Instead of reacting with indignation to bills like the SAVE Act, a more effective strategy is to go on offense. Democrats can co-opt the popular idea of voter ID by proposing a more inclusive version that allows student IDs, creates a national voting holiday, and implements automatic registration.

Decades of legislative changes in California—like unlimited ballot harvesting and universal mail-in ballots—have created a system where outcomes are determined by organized political machines, not individual voters. The result is effectively an appointment, not a free democratic election.

States are legally required to offer voter registration alongside welfare programs like Medicaid. This creates a political incentive to maximize enrollment, which can lead to lax oversight and a reluctance to investigate or prosecute fraud.

Instead of a moral failing, corruption is a predictable outcome of game theory. If a system contains an exploit, a subset of people will maximize it. The solution is not appealing to morality but designing radically transparent systems that remove the opportunity to exploit.

An in-person ballot is anonymous by design. Once a fraudulent vote enters the ballot box, it lacks any identifying information linking it to the voter. It becomes indistinguishable from legitimate votes and is mixed in immediately, making it literally impossible to isolate, trace, or remove after the fact.

People have committed felonies for trivial gains like winning a homecoming queen election or a fishing tournament. This behavior demonstrates that any system offering a significant advantage, such as a national election with trillions of dollars at stake, will inevitably be exploited if vulnerabilities exist, according to basic game theory.

Using legal attacks against political opponents ("lawfare") is a societal gangrene. It forces the targeted party to retaliate, turning elections into existential battles for survival rather than policy contests. This high-stakes environment creates a powerful incentive to win at any cost, undermining democratic norms.

The real danger to elections is not necessarily widespread illegal fraud but rather systems that are legal yet fundamentally immoral. Practices like ballot harvesting, while technically permitted in some places, are designed to manipulate outcomes and are more corrosive because they operate under the color of law.

A welfare state with low barriers to entry incentivizes immigration for economic benefits. This can lead to systemic fraud and weakened voter laws as politicians cater to this new bloc to gain and retain power, even if it harms the state's long-term stability.