Opinion: Convenience won't get voters to polls

The Kennedy/Nixon presidential race was the first one I remember that caused a major uproar about election cheating. The foremost complaint arose about the results from Cook County, Ill., or in other words, Chicago. It hasn’t changed much since then.

It’s been said before, but it needs repeating. There are two major political parties in the United States, Republicans and Democrats. After the presidential election in 2016, all of the Democrats screamed that the election was stolen. After the presidential election in 2020, all of the Republicans screamed that the election was stolen. That accounts for around 90% of all voters in the country. To make my point crystal clear, the above indicates that almost 100% of American voters believe the system is broken.

Any attempt to fix the broken system will result in some group claiming that the suggested change will result in their group being disenfranchised.

Requiring photo ID will result in disenfranchising minorities, the poor and the aged. Requiring that the mail-in ballots, whether absentee or another category, have the last four digits of one’s Social Security number attached will disenfranchise, but I almost repeated myself.

The main improvement of the voting system demanded by those in the disenfranchisement community seems to be that elections must be made more convenient. Not fair, constitutional or more accurate. Just more convenient. That’s why in some states you can register to vote by going on line, it’s more convenient. That’s why in some states they mail out ballots to all registered voters, whether they plan to vote or not. It makes it more convenient for them. It’s also more convenient for those who would cheat. That’s why there is a move to turn election day into a national holiday, or to move election day to Saturday, or to make election day, election weekend. It’s more convenient.

After they think about the convenience problem they have with elections, they realize that a second argument for these changes is needed, so they throw in the fact that almost any one of these changes would result in greater voter turnout. I find that questionable.

Once in Clovis for an election, the city commission approved the city bus service providing voters free rides to the polls. I don’t like to quote numbers from memory, but I believe that less than 10 voters availed themselves of the offer.

Voters need to register in person and vote in person.

Oh, and if you want to improve voter turnout, do it the old-fashioned way, like the ward heelers did. Give everyone who votes five bucks for walking around money.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

[email protected]