For more than 230 years, the electoral system of the United States of America has worked pretty much as designed. And for much of that time, Americans have gone to the polls on the first Tuesday of every fourth November to cast their ballots (or entrusted their vote to the United States Postal Service)—in spite of war, plague or internal strife.

Last week, the current occupant of the White House suggested we should change all that. In a Twitter message (because, apparently, that’s how government business is handled nowadays), Donald Trump floated the idea of holding off the 2020 presidential election due to concerns (with no empirical evidence to back up his claim) that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” Trump tw...