Federal government has ultimate authority.

Some people cry, whine, moan, groan and complain about

Do We Have Division or Uniformity in America?

MN US Senator Amy Klobuchar-D

This morning, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) was interviewed by Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition news program, and she mentioned that establishing a minimum set of national (Federal) police standards is an idea which many legislators are considering.

Though she mentioned a couple of her senatorial colleagues by name, she didn’t mention if the idea was exclusive or joint to the Senate, and/or the House.

Her pertinent remarks occur at 5:54, and are her final comments in the interview.

Answering @chrkirk: Electoral College’s Voting Problems Violates Equal Protection Clause

How Much Is Your Vote Worth?
From: New York Times Op-Chart November 2, 2008
This map shows each state re-sized in proportion to the relative influence of the individual voters who live there. The numbers indicate the total delegates to the Electoral College from each state, and how many eligible voters a single delegate from each state represents.
Source: The United States Election Project at George Mason University.

Having read the article How Powerful Is Your Vote? by Chris Kirk several times, I still disagree with it. The article’s premise is that by using the Electoral College (EC) system, the votes cast in less populated states are somehow “more powerful” than those in more populated states. To posit such an assertion is to demonstrate a wholesale lack of understanding of the system. That is not to say the EC system is perfect, nor that changes to it are not needed; rather, it only acknowledges the author’s fundamentally deep misunderstanding of the manner in which the system is established, and a virtually wholesale ignorance of the Constitution.

Apparently, as evidenced by the graphic seen herein, others are similarly misguided. However, one would expect more from George Mason University. Much more, in fact. However, to understand – as I mention later – the bias is strictly and exclusively from including 2 Senators in the number of Electors. Dr. Mark Newman, PhD, who is the Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan correctly writes that “The electors are apportioned among the states roughly according to population, as measured by the census, but with a small but deliberate bias in favor of less populous states.”

According to the Constitution in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 & 3, Electoral Votes in each state are equal to