This is the seventh installment in the short blog series, Cleanup on Aisle 47, which is meant to present ideas on rebuilding and strengthening U.S. democracy.
We know how to run free and fair elections in the United States.
It wasn’t until Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden that we began hearing about “voter fraud” on a continuous basis. You know who was yelling, “Voter fraud!” the loudest? Donald Trump and his supporters, because they are sore losers.
A democracy depends upon the peaceful transition of power. That Trump sent his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes for Joe Biden was a forewarning of his corruption and fast-track destruction of the federal government and democracy during his second term. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack) It is up to the American people to prevent as much of his abuse of power as possible and rebuild and strengthen democracy.
One of the primary ways we exercise our democratic rights is by voting, which is continually being attacked by Trump and Republicans, through executive orders, legislative attempts, and their constant false claims of voter fraud.
Voter fraud is vanishingly rare, with very few individual voters trying to cheat the system. Those who make the attempt are typically caught right away.
Election Fraud Through Gerrymandering and Other Tactics to Prevent Voting
What we do have is election fraud … but not in the way elections are run on the local basis. From what I have seen in Minnesota, those who are are in charge of the polls are conscientious and careful about how voting is conducted.
Instead, election fraud occurs at a higher level, with parties gerrymandering maps to favor one party over another. Republicans have been especially diligent about this, going so far as to having Texas rework its maps in 2025, outside a Census year, to gain advantage for Republicans. California, a primarily Democratic state, responded by putting mid-cycle redistricting to a vote to dilute what Republicans in Texas were attempting. Weighting districts to favor one party over another is a form of election fraud because it’s not about representing voters; it’s about a party holding power unfairly.
Measures to unnecessarily restrict voting are also forms of election fraud for the same reason. This includes making it difficult for people to register to vote, removing ballot boxes in populous areas (like near colleges), and requiring voter IDs that are difficult to get (Trump and Republicans want people to have passports in order to vote).
Intimidation tactics, like Trump demanding states turn over their voter rolls to the U.S. Postal Service to make sure the “right” people are allowed to vote by mail or threatening to intercede in elections by sending ICE or other law enforcement to the polls, are also a form of election fraud. They are also the tactics of an authoritarian bully. Regardless of what the Trump Six on SCOTUS think, our democracy was not set up to accept an authoritarian at the helm.
Speaking of the Trump Six (Roberts, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, Barret, and Kavanaugh), they finally completed the gutting of the Voting Rights Act this term with the Louisiana v. Callais decision, claiming that states couldn’t use race in determining whether districts were gerrymandered, even though racial discrimination against Black people is why the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf) It has been a pet project of John Roberts to eliminate the Voting Rights Act for decades, and he and Samuel Alito have chipped away at it with decision after decision while on the Supreme Court. Louisiana v. Callais was the final nail in the Voting Rights Act coffin. (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-121222/, https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-6-2026, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-roberts-alito)
Saving the Voting Rights Act
But, wait! There’s a way we can save and strengthen the Voting Rights Act. We can push Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This Brennan Center for Justice Fact Sheet explains what is in the Act: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/john-r-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act. So does this entry in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_Voting_Rights_Act.
The Act provides mechanisms to prevent gerrymandering, onerous voter ID laws, and other means of restricting people’s right to vote.
Minnesota has always had high voter turnout. A big reason for that is that we make it easy to register to vote and cast a ballot. When Erik and I moved to a new city and got new licenses, we were automatically registered to vote in our new location. Minnesota allows for early voting and mail-in ballots and provides easy access to the polls. And the state doesn’t require an ID for voters at the polls if they are already registered.
If we can make all of these things work in Minnesota … and our high voter turnout shows that we do … then certainly we can do these things nationwide.
Other Ways to Improve Elections & Political Campaigns
Another way to improve elections is to consider ranked choice voting for certain races, depending on how well it has worked in places that have adopted it.
As mentioned in Installment 4 of Cleanup on Aisle 47 – Creating a Functional Congress, I would require 3 to 5 political parties rather than 2, so voters have more choice and we don’t get stuck in a whirlpool of polarization. (https://maryewarner.com/2026/07/25/aisle-47-installment-4-creating-a-functional-congress/)
I would also shorten political campaigns. We don’t need campaigns to go on for a year or more. It diverts incumbents from doing their jobs and is a tremendous waste of money. Let’s give politicians 6 months to campaign and give ourselves a break from incessant politicking.
Another thing I would do is ditch the Electoral College for the presidential race and determine the winner by popular vote. We would need to amend the Constitution for this (see Amendments 12 & 23 related to the Electoral College), but I think it’s worth it for a couple of reasons. The argument that “every vote counts” would be more persuasive if we used the popular vote. We also wouldn’t be in a situation where a president won the Electoral College but not the popular vote, which has happened five times in U.S. history. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote) One of those times was in the 2016 election, when Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College.
One of the most important things we can do to reclaim our democracy and make elections more fair is to overturn Citizens United, a case that allows corporations and billionaires to pour money into political campaigns through PACs. By spending oodles of money in elections, they buy politicians, who serve the wealthy and powerful rather than the American people. This has got to stop. We need to limit the amount of money being spent on elections, no matter the source.
We also need to severely limit “corporate personhood,” which gives corporations many of the same rights as individual citizens, except, in practice, they get more rights because they have more money and resources to influence legislation and file lawsuits. (Over 90% of Americans can’t afford to hire a lawyer, so corporations have far more access to justice than the average American.) Corporate personhood is a legal fiction and, as such, it can be rewritten to curtail the political power of corporations. (https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution)
What would you do to make voting easier and improve elections and political campaigns? Throw your ideas in the comments.
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