By Mark Fowler

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” —Plato

If the first duty of man is to think for himself, as Jose Marti said, then the second duty is to act on his thoughts in a civically responsible way. A critical step in that process is to vote responsibly. Conversely, it is the obligation of the election officials to ensure that the result can be trusted. Only American citizens should be allowed to vote. Those who vote should prove their identity. Safeguards must be in place to secure the ballots and to audit the results to ensure accuracy. Vote counts should be expeditious and reliable, and the process must inspire confidence.

Voting is a privilege, a civic ritual, and should require effort. The Americans who fought for independence and against tyranny did so that we might preserve the ideal of freedom. The efforts of the Founding Fathers, their coalescence at a unique time in history, and the result they produced can only be seen as providential. But, like Adam and Eve, we have perverted the gift we have been given and spoiled it. It is time to turn from our selfishness and restore the model. We will surely become closer to a banana republic if we lose confidence in elections.

All things considered, to the extent possible, the time for voting should be limited so as to represent an informed consensus of the electorate at a specific point in time. The media should give us information, not partisanship. Voting should be in person, subject to exceptions for travel, disability, and significant inconvenience. Drop boxes and ballot harvesting are anathema, much like gorging yourself at Communion.

The debauchment of California is furthered by Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing a bill preventing local entities from requiring voter identification, claiming it would hurt minorities. How utterly condescending and infantilizing. Does anyone with common sense think for one minute that minorities are incapable of obtaining identification just like everyone else? Or was his real purpose to facilitate voting by illegal immigrants?

In Nevada, home of the execrable former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who falsely claimed Mitt Romney did not pay his taxes), the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that mailed ballots must be counted if received three days after voting, even if not clearly postmarked. What an ingenious method to facilitate cheating. How hard is it to mail a ballot in a timely manner and take it to the window to ensure it’s postmarked correctly? And how often is mail not postmarked? Would the IRS accept a late-mailed return?

As the election has approached, all kinds of shenanigans have taken place. Drop boxes were set on fire in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, a driver found a box and bag containing early voting ballots in the middle of the road. Although not tampered with, why wasn’t this discovered and reported before they were lost? What idiotic government bureaucrat was in charge of this episode? And were they fired?

Election shenanigans take many forms: Falsely accusing a candidate of Russian collusion; concealing the fact that a laptop with evidence of abhorrent activity was owned by a candidate’s family member; accusing a candidate of fascism and of being a dictator; attempting to create fear. Hyper-partisanship let Maine’s secretary of state unilaterally declare a candidate was an insurrectionist and attempt to remove him from the ballot. Of these, nothing will create more furor and division than a slow count, a count that produces a lead change in the middle of the night, or a count that cannot be trusted.

A Christian organization planned a nationwide prayer vigil before today’s election. Hopefully, their petition included pleas for integrity in the process without regard to who wins. And hopefully their prayers are answered.

Mark Fowler is a board-certified physician and former attorney. He can be reached at [email protected].