Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Proposes Four Restrictive Changes To U.S. Elections
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Sunday, Aug. 27, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy detailed four sweeping changes to elections on NBC’s Meet the Press. In responding as to whether or not he would have certified the election on Jan. 6, 2021, Ramaswamy argued that these changes — which include establishing Election Day as a national holiday, implementing single-day voting, mandating that voters use paper ballots and enforcing voter ID requirements nationwide — are necessary for elections to be secure and for a peaceful transfer of power.
The changes, however, would have a negative impact on millions of Americans:
- Election Day as a National Holiday: The majority of Americans are not entitled to time off on federal holidays and, currently, only 29 states and Washington, D.C. require employers to give employees time off to vote in general elections. Only 23 of those states require that time off to be paid.
- Single-Day Voting: Of the more than 159 million votes cast in 2020, 70% of those ballots were cast early or by mail. That’s over 111 million votes that wouldn’t be counted under Ramaswamy’s mandate.
- Voting on Paper Ballots Only: The majority of states have already transitioned to paper ballots. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 93% of the ballots cast in 2020 had a paper record.
- Government-issued voter ID matched to the voter file: In 2020, nearly 29 million voting-age U.S. citizens did not have a valid driver’s license, the most common form of photo ID used to fulfill voting requirements.
The 38-year-old businessman, who has only voted in two presidential elections despite being eligible for the last 20 years, admitted in the NBC interview that he voted by mail in 2020, something that his own policy proposal would have prohibited.