Abstract
America's precious democratic form of government is under severe threat. An attempt to sabotage the fair election of a new president has been committed and could easily be reattempted. Meanwhile, a war is being fought that clarifies a global struggle between autocracy and democracy. Despite our field's reputation for political neutrality, its institutions can be used to strengthen our democracy against its opponents.
Introduction: The Setting
Survival of our democratic form of government is now before us. A reckless and uninformed demagogue was able to attain the presidency for one term in the midst of unusually chaotic social conditions. During and following his years in office, Donald J. Trump has succeeded in transforming most of the Republican Party into a personal cult. The result is a poisonous anti-democratic force planted at the heart of the political system. It rejects traditional norms, tramples on vital institutions, and ignores core principles.
At the same time, the environment surrounding our elections has grown ominous. A deadly pandemic, with it erratic comings and goings and corresponding ups and downs and restrictions on freedoms, poses particularly harsh pressures on any democracy. Another current hard blow on self-government is the constant lies and myths injected into the body politic by the social media; how can a democracy function without knowing the truth? Added to this situation is yet another source of havoc, sharp increases in violent crime; not a day goes by without active shooters gunning down shoppers, minorities, cops, rock fans, or school kids. Countless gun safety bills are introduced, but the National Rifle Association never lets them pass.
Fear and polarization ripping the social fabric at home was accompanied in 2022 by Vladimir Putin's premeditated invasion of democratic Ukraine. Even though a steady diet of televised bloodshed has brought most Americans together in support of President Zelensky, the Trump cult insists his government is filled with Nazi thugs, making dictator Putin their champion. The times, in short, are not conducive for our democracy—it may even be dying.
The Elections Problem
At the core of democracy is an honest majority-win election as the key arbiter of political power. An extremist minority rump of voters and representatives must not be allowed to block this goal. At the national level, replacing the Electoral College is the most important forward step. This is not an original idea; since 1800 over 700 proposals have been made to reform or abolish this institution. The concept of the direct popular vote with universal suffrage is already operative in the vast majority of elections across the federal system, with contests for President and Vice President being the sole exception. The result of this exception has been five minority presidents over time, with Bush II in 2000 and Trump in 2016 the most recent.
What is offered here is an explicit design for how direct elections could safely work—not only for occupants of the White House but all candidates, including at the state and local level and the Congress. This need is immediate, in that Trump's lingering appeal could allow his Republican allies to raise enough money from rallies and dark PAC's to win crucial posts such as mayors, governors, and secretaries of state. Using that power to appoint voting registrars and election administrators could set the stage for manipulating race outcomes contrary to what a fair election would produce. Also, primary elections tainted by heavy campaign spending have produced state legislatures that pass election laws designed to restrict voting by low-income and minority citizens. Republicans are moreover promoting gerrymandering in their favor and the banning of school library books they regard as un-American.
To Vote
In order to keep our voting system free of political interference and possible sabotage, a wholly new electoral system is proposed for the United States. It embodies a degree of organizational centralization to protect administrative structures to in order to minimize corruption. I call it TOVOTE.
My system's constitutional basis does not rest in Article II Section 1's outdated language creating an Electoral College. Indeed, it possesses its own constitutional basis. Article I Section 8 establishes “post offices and post roads”; under TOVOTE all-mail balloting is instituted by courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service, far safer than what could happen from infiltrated election staff or external cyber-attack.
Postal historians credit this institution with making possible the new nation by linking leaders of the former colonies and extending communication to the distant frontier (Gallagher, 2016). Recent legislation greatly improves the agency's current financial condition, inspiring Republican Senator Rob Portman's floor comment: “But one enduring reality about our country is that we have a post office that ties us all together, and everybody depends on that post office” (Cochrane, 2022).
Voting via this steadfast institution will entail receiving a blank ballot in an envelope personally addressed to the registered citizen. Then, in whatever state of privacy desired, it will be marked and inserted in a return envelope addressed to the sender. In a few days, a receipt will arrive as a tangible record that this civic privilege has been exercised.
