Secretary of State Ken Detzner (R-FL) plans to investigate the state’s dysfunctional elections this year, which led to marathon lines and the rejection of countless legitimate votes. Detzner told the Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday that he will send a special team to investigate problems in 5 so-called “under-performing” counties over the next several days.

Among these “under-performing” counties is Miami-Dade, where some voters were still waiting to vote after midnight. The Secretary speculated the “multitude of issues” could range from a lack of early voting sites to excessively long ballots. Detzner suggested that the 62 other counties that had smoother elections “did it right” but stopped short of blaming the 5 that did not:

REPORTER: So what are the criteria that you are going to be using what is a high performing versus an under-performing county?
DETZNER: Well that’s a very general term, and I don’t want to get into specifics of under-performing. Long lines are unacceptable to the citizens of Florida. That’s one of the major issues we’re going to address.

Detzner has changed his tune since the election’s immediate aftermath, when he insisted that he had no regrets about the disastrous election and claimed that the long lines meant voters actually “liked the voting hours.” Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), who restricted early voting days and enacted other vote-suppressing legislation, also defended his election processes and telling reporters repeatedly that “we did the right thing.” Florida GOP members recently admitted that the new election laws were in fact intended to disenfranchise Democratic and minority voters.

As President Obama said in his victory speech, far too many Americans waited in line for a very long time to vote this year and “we have to fix that.” Similarly, the candidates bombarded key states like Ohio and Florida, while ignoring concerns unique to voters in California or Mississippi. Election officials dreamed up new and increasingly creative ways to disenfranchise voters. Courts wrestled with state officials who, at times, even openly defied orders seeking to protect the vote. And partisan gerrymandering gave Republicans a House majority they did not earn and that the voters did not want. Here are five basic reforms that can be enacted before 2016 to fix many of the problems experienced during this year’s election:

1) Abolish The Electoral College

In a modern Democracy, there is simply no way to defend what happened in 2000, when the candidate rejected by the American people nonetheless became their president — albeit with an assist from five Supreme Court justices. Add to this the fact that the Electoral College offers copious opportunities for election rigging — such as Gov. Tom Corbett’s (R-PA) plan to give most of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to Romney no matter who won the state — or the possibility that some of the 538 people chosen as members of the Electoral College could give their votes to someone other than the winner of their state, and this relic from more than 200 years ago becomes completely bonkers.

Additionally, while voters in Ohio were undoubtedly sick of the parade of political advertisements that hit their state this election cycle, there is a very real advantage to being from a swing state — presidential candidates have an extra reason to listen to your concerns and will potentially make campaign promises that benefit your state. The flip side of this is that major cities like Chicago, New York or Los Angeles, the deep south (including many African-American population centers) and much of the Great Plains do not enjoy this same access to the next president. The President of the United States should be the president of all the United States, and a voter in Harlem should have the same opportunity to make their case to a presidential candidate as a voter in Pensacola.

Most importantly, however, the President of the United States should be the person that most Americans want to be President of the United States. The way to make this happen is to abolish (or at least, make irrelevant) the Electoral College, either through constitutional amendment or through the National Popular Vote compact.

2) Abolish Partisan Election Officials

As if Katherine Harris did not make this point perfectly clear in 2000, partisan state election officials proved over and over again in 2012 that neither party should be in control of collecting and counting votes. Yet this year brought Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s war on early voting, attempted voter purges in Florida, Colorado and Iowa, and top election officials touting laws that do little more than keep minorities, low-income and student voters from the polls.

A better alternative is the Wisconsin plan, where a nonpartisan Government Accountability Board made up of retired judges runs elections, not partisan officials beholden to a political party.

3) Eliminate Partisan Gerrymandering

Based on early vote totals, which admittedly could change before the final tallies are available, voters cast over half a million more votes for a Democratic House candidate than for a Republican House candidate in 2012. Yet Republicans will control the House largely due to the kind of partisan gerrymandering that allows President Obama to carry the state of Ohio, but Democrats to only carry a quarter of its House districts. This is both unacceptable and unconstitutional.

There are many proposals for how to end partisan gerrymandering, which range from non-partisan redistricting commissions to judge-drawn districts to proportional representation. One thing is clear, however, a system that allows one party to seize control of the House for up to a decade simply because it wins in a redistricting year has to go.

4) Allow All Voters To Register On Election Day

Same day registration is the law in Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, and it will soon be implemented in California as well. This basic reform can boost turnout by as much as 7 percent, and it should be the law nationwide. Congress could make it so tomorrow, at least with respect to Congressional elections, because the Constitution permits the United States to “at any time by law make or alter” a state’s election law.

5) Ensure Adequate Early Voting In All States

It should go without saying that when voters have to wait six hours or more in line to exercise their most fundamental right, that their state failed to provide them with adequate opportunities to exercise the franchise. Yet lawmakers and election officials in the key states of Ohio and Florida fought tooth and nail to cut the number of days when voters could cast an early ballot. Their electorates paid for it this year with unacceptably long lines — the kind that actively discourage people from waiting to cast a ballot. This performance must not be repeated in 2016.

