On Monday, we ran Brad Smith’s skeptical essay about election reforms, titled Too Much to Ask: Voting Reforms Can Only Do So Much, which I blogged about on Monday. Yesterday, Josh Sellers published an essay with a more optimistic take, on how political realignments might open the door for some reforms. Today, we publish Ben Ginsberg on The Need to Re-Imagine the American Election System of the Future.

Here’s an excerpt from Josh’s essay:

In our present environment, however, the political and participatory implications of many electoral rules are less apparent. What was once conventional wisdom – that increasing voter registration rates and reducing administrative burdens on voting would benefit the Democratic Party – is now in question. As the electorate further divides along socioeconomic and educational lines, non- and infrequent voters (both of whom tend to be poorer and less educated) are, according to some studies, slightly more likely to favor the Republican Party. Moreover, the expanding Latino vote is increasingly divided between the two major political parties. Whatever challenges these developments pose for political strategists, they present an opportunity for election reformers and fair-minded elected officials.

The reason is simple. In this deeply contested political era in which many elections are decided by very small margins, both parties have an incentive to simplify the electoral process and bring more voters into the fold. And given the now unpredictable consequences of various election administration policies, such simplification can occur behind a veil of ignorance, without knowingly sacrificing an electoral advantage. The upshot would be more efficient and inclusive election administration for all…

Along similar lines, the moment is ripe to finally reach some agreement on voter identification laws. The utility and impact of such laws have long been points of profound political disagreement. At present, though, significant evidence suggests that the partisan impact of such laws is negligible. And to the extent that the acquisition of a qualifying identification is burdensome, such burdens disproportionately fall on lower-income, less-educated voters who, as noted above, increasingly favor the Republican Party. These dynamics present a rare opening for a détente.

From Ben Ginsberg’s essay today:

It’s time to be truthful about the current state of American elections, a venerable institution foundational to our form of government, currently the subject of an unprecedented onslaught against its accuracy.

The reality is that the system is reliable at present, but it is creaky. It needs innovation to keep up with technology. More than anything else, it needs reimagining and a vision for the future rather than the incremental refinements it now receives….

The vision for the election system of the 2040s can take many different forms. In addition to exploring the benefits of in-state consistency, central topics for re-imagination would include:

• The design of future voting systems and how and where voters should cast their ballots, with an examination of whether internet voting can be made sufficiently secure for states to entertain its use.
• How to ensure a steady funding stream to incorporate technological improvements that can be used in the casting, counting and certification of votes.
•  Research and development projects that will design modern vote casting and tabulation equipment and methods of best maintaining the voter rolls. Current equipment has not kept up with technology, in part because of the localized administration system and in part because of insufficient and episodic funding.
•  The United States is a mobile society and voter rolls are not systematically and uniformly kept accurate. Coordination between the 50 states in checking their rolls to prevent dual voting registrations and voting is needed.
• The redesign of polling place locations and layouts to help with efficiency and uniformity.
• As cyber threats grow and artificial intelligence becomes integrated into all facets of life, the election system needs better cyber protections.

Today’s elections are reliable but the onslaught against them should provide a catalyst for imagining what they should look like in the future.