Another historic government organization will provide the institutional machinery necessary to keep voting secure from external intervention. This is the United States Bureau of the Census. It too dates from the nation's beginning. Article I Section 9 refers to “the census or enumeration,” a tax provision that also supported the initial 1,790 censuses. In the proposed new arrangement, the Census Bureau will protect the integrity of elections by means of a supervisory network headed by administrative law judges. Today the Bureau employs 4,285 persons and will need roughly 2,500 more to perform this added mission. In that the periodic counting of people is the central function of both censuses and elections, this change is not as jarring as one might think. The bureau's field organization is extensive. With headquarters in Suitland, Maryland, 13 field offices operate around the country, four of which have regional responsibilities and nine divisional. Field operations of the TOVOTE system are supervised by approximately 650 Election Judges. They will join the already existing body of federal administrative judges, as found for example in Social Security and immigration. They are personnel of the Executive Branch, not the Judicial.
Election Judges are appointed by the Director of the of Census. They serve for an eight-year renewable term with dismissal only for cause. Pay and benefits match those of the Senior Executive Service. To be eligible, candidates must have at least 5 years of previous similar legal experience and a record of impartial and reasoned actions, along with no police record or association with extremist groups. On their first day of work, the Judges publicly swear obedience to the Constitution of the United States.
Election Judges oversee the operations of what are called Voting Districts, with one judge per district. These jurisdictions are groupings of the 177,000 voting precincts already existing across the country. This means present election personnel are not displaced if standards of accuracy and integrity are proven. Also, district borders will coincide with state and city boundaries so that the territorial reach of state and city/county political parties will continue unimpeded.
Election Security Service
Civil servants responsible for carrying out instructions of the Judges will constitute an organizational subunit known as the Election Security Service (ESS). At full strength of about 3,000 personnel, its members are stationed at Election District offices, census field offices, and a lesser number at Suitland. The functions of these public servants are as follows.
Outreach. Perform outreach liaison with local officials. Recruit ESS personnel from other federal agencies, states, and local governments. Sponsor a public education campaign on how TOVOTE works.
Monitoring: Oversee needed rearrangement of boundaries. Assure Registration List is up-to-date. Issue criteria for ballot design. Check and track ballot printing contracts. Assure ballot supplies are adequate with no opportunity for unauthorized use.
Inspection: Observe polling places during elections for maintenance of orderliness and party neutrality with avoidance of voter intimidation. Arrange for verification when registration entry or vote validity are disputed. Transport blank and marked ballots around the system in armored vehicles.
Investigation: Conduct background checks on ESS recruits to assure no infiltration by anti-democratic elements. Investigate reports of possible manipulation of or digital interference in vote counts. Track persons threatening to invade election processes.
Action. Maintain a registry of eligible voters. Encourage registration of new residents and those not previously listed. Count, tally, and sum by Internet- disconnected calculator votes from completed ballots. Repeat counts three times to assure accuracy. Report election outcomes by secure means to Election Judges, who in turn will submit them to the press.
All TOVOTE personnel carry special responsibilities in the election of the president and vice president. After triple-checking at each level, totals for president are submitted by secure means to District and then Suitland. If a majority emerges, the winner is declared to the press. If not, a run-off of the two top candidates is scheduled. Not every voter will be pleased, of course, but all should feel that he or she had a direct, personal effect on who will lead the country.
The Pandemic and Democracy
We shift now to the second part of this piece. It deals with the broken cultural state in which the country is wallowing. Drastic societal polarization is itself one reason why more secure elections are essential and, as well, a deciding factor in whether redesigned elections can calm the waters.
Led by the Big Lie perpetrated by Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him, the society has been bombarded by many other falsehoods, such as coronavirus 19 is a government propaganda trick intended to take control of our bodies. Of course, the virus we now face is indeed a public health danger that is worldwide and capable of reappearing without end in the future.
In this sense, it resembles another erratic product of nature, the dangers of extreme weather now being felt. A maxim advanced by the U.S. Weather service is that although news outlets may issue their own daily weather forecasts, in order to avoid public confusion and panic only a single voice of the Weather Service must tell the public of pending disasters such as tornados.
The same logic can apply to public health emergencies. When they potentially harm or kill mass numbers of people, to avoid confusion and panic the matter should also be dealt with in a unified way by those with the best information.
From the very beginning of the pandemic outbreak in the United States in 2019, a cacophony of voices has been speaking with supposed authority on all aspects of the disease and its effects and treatments. These include pharmaceutical companies, medical school deans, influential doctors, television newscasters and commentators, radio personalities, book authors, state governors and representatives of the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, Public Health Service, and White House COVID Team (Sun and Tyler, 2022).
