Congress needs to restore Election Day

Fortunately, President-elect Donald Trump achieved such a commanding victory that none of these states ended up mattering in the Electoral College. But there is still some suspense in the Arizona Senate race and a slew of House races left to be decided in California. The long gap between voters voting and election officials announcing the results does not breed confidence in the system. It only sows distrust in the system and causes tension politically.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

After the 2000 election debacle, Florida revamped its voting system so that a fair and transparent result could be announced just a few hours after polls closed, not a few days. Florida allows both early and mail-in voting, but mail-in votes must be requested. Furthermore, counties are required to count mail-in votes as they are received, and they are required to post the mail-in results within an hour of the polls closing. Furthermore, no matter when a mail in ballot was postmarked, it must be delivered to the polling center by Election Day. A ballot mailed on Election Day that arrives at the polling place the day after Election Day simply is not counted. With these laws in place, Florida has become a vote-counting machine.

By contrast in Arizona, mail-in ballots not only are not counted until Election Day, they aren’t even verified. Arizona law requires all mail-in ballots to be checked against voter signatures on file, and only after a ballot has been verified can it be counted. But it takes days to verify all the mail-in ballots. And then when there is a mismatch between the signature on the ballot and the signature on file, state law requires the country to notify the voter and give him an opportunity to prove it is his ballot. This process takes days.

In California, not only are mail-in ballots available upon request, the state automatically sends all voters in the state mail-in ballots even if they did not request them. That means the volume of mail-in ballots is exponentially higher than in most other states. Additionally, unlike Florida, which requires mailed ballots to arrive by Election Day, California allows ballots seven whole days to reach a polling place as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. That means all counties in the state don’t even know how many ballots they have to count until a full week after the election. And then they have to count them.

There is a case to be made for mail-in voting. It can make voting easier for some people who are too busy or are out of town on Election Day. But there is no reason states have to bend over backward for people who choose to vote through this method. If someone in Arizona or California does not have the time, for whatever reason, to visit a polling place to vote in person, by all means, allow her to vote by mail. But there is no reason that a voter who must vote by mail can’t do so weeks before the election. Instead of allowing ballots to trickle in up to a full week after the election, states should join Florida in requiring all mailed votes to arrive by Election Day. Requiring counties to count all mail-in ballots as they arrive, instead of waiting until Election Day, would also speed up the process.

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Congress established Election Day for a reason.  As the bill’s main proponent, Rep. Benjamin Butler, said at the time, “I think it will be fair for everybody that on the day when one votes, all should vote, and that the whole question should be decided then.”

Congress should require all states to report their results on election night. How they do it should be up to them. But Florida has created a workable model and it would be wise for states such as Arizona and California to follow it.