Donald Trump’s reelection and GOP majorities in both houses of Congress offer a unique opportunity to reform an election system that remains badly broken, and it must be done now. The Democratic Party is controlled by people who, despite their rhetoric, don’t believe in representative democracy. This was clearly demonstrated before the election, when they deposed a presidential nominee chosen by their own voters. Nor was this the first time they have rigged their nomination process — as Sen. Bernie Sanders will attest. If you require more evidence of their disdain for democratic norms, they are at this moment flouting Pennsylvania law to steal a U.S. Senate seat. It is no coincidence that most of the states that Kamala Harris won in 2024 have weak or nonexistent voter ID laws. If you don’t follow Pennsylvania politics, the Senate seat in dispute has been occupied for three terms by Bob Casey Jr., primarily due to good will earned by his father, a former governor of the Keystone State. The younger Casey has been dubbed “America’s Worst Senator” by Paul Kengor, our editor-in-chief here at The American Spectator. This is evidently not a unique perspective among Pennsylvania’s voters. Thus, he narrowly lost to GOP challenger David McCormick for whom AP called the race on November 8. Casey, however, has refused to concede and the small margin of victory (less than 0.5 percent) requires a recount. This is when the skulduggery became so brazen that even the editors of the Washington Post cried foul: Before the Nov. 5 election, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that provisional ballots must be signed in two required places and that mail-in votes must be dated. Yet elected Democratic officials in Philadelphia and three other counties — Bucks, Centre and Montgomery — voted this week to defy these and other court decisions at the request of lawyers for Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who trails GOP challenger Dave McCormick by about 24,000 votes … These Democrats’ decisions will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, but the mere attempt to defy judicial rulings is corrosive to democracy and invites similar behavior in future elections. How did these Democrats justify ignoring the law and the courts? Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia delivered this stunning assertion: “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.” (READ MORE from David Catron: Desperate Democrats Learned Nothing Last Week) A properly structured federal election statute would require this woman to be removed from office, pay a substantial fine, and face potential jail time. Ellis-Marseglia is deliberately allowing illegal votes to be counted. This obviously violates her oath of office and effectively disfranchises thousands of legal voters whose ballots she will have rendered meaningless. Only federal legislation with stiff penalties for noncompliance will stop such people from dismantling democratic norms. Most corrupt officials aren’t as garrulous as Ellis-Marseglia, but they are by no means “rare.” The Heritage Foundation maintains a database listing 1,560 adjudicated cases of election chicanery, more than 1,300 of which produced felony convictions. Many involved election officials engaged in large scale fraud. Thus, Republicans can’t afford to be complacent in the afterglow of 2024. Among the best reform proposals comes from a source that will surprise many conservatives. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has called on Congress to pass legislation as outlined in this statement from his office: Citizenship verification: Georgia has developed a seamless way to verify citizenship by working closely with the Department of Driver Services. Federal legislation should expand the tools available to states to verify U.S. citizenship of all voters and require this to be done for voters in federal elections. Photo ID: Citing Georgia’s success with photo ID requirements for all forms of voting, Raffensperger called for a similar standard in federal elections. He pointed to high voter turnout and widespread public support for such measures as evidence of their effectiveness. Ban Ballot Harvesting Nationwide: To safeguard against vote buying and inducement, Raffensperger proposed a nationwide ban on ballot harvesting, reinforcing the direct relationship between voters and the ballot box. Quick and Accurate Reporting of Results: All ballots should have to arrive by Election Day except for military and overseas voters, and results should be tabulated and reported quickly and accurately. Those results should then be audited to bolster confidence in election outcomes. Clean Voter Lists: Modernize the National Voter Registration Act to allow states to clean lists closer to elections as long as high-quality, accurate data is used. Raffensperger calls this “the Georgia Plan,” and its components are by no means controversial as far as the public is concerned. According to Gallup, for example, 83 percent of Americans believe proof of citizenship should be required from people registering to vote for the first time. Gallup also finds that 84 percent believe everyone should be required to provide photo identification at their polling place in order to vote. Inevitably, the Democrats vehemently oppose the voters on these common sense proposals. It isn’t hard to see why. As Elon Musk recently noted above a long list of nations that require people to provide identification when voting, “Those who oppose voter ID are doing so to commit fraud.” (READ MORE: How Democrat Lawfare Launched Trump’s Comeback) It is no coincidence that most of the states that Kamala Harris won in 2024 have weak or nonexistent voter ID laws. This is why the Republicans must get national election reform passed and signed into law before the end of 2026. Unless 2026 is a very unusual midterm election, the Democrats will flip enough seats to regain a majority in the House where they will extinguish all hope for common sense election reform. They will then exhume the “For the People Act” and try to convert the country into a one-party autocracy like California. This is not your father’s Democratic Party. They don’t believe in the constitutional Republic created by the framers and they will kill it unless the Republicans act now. 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