This means that doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals, mental health workers, ministers, employers, school and college administrators, and families with children are bombarded daily with mixed and changing information on matters of potential live-or-die consequence. They become confused about the frequency of infection, needed vaccinations, the timing of shots, and whether to inoculate children, wear masks, and practice social distancing. Also in question are the effects of current therapeutic drugs, the length of quarantines, and the types of tests available.
In short, the administrative structure of epidemic control is enormously pluralistic as well as immensely specialized. In view of this, ways to channel information more cleanly are needed. Bringing the whole system under one central control point would not work. However, the number and nature of flows could be made more understandable, without clogging up or sacrificing expertise.
My plan would be to create a new federal agency to provide overall estimates of progress or the lack thereof. I call it the National Pandemic Center, modeled after the National Hurricane Center in Miami. That body evaluates hurricane formation far out in both great oceans and issues advanced guidance to local Weather Bureaus responsible for issuing the actual forecasts.
Hence the NPC would act as an advising guardian rather than a decision maker in the operations of public health. It would issue bulletins on forthcoming changes of condition and what they may create. Virus variants would be tracked far ahead and alerts sounded when necessary. Then after the COVID plague has reached a peak, the NPC would sketch the factors by which restrictions would begin to be relaxed. As the tall watchtower of public health in the nation, the Center would take responsibility for identifying overall pandemic trends, thus relieving the President and state governors of much of the political backlash that a pandemic almost always generates. A natural head would be Anthony Fauci or someone of his stature.
In any case, the Pandemic Center's leadership will have to be both nimble and pliable. A virus, like the weather, is self-organized, hence a high measure of uncertainty always accompanies its analysis. In other words, a great deal is at stake. This reality means that NPC's relations with the federal science agencies need to be mutually respectful: while one side has a serious overall picture to contend with, the other side has a more specialized picture that is just as serious.
The same jarring contrast applies to NPC's relations with state governors. They are experiencing 50 small but just as serious COVID crises, each is distinctly different in nature. Here adoption of the State Department concept of “country desk” might help—NHC staff familiar with individual states would be available 24/7 to talk about what to do.
Social Media and Democracy
Like many major innovations in how society works, the arrival of social media as the most common form of informal communication has yielded great payoffs in speed and ease but serious dangers of irresponsible use. Its unvetted content combined with open broadcast has spawned no end of misinformation and bizarre behavior.
This communication flow can present a serious threat to American democracy. Allies of Trump spread the Big Lie across the country with it. The Proud Boys militia group uses it to plan future disruptions of policy dialogue in schools and town halls. A Republican politician compiles an online list of controversial books to be removed from school libraries. The claim is made that birds are spy drones put up by the government.
The drive by social media shareholders for profits over quality keeps true reform at bay. Twitter, long plagued by hate mail, bullying, and conspiracy theories, introduced some standards but at the same time launched the separate audio platform “Spaces” that welcomed bigots of every stripe—White nationalists, anti-vaccinationists, and Taliban supporters (Frankel, 2021, Powell, 2021, Lorenz, 2021, Dwoskin et al., 2021).
For years senators concerned about social media have debated how to stop this verbal sewage. While the prospect of some kind of regulation seemed reasonable, specifics remained undecided pending increased understanding of how the industry works. One may ask why. Are we supposed to say a crying fire in a crowded theater can continue until we know the perpetrator's motives? Of course not. The dangers to American democracy of this unending river of violent threats, absurd conspiracies, and words dripping with hate are so great that lawful regulatory control must be imposed as quickly as possible.
In this instance, my candidate for this task is the Federal Communications Commission. Today's FCC dates from 1934 and possesses regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications by cable, radio, television, satellite, and wire. Internet services are not explicitly covered, but in 2015 the agency became involved in the Internet's role in the issue of net neutrality. The Commission ended up saying decisions on the subject must observe the criteria of transparency, blocking, and nondiscrimination.
