Proposed voting amendment

Liberty Election Reform & Political Integrity
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Amendment XXVIII

Section 1.
The right to vote in any election for President, Vice President, Senator, or Representative in Congress shall be reserved exclusively to citizens of the United States. Each State shall establish and enforce adequate measures to prevent illegal votes in numbers sufficient to alter the outcome of an election. Failure to implement such measures shall result in the forfeiture of that State’s electoral votes in a Presidential election, and in the case of an election for Senator or Representative, the seat for that term shall remain vacant.

Section 2.
All federal elections shall be held on a single, designated day of in-person voting. States may provide for early voting, whether in person or by mail, as they deem appropriate, provided that early voting does not exceed ten percent of the State’s total votes cast. Any early votes exceeding this limit shall be excluded from the final tally, with precedence given to earlier cast ballots over later ones. All early votes must be tallied and publicly disclosed no later than twenty-four hours before Election Day. No votes shall be cast or counted after Election Day.

Section 3.
The casting and counting of all votes in federal elections shall be conducted solely by means of paper ballots, which shall be hand-counted. The final tally of all votes must be completed and publicly declared no later than midnight on Election Day. All ballots shall be preserved as public records for a period of no less than eleven years in physical form and one hundred years in electronic form.

Section 4.
Should any State fail to complete and publicly declare its final hand-counted vote tally by midnight on Election Day, the Sheriff of each county within that State shall be empowered and required to produce the hand-counted vote tally for their respective county within the ensuing twenty-four hours. Any county that fails to produce such a tally, as certified by its Sheriff within that period, shall be excluded from the State’s final vote tally and shall forfeit its participation in the federal election.

Section 5.
Any failure by a State or its officials, whether through incompetence or willful misconduct, to implement, conduct, or safeguard federal elections in accordance with this article shall be deemed an act of treason against the United States and shall be punishable as such. Any person acting on behalf of any government, whether at the State or Federal level, whether elected, appointed, or employed, who knowingly certifies a false vote tally or election outcome shall be guilty of treason against the United States.

Section 6.
All States shall have standing to bring legal action against any other State in matters relating to federal elections, including violations of this article.

Section 7.
Any group consisting of a number of citizens greater than one-tenth of the population of the least populous State, as determined by the most recent decennial census, shall have standing to bring legal action against any State, federal agency, or State or Federal employee in matters relating to federal elections, including violations of this article.

Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

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Here’s a quick summary of what this proposed voting amendment covers:

  • Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections.
  • States lose electoral votes or Congressional seats if non-citizens vote.
  • All federal elections must be held on a single day of in-person voting.
  • Paper ballots and hand counting are required; results must be published by noon the next day.
  • Ballots are public records, stored for 20 years.
  • 20-year statute of limitations for federal election crimes.
  • Election crimes are treason.
  • States can sue other states over federal election issues.
  • Groups of 100,000 citizens can sue states, federal agencies, or employees.
  • Certifying a false election outcome is treason.
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According to this policy, military service members who are not in their home state would be unable to vote because mail-in ballots are not allowed, and voting is in-person only.

You might be young, but there was a time when people stood in line for 6 to 8 hours to vote, and sometimes the polls closed before everyone in line could vote. Imagine that—people standing in line to vote like they were waiting for a Black Friday sale. They were obviously standing in line for something they believed in. Think about how hard that is for the elderly, people with hip problems, or those who have to work. There was a time when people couldn’t always vote because they couldn’t afford to miss work to stand in line for 8 hours. This wasn’t that many years ago.

Early voting is a wonderful thing because it allows people who have to work to be able to vote. Absentee and mail-in ballots have been great because they allow our service members and students who are out of state to vote. Yes, these methods have been abused, but wouldn’t it make more sense to correct the abuse instead of punishing the people who use them correctly?

To correct this abuse, state-issued IDs should be required, and anyone who is not eligible to vote should have a red line at the top of their identification that says “non-voting resident.” Identification should be required to vote. Mail-in ballots can be managed in several ways: you can show identification to the postmaster, who can sign off on your ballot, or you can put fingerprints on your ballot. All ballot scanners should have fingerprint scanners to check for duplicate prints, and if a duplicate is found, an investigation should be opened.

I also agree that all ballots should be paper so they can be recounted if there is a question. Every county should have enough ballots printed for all their voting-age residents.

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At minimum, anything other than in-person voting on election day should be limited to individuals for whom there literally is no other option (Such as overseas service members).

Any voting other than voting in-person on a single day should be an extreme exception.

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Section 1: I fully agree with Sentence 1, and in principle that some sort of penalty should be assessed against any state which fails to comply. However, the nature of the penalty should depend on the severity of the violation. I am not sure of all the factors that should be taken into account to assess this severity, but the extent of the damage (i.e., how many illegal votes got through) may well be one of them.

