Currently, there is a delay of about 11 weeks between the time a Presidential election is concluded, and the time a new President is inaugurated.
If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that this interval is at least nine weeks too long. Eleven weeks, apparently, is enough time for a lame duck President (or in this case, his handlers) to entangle us in a war.
We no longer live in a country where newly elected officials need to travel to Washington by horse and carriage, or even by train; where they have to communicate by post, or even by telegraph. We have airplanes. We have the Internet. There is absolutely no reason why the new President, having been elected, should be prevented from getting down to business right away. Or, more importantly, why the outgoing President should be able to keep meddling for almost three months.
While the date of inauguration (January 20th) is specified in the 20th Amendment, the date of election is not. It’s just a matter of federal statute. The incoming Congress could change it at any time — although ‘immediately’ would be the best time, while Biden’s attempt to give the world a nuclear war as a parting gift is still fresh in everyone’s memories.
Or we could just get the Supreme Court to declare that ‘the 20th day of January’ actually means ‘the fourth Tuesday of November’. It’s less of a stretch than other declarations the Court has made, such as that ‘shall not’ actually means ‘may sometimes’, that ‘all legislative power’ actually means ‘some legislative power’, that ‘the people’ actually means ‘people without felony convictions’ (except when it doesn’t), and so on. This would probably be the quickest and easiest solution.
While they’re at it, Congress could require states to require voters to present some kind of identification to vote; and require states to use paper ballots. That way the votes could all be counted by the day following the election, and accusations of voting fraud would be minimized — you know, the way they are in all those European countries that progressives profess to admire so much.
To enforce this, Congress could add one more condition. Remember that the President is elected by the states, not by the people directly. The popular vote is an indicator of popularity, but it has no legal importance.
Congress could require any state that wants its electoral votes to be counted to produce a result by the day following the election. We don’t let people show up to the polls a day or a week late, and expect their votes to be counted. We should treat states the same way.
And the argument against these reforms? When faced with a democratic election that poses an existential threat to democracy itself, preserving democracy may require cheating in that election, so we shouldn’t take the option off the table. Right?
Ruth Ward et Rick Ladd removenda est.
