Just an observation from North of the border that you might find interesting.
Back when I was involved in politics, one only needed to walk up to the voting station and say: “I am Joe Smith of 123 Main Street.” And if that name was on the list a ballot was handed over. I left politics, but I heard lots of stories of ambitious party members pretending to be traditional non voters. This cheating did tilt close election races. And if one party did it, the other party had to do it to stay even.
The Electoral Commission decided to fix this problem. It made the presentation of ID mandatory to get a ballot. The first election or two was a bit of a schmoozle as many voters were not used to this ID rule — and did not (want to ) hear the message that rules were changing. Many left the voting station angry. But after about the third or fourth cycle, not bringing ID is no longer a problem a Canadian voting stations. Canadians know to bring their ID as part of their civic duty.
I bring up this story for two reasons. First, it takes about three election cycles for these things to work smoothly. Oregon seems to have its mail-in ballot system working well, but expect problems when it is implemented in other states. It might be too late to experiment with it now. Second, the Democratic Party has been resisting the idea of presenting ID at the voting station. So they too are guilty of setting up rules for their electoral advantage.
I didn’t understand what you said about caging voters.
While I don’t like gerrymandering, I do not see it as overly undemocratic. The example you gave of a 60 B and 40 R electoral district turning into 2B and 3R seats is only a slight imbalance. I would even say that the 2B & 3R is more reflective of the voters’ intentions of 5B & 0R.
All in all, I see this article as a partisan piece, mostly about how to get more D’s elected (with the votes being cast in the same way) than about political fairness.
But we need to move democracy past this limited American version. It’s time to cast aside political parties and voting for political parties.
