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Owen Casas is a former independent Maine state representative, town administrator and clerk. He served on the Rockport Select Board and in the U.S. Marines. Charles Wheelan teaches public policy at Dartmouth College. He was speechwriter for former Gov. John R. McKernan Jr., and is the founder of Unite America.
The 2020 election cycle strained, nearly to the breaking point, trust in our elections. Many are losing faith in our elected representatives. And some are rightfully concerned that we are no longer capable of holding elections in which every citizen can exercise their right to vote, and that every one of those votes will be counted (and no more).
There is an antidote to this cynicism: Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins can work together to make The For the People Act (Senate Bill 1), a sweeping package addressing elections, political spending, corruption and other structural issues, into a bipartisan bill that restores Americans’ faith in our electoral process.
H.R. 1, the House version, contains many meaningful voting reforms, including protecting voting rights and fortifying our election system from foreign meddling. The building blocks of the act are sound, and it passed out of the chamber earlier this year largely along party lines. However, as always in the Senate, there is the opportunity for engagement and improvement in the weeks ahead as our government’s highest deliberative body continues their discussions.
We cannot fix our government without restoring faith in elections. And we cannot restore faith in elections without making this a bipartisan effort. Collins and King have an opportunity to further improve upon H.R. 1 as debate continues in the Senate. Through meaningful engagement, they can take what is now perceived as a partisan bill and ensure it moves forward with support from both sides of the aisle. This legislation is primed for engagement from our senators, with favoritism given to faith in the American promise over political party influences.
Mainers are inherently innovative folks who proudly passed — and defended multiple times — our publicly financed “Clean Election” system. We have been leaders in ranked-choice voting, setting an example recently replicated in Alaska. Maine is also an easy state to vote in, with policies affording many convenient and safe options to participate. This has increased voter turnout, yet there is virtually no evidence of voter fraud, which we do not say lightly or from a place of ignorance.
For context, Owen has been involved in Maine’s election process intimately as a candidate, a town clerk responsible for conducting elections, and sat on the state’s election committee overseeing the secretary of state’s election responsibilities. And Charles is the founder of Unite America, an organization that supports nonpartisan election reform, such as vote by mail. Evidence from places where these policies have been implemented, such as Colorado, show that they broaden voter participation without promoting fraud or giving advantage to either political party.
States were intended to be incubator labs for our greater American experiment. And Maine has proven that as a leader in election reform. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate was designed to be the chamber where cool heads prevail. We call upon Collins and King, each with a long history of working across the aisle, to work with their colleagues in both parties to ensure Senate Bill 1 moves ahead in a bipartisan fashion.
There is a lot for every American to like in H.R. 1, with the same provisions included in the Senate version: more transparency in campaign finance; resources for election modernization; safeguards against foreign meddling; and protections to guarantee voter access while reducing fraud. While the opportunity to make this a bipartisan effort in the House was missed, we know that the Senate is a different story.
History tells us that in times of great peril, doing nothing is not an option. And our recent experiences suggest that we will not heal our country with partisan reforms. Our faith in democracy must be restored through bipartisan passage of protections for our electoral system.