Section 2: Sentence 1 should be implemented to the maximum extent possible. Exceptions should be extremely limited (e.g., active duty armed forces, long haul truckers). I would amend Sentence 2 so that any early vote permissible under the aforementioned exceptions must be counted before polls open, and made public the moment polls close. In the case of a state with a split poll closure time, each precinct would use its own closure time for this purpose.

Section 3: I fully agree with Sentences 1 and 3. I would amend Sentence 2 such that the count must be completed and disclosed by midnight (i.e., 12 hours stricter than as originally proposed). Any deadlines on absentee votes permissible under exceptions to Section 2, Sentence 1 as proposed above should be tightened so as to ensure that compliance with this midnight deadline is possible.

Sections 4 and 5: Treason is so serious that it does not have a statute of limitations. Therefore, these sections conflict with each other. I would give Section 5 priority over (and therefore eliminate) Section 4.

Section 6: I fully agree. I should note that this would surely have prevented Roberts from cajoling the other justices into dismissing Texas v Pennsylvania.

Section 7: I agree in principle, but I am not sure as to what number of citizens to require. Also, there needs to be a mechanism for establishing that a group consists of the minimum number of citizens. Perhaps a signed petition or something similar thereto?

Section 8: I fully agree.

Section 9: I fully agree.

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How about all the people that live in villages in Alaska, should they have to take a special day to dog sled into town to vote use some of those villages you got to take a dog sled a snow machine in an airplane that’s not a joke I live here. What about the people in nursing homes and hospitals. What about the people who work at gas stations and Walmart jobs that wouldn’t be willing to give someone a day off to go vote or even a few hours because when I told you lines have been 8 hours that was not a joke that was fact.

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If I’m not mistaken, companies are required to give their employees time off to go vote if they want it.

But a better option would be if Election Day were made a Federal Holiday; personally I’d advocate for rescheduling President’s day from February to align with Election Day.

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You are wrong, they are not in fact they can fire you if you don’t show up for your job because you were standing in line to vote, or you tried to run out at lunch to vote and you got back late. It would be nice to be able to shut the world down to vote but you still have doctors and nurses who cannot because there’s not the staff to cover them spend all day waiting to vote instead of going to work you have gas stations that only have one attendant for a shift you think they’re going to pay somebody else overtime for you missing today your ass is fired. No there is no federal laws there are no state laws that require an employer to give time off to vote.

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All votes should require a valid ID and paper ballots be used and counted. NO MACHINES are to be used as they can be hacked or the results changed.

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With regard to your first point, might there be a solution to your problem that can be handled by the Alaska State Legislature? Perhaps increasing the number of precincts so that each of these villages can be its own precinct, avoiding that long trip into town?

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Too bad social security number can’t be used to track voting eligibility (not dead according to social security administration) and method with time stamp when vote was captured similar to how taxes are submitted electronically to the IRS.

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This I know to be blatantly false after spending only a couple of minutes of searching.

I think it would be far more reasonable to address issues as to not require any more than the absolute minimum of extreme cases of people not voting in person on election day than to create the kind of security gaps created by widespread absentee and mail-in votes.

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Section 2 of my proposed amendment assumes some states may allow early mail in voting, but adds a requirment that such early voting be tallied and published BEFORE the single day of in person voting. This way everyone knows what the stakes are for that single day of voting.

I am old enough to appreciate the need for mail in voting. I was once bedridden for the whole month leading up to voting day.

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Excellent suggestions, I will edit the proposal when I get a moment.

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I would leave the manner of verifying citizenship up to the states instead of some kind of federal ID (yikes). The safeguard is that another state or group of citizens can sue if they believe a state’s method of verifying this is letting illegals through.

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SSNs are pretty useless if we want any kind of security. Mine has been hacked hundreds of times… and didnt Chinese hackers get our entire Social Security database?

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I think there is an easy solution, no mail in unless youve got a valid excuse, and a valid excuse is you live in a remote Alaskan village that requires 7 days of dogsledding to get to the polling station, but only if the weather is perfect.

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Wonder why the social security number can’t be used to track voting like it is done for submitting taxes. It could cross reference the social security death index to see that voters submitting ballots are not dead. And illegals won’t have a social security number. Also other “blocks” to prevent voting (I.e. felon) could be set using the social security number. Can easily track activity for a social security number.

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I concur with this proposal with a couple of changes.
3. shorter period for preserving ballots, logistically 20 years of ballots would require a massive, secured storage facility.
2. in person voting would be impractical because of military out of their states or the country, and disabled voters might have no way to get to voting places.

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More reasonable would be to set up a polling place in that remote Alaskan village.

How difficult can that really be?