One Nation, One Election: Why The Promise Doesn’t Add Up

The High-Level Committee on “One Nation, One Election” (ONOE) has endorsed the idea. A reading of the report suggests the committee reduced its terms of reference to a simple question: Do the Constitution or our laws disallow it? The answer: They don’t.

So, let’s go ahead and do it.
That sounds neat, but it’s also a very narrow way of looking at the matter. Constitutions and laws are supposed to set boundaries of what is possible, not substitute for defining what is desirable. By focusing largely on legal permissibility, the committee failed to sufficiently weigh the broader economic, political, and federal costs of such a sweeping change.