Never has so simple a phrase been so tortured in meaning.

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Talk to the left and they will scream about the right’s suppression of people’s access to voting as if the KKK and Jim Crow laws still rule the election roost. The right rails about massive machine manipulation that makes voting at all seem moot. Both sides do a lot of jabbering about the evils of the Other, yet no one addresses the election reality we now face.

Here it is. Our election system today looks nothing like it did a few short decades ago. The biggest departure has been the elimination of having a single day for voting and a single night for counting those same votes. The addition of time to our elections has turned it from the single event it once was into a long process. Like the processed meats that are squeezed out from a tube and bear little resemblance to actual meat in appearance or nutritional value, our current system bears little resemblance to secure elections of the past.

That is not to say there were never any election shenanigans before. That means fraud, in case you didn’t realize. Just saying fraud can be dangerous, something to be said in hushed tones and only in back alleys. Fraud. There, I’ve said it. Fraud happens. Still no lightning strike. There have been plenty of past election scandals. Americans might feel some things too important or too sacred to be violated, but elections are not one of them. No side can cast the first stone.

Currently, the left asserts with sledgehammer force that there is no widespread fraud while the right sees fraud everywhere all the time. No one can win that argument. Ironically, you can always tell who’s recently won from which side they take.

The question of fraud should be one of accessibility. Just as you wouldn’t carry water in a sieve, you shouldn’t hold elections with so many opportunities and means for fraud to take place, and expect to get to an accurate and fair result.

We want fair and reliable election outcomes. We want to know the winner actually has the majority of citizen support and therefore got the most votes. We should know that every citizen can hear from every candidate in an unbiased way. We should be confident that every citizen has an equal opportunity to vote, but that only citizens do. We want free access to register to vote but also clean voter rolls. We should provide reliable voter ID to those eligible and then require it for every vote cast. We want fast, transparent counting of valid ballots that can be securely re-verified later. Dare I dream.

What we have is a giant multi-colored sieve. In some places, all ballots are cast by mail, in others most are cast by mail, and still others almost none by mail. Some require signature and photo ID, while others do not. Some have live signature verification, others machine-based signature verification, and still others no verification at all. Some must be dated, others not. Some count before election day, others only on election day or only after the polls close. Some are counted days later. Any verification is of the envelopes only. Those are quickly separated from their ballots, making further verification impossible. Mail-in ballots can arrive before, on, or after election day, depending on jurisdiction. A fast and efficient outcome is impossible.

Voting in person is only on election day, on special early days, or the month leading to election day. Ballots must be cast in person at one official location or various locations, again depending on the jurisdiction. Some votes can be stuffed into unwatched drop boxes and gathered and tallied electronically later. We cast some votes on machine only, others on paper only and hand counted, others on paper run through machines but tallied from electronic records only. Counts might happen right where they were cast, others boxed or bagged and driven to another location first, sometimes in the dead of night. Do professionals handle all this? No, it’s a dog’s breakfast.

Electronic machines and the internet are involved in all aspects of elections. Machines to register voters, machines to track voters, machines to vote on, machines to process or record paper ballots. Machines check signatures, count votes, and transmit results. These machines are not very sophisticated. Even the most advanced secure machines have glitches and get hacked. Ask a bank insider about computer theft. Ask any retail clerk how often machines go down or don’t work right. We hear the mantra, not connected to the internet, over and over. And yet, we have cloud-based voter rolls, cloud-based tallies and transmissions of results. Where do you think that happens?

America in this 21st century uses machines that are not uniform and are often security tested to decades-old standards, if at all. In computer time that is horse and buggy era. The machines are proprietary black boxes no official can inspect. If anyone tells you electronic machines are 100% safe and secure, laugh right in their face. A number of countries have ditched machines and gone back to paper and hand counts.

I can’t talk about the wide variations in election procedure without nearly going into a tailspin of confusion. That may be the point.

Having fair elections assumes that everyone wants the free and fair elections all sides wave as their banner. If that were true, wouldn’t we have solved elections long ago? Wouldn’t we have banished the billions of dollars that are injected into elections to unequivocally tilt them off an even and fair keel? Wouldn’t we figure out how to eliminate the massive money that makes politics a rich man’s game and government an aristocracy? Wouldn’t we have made elections simple and transparent so that even a child could see and know that they were fair?

Free and fair elections are like the government overspending and the forever wars every politician says must stop.

I’m still waiting.

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