The ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon both have fire suppression systems that are designed to activate when the temperature inside reaches a certain point, coating ballots inside with a fire-suppressing powder.
For unknown reasons, the system failed to prevent the destruction of hundreds of ballots in Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland.
We actually do have laws federally to protect voters from disenfranchisement. There are often lawsuits about polling locations, hours of voting, and number of drop boxes. One side is definitely always trying to make it harder to vote, specifically on contested areas.
What I mean is a federal electoral commission that directly administers the entire election, not just sues people who do the wrong thing. We can plainly see how fragile the current arrangement is
In my view there is no argument to be made at all that the states should have any direct involvement in the running the federal election, it’s a federal election.
A federal electoral commission gives you: one consistent set of rules, consistent voting infrastructure, consistent chains of reporting, consistent invigilation and auditing. Ideally also: no politicians picking their own electorate boundaries, no voting machines (for real, please see 2020 and 2000 for how spectacularly those have caused issues, and probably other times, also), no need for as many lawsuits just to get the bare minimum in compliance.
The number of lawsuits is indicative of how badly it’s going.
One side is definitely making it harder to vote, I would definitely agree. I just feel not enough emphasis is given to voting as something that affects the entire political system, and should be the core #1 issue, including where I live in Australia (even if it’s massively in better shape here).
Again, I always feel like a bit of a clown telling someone else in another country how to run it, but US is fair game, given it’s world hegemon status.
Hope y’all can manage to get some sorely needed reform :/