In an interview with CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield earlier today, Florida’s Republican Secretary of State Rick Detzner tried to defend his states dysfunctional election process, which led voters waiting up to six hours in line just to cast their vote. Indeed, as Banfield told Detzner, she spoke to many voters who “tried twice to vote early,” but had to abandon those attempts due to long lines, only to wait another three hours to vote on election day. Yet Detzner appeared completely without remorse for the widespread barriers to voting he presided over.

In what was perhaps the most significant exchange, Banfield asked whether Detzner regrets a Florida law rolling back the number of days when voters could cast an early ballot. Detzner was unremorseful:

BANFIELD: Look, you all decided, with a Republican legislature to cut the early voting days from 14 to 8. For whatever reason you did that, do you regret making that choice, so that all of those people who didn’t get to the polls early stuck themselves in line and wound up waiting so long that many people walked away and were disenfranchised?

DETZNER: Well, let me point out that, while the days were cut, the number of hours were not. We still maintained 96 hours of voting, and it created greater flexibility for the supervisors. Uh, for the first time ever voters could vote during the day for 12 hours during the day, and I can tell you I heard feedback from voters going into election day that they liked the opportunity to vote either in the morning before work or after work. And frankly, I think the turnout is a good representation of the fact that people liked the voting hours and the flexibility that the supervisors had.

Watch it:

There is something truly absurd about Detzner’s claim that the fact that people did not decide to give up their most fundamental right somehow reflects their satisfaction with a massive failure of governance. It should go without saying that when someone has to wait six hours to cast a ballot, their government failed them, and no amount of spin can defend a decision not to make more opportunities to vote available. As Florida’s former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist said last Sunday, Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) refusal to extend early voting is “unconscionable” and “the only thing that makes any sense as to why this is happening and being done is voter suppression.”

Crist is almost undoubtedly correct. The Obama campaign made early voting a key prong of their turnout strategy, and many low-income voters who tend to vote Democratic are disenfranchised without early voting because they lack the job flexibility to cast a ballot on election day.

DAYTON, Ohio — “Today is the first day in the last seven that I’ve been outside,” David Ellis, a heavy-set African American man, told me as he waited at the back of the line in Springfield to vote. Ellis had just been released from the hospital earlier that day following major surgery. “I can’t stand out here long,” he said as he leaned on his black cane.

What if there weren’t early voting on Monday, I asked.

“I would’ve been a no-vote,” Ellis said, letting out a hearty chuckle.

Whether he knew it or not, Ellis came within a hair’s breadth of being a no-vote. For the past few months, Secretary of State Jon Husted has fought to eliminate the final three days of early voting in Ohio. His efforts were mostly blocked by a federal appeals court, but Husted succeeded in restricting voting hours on those final days leading up to November 6th. In total, 1.6 million Ohioans had voted early through Sunday, but because of the limited hours (Sunday voting was just 1-5pm), extremely long lines were commonplace.

ThinkProgress traveled around southwest Ohio Monday, when voters were allowed to cast ballots from 8am to 2pm, to speak with people waiting in line at early polling locations.

Voters in line at the 1.5-hour wait mark in Greene County

“I got work tomorrow,” explained Rob, who’s employed at a marketing firm in Cincinnati, at the early voting center in Greene County. He wasn’t sure if his boss would have allowed him time off to vote tomorrow, considering the hour-long commute between work and his polling station. “I might not have been able to vote without Monday voting,” he said.

However, the shortened early voting hours brought about long lines. In Greene County, the line stretched approximately two hours this morning. One older gentleman was forced to leave after standing in line for 20 minutes. “Too long a wait and I got a bad hip,” he explained as he limped back to his car. He hoped he would be able to make it out on Tuesday, but wasn’t sure.

Still, some took the long lines in good cheer. “A little line never hurt nobody!” offered Shirley Martin, a middle-aged woman from nearby Yellow Springs.

In Clark County, home to Springfield, a minority-heavy city decimated by the decades-long decline in manufacturing jobs, the line stretched to 150 long around 11am.

So many voters showed up on the final day of early voting in Clark County that the line snaked outside and down the sidewalk

I approached Joe Crowell, one of the few white men standing in line, and asked why he’d chosen today to cast his ballot. “I drive a truck and took the day off,” he said as he cradled his Big Gulp, “otherwise I could’ve been sent to Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or wherever tomorrow.” If he’d waited another day for Election Day, he would’ve lost $300 in pay.

His response was echoed by voter after voter throughout the day. Sarah, who works 11-hour days at the Elks Lodge, had Monday off but not Tuesday, as did Felicia, a phlebotomist at the nearby hospital in Springfield. Some, including Curtese Hunter, who works two jobs at Sinclair Community College, said they would’ve still done their best to show up on Tuesday had Monday voting not been an option, but were relieved not to have to choose between their paycheck and their civic duty.

The longest line of the day, unsurprisingly, was in Dayton, where 150 people stood in the parking garage alone, waiting to join the voting line inside.

