Elections

I was one of many people who just got an email from Dan Winslow, Chief Legal Counsel for the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate Committee. Dan writes:

Next week, Massachusetts’s citizens will head to the polls to vote in a historical election. Close elections draw intense scrutiny, and ensuring the accuracy and credibility of the process is crucial. For that reason, the Scott Brown campaign is assembling a volunteer team to ensure that every legally cast ballot is accurately counted. The citizens of Massachusetts deserve a fair and honest election.

He concludes: “Please do not wait, Election Day is January 19th!”

Go to this link to join up.

I will add a few comments.

There will be attempted vote fraud by some Democrats in the Brown/Coakley Senate race. There is a lot at stake. A defeat which takes away Ted Kennedy’s old seat, and loses their super-majority, will be a humiliation and a political disaster for the Democrats. They will have every incentive to use all means available to them to prevent that defeat.

If you are lawyer who can volunteer in Massachusetts on January 19, go to the link and sign up now, or please forward this link if you know a lawyer who lives in Massachusetts or can be there on election day.

I have worked as a poll watcher in the Chicago area several times. As a Republican in a majority Democratic precinct, I have been treated with very cold courtesy, and some snide remarks, but only rarely with outright hostility. I have never seen any vote fraud, and I do not think there was any. My presence may have deterred any attempted fraud. I will never know. I do know I helped to insure at least one honest polling place on election day, and that is good enough.

The point here is not partisanship. The point here is that we do not live in Albania, or the Congo, or Red China. We supposedly live in a democracy where the citizens vote, and their votes are counted fairly.

Democracy only works if the integrity of the system is insured. And that only happens if there are people from both parties posted in every polling place. An honest system is an American value, not just a Republican value.

In a close, and important, election like this one, the incentives to cheat, by the incumbent party in particular, are very high. It need not come from the candidates or their staffs. Some areas have almost a tradition of cheating, in both parties, where others are squeaky clean. It can occur spontaneously at the bottom rung. Precinct captains are judged on how well they got the vote out. Their political future turns on winning their precinct for the Party’s candidate, and getting their own voters out and to the polls. The incentive to corruption and electioneering, and voter intimidation, are permanent features. Corruption in the system is a permanent challenge that can only be minimized and never eliminated.

Ensuring an honest election is labor intensive. You need mobs for jobs on the day.

I cannot be in Massachusetts on election day. But if you can help out on January 19, please do so.

The GOP is not exactly the sharpest bunch of elephants on the savannah.

They are looking at a historic threat, and a historic opportunity, with the Democrats making massive and unpopular changes to the foundations of our economy and our government.

But I am seeing just about zero leadership in the opposition ranks. Gov. Palin, who is now a bystander, has accomplished more with her Facebook page than most of the elected legislators have managed to do from their roost in DC.

In the run-up to the 1994 takeover of Congress by the GOP, Newt Gingrich came up with his Contract with America, which nationalized the election.

We need an equivalent program now.

Question for our dear readers: What should CWA 2.0 have in it?

I suggest some possible items:

1. A Constitutional amendment, along these lines: “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and Representatives; and Congress shall make no law that applies to either Senators or Representatives or both that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States. Any law enacted in violation of this Amendment shall be void and of no force and effect at any time.”

2. A national concealed carry law.

3. A forensic audit of the TARP spending.

4. A forensic audit of the Federal Reserve.

5. A ban on unfunded mandates.

What do you think should be in it? Limit yourself to ten items.

UPDATE: Good to see the Instapundit readers weighing in. Thank you, Professor.

I see lots of good ideas, and lots of energetic expression. Far be it from me to do anything to dampen the animal spirits … but … I have one suggestion. I think the best suggestions consist of actionable items, such as (1) Constitutional amendments that could plausibly be approved by 3/4 of the states, (2) legislation that could conceivably be passed by Congress, (3) repeal of specific amendments or laws or regulations. But if you want to vent, or talk in general terms, have at it. That’s fine with me, too. But a real CWA 2.0 will consist of actionable items, and I hope actually to end up with one.

(Term limits are a perennial favorite. I think they are a waste of time. The permanent government is the lobbyists and the bureaucracy, and the congressional support staff are at least as much “Congress” as the elected members for practical purposes. Term limits would only make the permanent government stronger.)

(Also, since I typed the original post, I was talking with a real political professional, who pointed out that lots of suburban districts that like the GOP on fiscal issues would not like a national concealed carry law. So, maybe that is not such a good idea here. … )

Mark Tapscott:

A seismic public opinion shift occurred this summer that Scott Rasmussen was first to measure – a clear majority of the American people, critically including two-thirds of independents, are ready to vote them all out and start over with a new Congress.
 
But the crucial fact here is not the 57 percent of Rasmussen’s respondents who favor such action. Fully 59 percent said the same thing last October when Congress and the Bush administration were busily throwing $700 billion at Wall Street, allegedly to prevent an economic meltdown of unimagined severity.
 
The key here is that President Barack Obama and his Democratic congressional allies have moved so far to the left that they have forced a monumental shift among independents, and it was the Obamacare proposal to replace doctors with federal bureaucrats that made it happen.
 
Notes Rasmussen: “While Democrats have become more supportive of the legislators, voters not affiliated with either major party have moved in the opposite direction. Today, 70 percent of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62 percent last year.”
 
Opportunities like this come along once in a political lifetime. Instead of worrying about Whole Foods, the Tea Party leadership should be figuring out how to channel this tidal shift in American public opinion into concrete results in next year’s congressional elections.

Do it!