Voting and Elections

Today I wrote my Assembly members in NJ on the issue of elections.

Here's what I said:

Dear Assembly Members, 
I'm writing to ask you to support action on Ranked Choice Voting here in New Jersey. A1801 and A5205 are carefully-crafted bills that will help our elections express the true will of all voters, and revitalize democracy. And as a matter of personal interest, Democrats stand to gain when third-parties like the Greens might otherwise siphon votes away from you. Personally, I am drawn to vote on the single issue of climate, and these bills would allow me to express that concern without "wasting" my vote.

On another elections issue, New Jersey is one of the many US states that still use electronic voting machines that provide no paper backup. As John Oliver reminded us last week, all these machines are easily hackable, and physically insecure even if not connected to the internet. We are among the 16 million Americans about to vote on electronic voting machines in the 2020 election that are known to malfunction. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/nov/04/john-oliver-exploitable-voting-machines

Some municipalities in our state are trying out newer, safer machines. But it's very slow going!
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2019/03/11/new-nj-voting-machine-pilots-being-rolled-out-across-state/1266947002/

These are significant issues, though I recall that in Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court pointed out the uncomfortable fact that "The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States." (https://www.fairvote.org/the-constitutional-right-to-vote-blog-bush-v-gore-ten-years-later)

As long as we continue to hold "popular elections" we ought to do our best to make them fair and reliable.

--Jack Lohr