15 years ago, a landmark report by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission, advised all U.S. states that in order to guarantee free and fair elections, they should:

• increase voter ID requirements;
• minimize the use of mail-in ballots, which “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud”;
• disallow ballot harvesting by third parties;
• purge voter rolls of all ineligible or fraudulent names; allow election observers to monitor ballot-counting processes without restraint or obstruction;
• ensure that voting machines are accurate in their tabulations;
• encourage news organizations to “delay the release of any exit-poll data until the election has been decided.”

All of these recommendations were widely ignored in the elections of November 2020.