Voting is one of the bedrocks that the United States of America was built on.
It’s of the utmost importance to the very structure of America that voting will forever remain a sacred and protected right.
Since we can all agree on that … Why in the world is it so hard for the country’s leaders to implement actual voting security measures?
(Well, we know why, but I digress.)
The latest example that America’s voting systems are deeply problematic actually — and scarily — emanates from a pair of reliably Republican states.
In the span of less than a week in mid-March, the Republican-leaning Iowa and the deeper red Idaho and Missouri found catastrophic issues with their respective voter rolls.
On March 14, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins released a statement saying they found and subsequently removed 18,637 voters who are deceased.
Just The News added, however, that Missouri has also since removed a number of other problematic voter registrations, including 133,520 inactive voters and another 4,000-plus voters who had either moved or were disqualified (due to a felony, for example).
Then, on March 19, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane announced that his administration had cleared out a whopping “144,121 voter records statewide due to inactivity, change of address, or ineligibility.”
Just a day after that, Iowa Secretary of State Paul D. Pate announced that his team had uncovered and removed another “277 confirmed noncitizens who have voted or are registered to vote.”
Add it up, and you’re looking at close to 300,000 problematic voter registrations being uncovered in a matter of six days.
If these sorts of voluminous issues can crop up in three states like these, imagine how bad it could be in far bigger — and far bluer — states.
And therein lies one of the key issues with voter security: It’s a macro issue that’s being treated at the micro (or state) level.
Hellbound and Down 