In this column is a comment from a debate audience member who leans against the resolution, in opposition (negative) to making HR 1 law. …

The key to maintaining voter security and avoiding voter suppression is voter registration. Both parties in the duopoly have partisan policies that each, often mistakenly, believes will aid their party in winning elections. Mostly its false or at least misleading. 

Personally, I love early voting. I have been a regular voter since 1956 and I don't remember how we managed to have everybody vote "on Election Day"! There should be enough days and places of early voting that long lines and waits -- 10 to 20 minutes should be avoided. Flow of voters into polling places is irregular no matter what we do, so there will be times of being able to walk right in and times of having to wait in line. But we should not expect to pay people to be idle for hours at unused polling places for days on end. I don't see any reason not to have a 11 day "election season" ending on Tuesday, "Election Day": That would give us two weekends, two Mondays, two Tuesdays, and one Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. 

I never had occasion to "vote absentee" until Covid and election 2020. My wife and I did so, and I loved the convenience. Encourage mail in ballots that must be postmarked before the end of Election Day. I do see how this paper floating around offers up increased opportunities for fraudulent votes. Proper voter registration obliterates most of these opportunities.

Personally, I know of voters in the nursing home with severe dementia being "voted" in the same way I know of my nephew's parents voting far more regularly after they died than they did while alive. Proper registration greatly mitigates the opportunity for this, and the board of elections that maintains the voter rolls should be automatically notified when a death certificate is filed and the name removed from the roll. Persons who scream that voter fraud is non-existent are either 1.) naive, 2.) ignorant of history, 3.) in a partisan echo-chamber, or 4.) equating being caught with committing the act. 

Either way, proper registered voter roll maintenance is the key, so registering to vote at the same time and place as voting is an invitation to uninformed voting if not to fraud. --Dr. John R. Dykers Jr.

. 

[Note: Comments are edited for length and clarity. Braver Angels and The Hustings standards of civil discourse apply.]