The voting line in Montgomery County was so long that it snaked out through the parking garage

A young couple, Cynthia Develvis and Brian Latimer, arrived at 1:50pm with their seven-week-old baby girl in tow. “We both had work off today and hoped to avoid the long lines and as much noise for her sake,” Develvis explained, motioning to her daughter. They were understandably disappointed to be waiting in line 10 feet from where they’d parked their car.

Despite the long lines, poll workers did an exceptional job of keeping it moving and taking other steps to make the process as smooth as possible. As she passed out water bottles to voters in line, one worker in Dayton said that all employees had been instructed to move their cars out of the garage in order to open up more spaces, which were already scarce, for voters.

Because of the restricted early voting hours that Husted succeeded in implementing, more than 30 voters were turned away from the polls after arriving too late. One elderly African American couple who arrived a few minutes past 2pm were disheartened after being told they couldn’t vote today. “We couldn’t find a parking space!” the wife explained, to no avail.

The final voter in Montgomery County was Kysiah, a young African American woman who owned her own company and made it in line five seconds before the 2pm cutoff. Tomorrow is very busy, she explained, relieved to have made it in at the nick of time today. “This is my business day to handle all my business,” she said. One hour and approximately 250 voters later, Kysiah cast her ballot at 3:03pm.

Whether because of work constraints, school constraints, or other factors, voters across southwest Ohio were glad to have the opportunity to vote Monday. Even if it meant long lines, many reasoned that they would pale in comparison to what was to come on Tuesday. Few were aware of Husted’s push to roll back early voting, which would have prevented them from casting their ballot today; most, like Ellis, couldn’t believe that one of their elected officials would try to cut the number of voting days.

Still, despite being just hours out of the hospital, his was the face of determination. “As long as I’ve got an ounce of strength in me, I’m going to get out and vote.”

During his keynote speech at an election law symposium at University of Toledo on Friday, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) claimed two recent court decisions restoring early voting on the last three days before the election was “un-American.”

Husted has sought to restrict early voting, even openly defying a court order to lift the ban on voting on the last three days before Election Day. Once the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, Husted immediately capped voting hours at just 16 hours for the entire three day period, down from 24 hours in 2008.

At the UT symposium, Husted continued his revolt against the federal courts that restored early voting. The Toledo Blade reports:

Mr. Husted spoke of a recent federal court decision that he claimed intruded on Ohio’s ability to run its own elections and called it an “un-American approach to voting” — an opinion not shared by many who attended the symposium.

“It’s the job of the federal courts to enforce the Constitution; that includes the right to vote,” said Daniel Tokaji, a professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law who was a panelist at the symposium, after the secretary’s comments. “…We should be doing everything we can to improve access to eligible voters.”

Husted asserted that every vote would be counted fairly and accurately, saying that voting in Ohio is “easy” and “anybody who says that there are residents in Ohio being barred from the right to vote is irresponsible.” Husted has certainly had to contend with many such “irresponsible” people. Though the court restored this three day period of voting, Husted has still prevented Ohioans from voting on evenings or weekends throughout October. He also recently limited the ways election boards can contact voters to clear up errors in their absentee ballots.

Two federal courts said that the Ohio Republican Party’s effort to reduce opportunities to vote early must not go into effect. And the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Ohio Republican officials to reinstate a GOP-backed law taking away three days of early voting just this week.

Yet despite multiple court defeats, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted is determined to restrict early voting as much as he can get away with. Indeed, Husted openly defied the first court order blocking the Republican restrictions on early voting, although he eventually backed down after a federal judge ordered him to appear in court personally to explain himself. Now, just two days after the conservative Roberts Court turned away Husted’s bid to reinstate the anti-voter law, he is still finding new ways to cut back early voting:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted swiftly limited early voting hours on those crucial three days to 8 am–2 pm on Saturday, November 3; 1–5 pm on Sunday, November 4; and 8 am–2 pm on Monday, November 5. That means Ohio voters will have a total of only sixteen hours to cast a ballot during those three days. And before the weekend before the election, Ohio voters will still not be able to cast a ballot in-person on nights or weekends.

In 2008, the most populous counties in Ohio allowed more time for early voting—both in terms of days (thirty-five) and hours (on nights and weekends in many places). For the three days before the election, early voting locations were open for a total of twenty-four hours in Columbus’s Franklin County (8-5 on Saturday, 1-5 on Sunday and 8-7 on Monday) and 18 and a half hours in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County (9-1 on Saturday, 1-5 on Sunday, 8:30-7 pm on Monday). During those final three pre-election days in 2008, 148,000 votes were cast and “wait times stretched 2 1/2 hours,” reported the Columbus Dispatch.

There is a simple explanation for why Ohio Republicans are so determined to cut back early voting. Early voters are more likely to be minorities and are more likely to have lower incomes. They are also much less likely to have jobs that give them the flexibility to take time off to vote on election day. According to a recent Ohio poll, President Obama leads 57 percent to 38 percent among people who already voted, but is tied at 43 percent with Mitt Romney among likely voters who have yet to cast their ballot.