Section 230, added to the Communications Act in 1996, permits the FCC to restrict by rule transmitted information deemed to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, exceedingly violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” Guilty parties may be fined $325,000 per incident without liability for violating the First Amendment. Although some present members of the Commission doubt they have this authority, its General Counsel believes otherwise (Johnson, 2020). Since using these enforcement tools against objectionable material would become a major public issue, any such expansion of Section 230 probably should be taken by statute or court decision.
An amendment to the Communications Act should also provide a way to insert some amount of accountability to social media usage. This could be done by following newspaper op-ed page practice whereby published letters include the name of the author. Social media postings could do the same, but require an email address as well. This would permit replying or simply finding out whether the name is real.
If these legal steps are taken, at least some output screening of social media becomes possible. With millions of transmissions a day this will be a formidable task. What should be blocked and what should be ignored will require close scrutiny. Disagreeable opinions should not be confused with threats. Criticism of persons should not distract attention from uninhibited defamation of character. Crazy ideas can be ignored, but planned crimes cannot. Characterizations that are absurdly bitter need scrutiny. Comments that disparage minorities or young women require a concerted action. Attempts to seduce innocent girls or children should trigger alarms. Talking about overthrowing established authority deserves investigation. In general, the old saying about obscenity applies: you know it when you see it.
A small army of reviewers is needed. This must be created from scratch. At first blush, panels of available bureaucrats might seem to be the best censors. It would be the cheapest and quickest way to go. On reflection, however, once this pattern became publicly known, it would itself appear to be a sign of hidden anti-democratic suppression. The mentoring staff must itself represent democratic values. A strong possibility in this regard is to establish a Democracy Conservation Corps (DCC) made up of ordinary citizens that wish to devote a couple of early years of their career to participate in a much needed government program to help society. Their duty is to detect, record, and report unacceptable material to the FCC Social Media Quality Director.
Forming such a corps would not be a novel step. Since 1985 the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps has existed to foster such groups. Inspired by the New Deal's CCC, it now promotes 130-plus corps across the country. Many of these undertake outdoor forestry projects like the CCC, while others engage in urban and advocacy work. This past year the Biden Administration launched a corps devoted to the conservation of the climate.
The mechanics of such an entity will include authorization of such a body by Congress as a quasi-official agency eligible to receive appropriated funds but independent of departmental oversight. Corps members would be employed no longer than two years and receive a living stipend of $3,250 a month (NASCC standards). Admission would be limited to American citizens with college degrees, adequate computer skills, and no police record or extremist affiliation. On the first day of membership, they will be asked to take a formal oath to uphold the Constitution.
Upon recruitment of 1,000 or more members, concerted efforts are made to socialize DCC corpsmen and women into a vibrant culture. With the expectation they will be on the youthful side, these individuals are asked to attend urban or rural training camps where they are exposed to the purpose and philosophy of the program. The elusive and evolving nature of undesirable material will be conveyed by having trainees sort through contrived ambiguous messages that stimulate thoughtful consideration. Trainees are periodically assembled into small discussion groups where borderline cases can be debated.
Also, they would be informed that when on the job they will be expected to maintain work logs and meet occasionally with a senior DSS staff evaluator. Although they work at home with their own computers, assemblies will occur for exchanging work experiences. As a byproduct of assembled meetings, personal bonds will form as well as a group identity. At annual conferences, an opportunity exists to weigh the capacity of the program as a whole to promote more positive social media communication.
Gun Safety and Democracy
We now consider what may be done to reduce deadly gun use. Active shooter incidents have become almost daily around the country. According to the FBI, using a definition of one or more persons trying to kill others in a crowded area, 20 such incidents occurred in 2016, 31 in 2017, 30 in 2018, 30 in 2019, and 40 in 2020—a doubling over 4 years (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2021). A private tracking group, Gun Violence Archive, defines such incidents as four or more persons shot at roughly the same time. Its compiled list numbers 2,128 cases since 2013, only slightly less than one per day (Gun Violence Archive, 2014).
Such terrible random bloodshed creates anxiety and spreads fear. The assumption that in a democracy disputes are settled by talk or judges is contradicted. That these acts take place in presumably safe places like malls, churches, and schools, which add to the sense of public shock. Parents are terrified and children are affected for years. When a prominent official or politician is targeted, the very essence of democratic governance is obliterated. When an ex-president incites a riot at the Capitol, the ritual of peaceful voting is desecrated.
The subject of gun safety is big. There are more guns in America than citizens. It is also complex. The Second Amendment's “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is disputed as to present-day legal meaning, further roiling the waters.
It is best to enter this territory, not with blunt generalizations but with a wider view. I discern three different issues here. The first one recognizes that millions of Americans own guns for their own sake, to collect and exhibit. In rural and western parts of the country, they are necessary to hunt for food each fall. Even more gun owners need them to protect themselves, especially in less populated areas. Carrying a weapon is also required for those who have dangerous jobs. These observations tell us that a big proportion of guns are on the side of wellbeing, not evil.
The one hole in this logic is when a child or irresponsible relative gets hold of a piece without permission. To avoid this danger, it is a good idea to have firearms secured and out of the way. A good idea would be to have county governments designate a gun safety inspector to check. If a gun owner has neglected to take this step, offer him or her a strong lockbox, along with 3 extra days of hunting seasons for those who cooperate.
The second issue is more difficult. Disturbed persons who suddenly turn from seeming normal personalities to cold killers are behind a big percentage of active shootings. This stems from a great variety of causes, and I will leave it to the psychologists to give us a list. One aspect is clear, however: to identify in advance who will start pulling the trigger is often difficult or impossible. Even more puzzling, knowing how to control or change the individual requires any one of an array of professionals. Examples are mental health specialists in community behavioral health units, psychiatrists in the mental health wing of hospitals, police officers schooled in crisis management, social case workers from welfare agencies, probation officers attached to courts, therapists in correctional institutions, and youth counselors in juvenile detention centers.
My reason for listing these numerous sources of understanding is to make a case for the creation of an organization whose mission is to investigate and analyze each succeeding incident. Then the crucial step is to draw on and coordinate the application of the varied treatment specialties to a diagnosis of each case and his or her post-incident life. Performing this role would be the Firearm Protection Service. Its experts should be available to call in following each shooting tragedy. A useful service to the public would be a list of characteristics to look for in persons that may become active shooters. The creation of a hotline for this purpose would also be a good idea.
The third issue of guns and public safety is the proliferation of all kinds and capacities of firearms by gangs of criminals. The federal agency created to deal with them is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). With a history reaching back to enforcing Revolutionary War taxes and upholding the ban on liquor under Prohibition, this elite law enforcement agency specializes in investigating violent crime and policing the gun industry. Also, it is the nation's prime center for gun tracing, by virtue of its storage of thousands of gun sales slips deposited at an ATF facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Although state and local police departments enforce gun laws locally, ATF does so on a national and international basis. The Gun Control Act of 1968, enacted after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy, gave the agency extensive powers to investigate shootings, penetrate gangs on an undercover basis, and intercept international gun sales. The Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 amended the 1968 law with a “three strikes and you’re out” provision whereby three convictions involving mere possession of a firearm carry an automatic prison sentence of at least 15 years.
Perhaps this law could be used against members of militias loyal to Trump. However, to allow ATF to live up to its potential, it must have more resources. They have far less compared to other federal law enforcement agencies: in 2010 it had roughly 2,500 on-duty officers, compared to 3,300 for the U.S. Marshals Service, 5,000 for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and 8,700 for the FBI (Goodsell, 2011, p. 10). The reason for this shortfall is the National Rifle Association. For years it has lobbied Congress to abolish or at least starve the ATF. Even a simple improvement like computerizing the gun sales slips at Martinsburg has been rejected.
As Congress continues to fail to pass such gun measures as universal background checks and a ban on military-style automatic rifles, and “Ghost” guns. A more far-reaching step would simply be to double ATF's budget.
A Battle We Must Win
These pages have proposed drastically reconfiguring American elections and voting; creating a standing pandemic agency; reviewing the massive content of social media; and proposing ways to curb independent active shooters.
This collection of ideas to help strengthen American democracy may or may not see the light of day. Yet I hope some of the proposals spark interest. I hope even more that if any are adopted, American democracy will still be resilient for our children and grandchildren. The fact that my approach is centered on public administration institutions may be off-putting to many. Yet it is important to show how this governance instrument is clothed, simultaneously, in power, law, responsiveness, stability, resources, knowledge, competence, and history. Moreover, it too is an integral part of American democracy and deeply concerned for its future.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
