Do you REALLY want a fair election?

 There are two challenges that predominate today that make a "fair" election possible.  For the purposes of this discussion, define "fair" as

1. Truthful campaigning with the guaranteed right of an opponent to reply on the merits of a claim or accusation; and
2. the guarantee of honest and truthful preparation, submission, and counting of votes.

Not sure how number two can be accomplished with the current judicial climate.  One would be to go back to everyone voting on election day unless the individual would be out of his or her home town or out of the country and applied for an absentee ballot.  If applied to everyone, that would seem to be not only fair, but Constitutional.

Campaigning is a different matter, and that arguably could be solved quickly if the American people wanted to do exactly that.  Everyone is looking for an edge. Human nature doesn't ever reward or strive for "fairness," so acting as if it is, is duplicitous. Not sure if this would help the voter searching for truth, but how about:

• requiring every campaign advertisement to require also providing the opponent's answer or explanation. In print it would be on the same page as the original claim or accusation. In broadcast, it would follow immediately and be clearly labeled as the "official" reply.

• Have an independent research panel, subject to charges of perjury charges for errors, empowered to fact check each and every campaign ad, statement and reply for truthful accuracy, including a duplicitous parsing of sentences to appear to say one thing but not technically saying anything of the sort (a common practice in politics today). THAT sort of thing is lying by inviting assumptions on the part of the reader, listener, viewer. And make prosecution mandatory, not at the discretion of any prosecutor or Judge; an accusation leads to a trial, no excuses or way(s) out.

I suspect that would stop the "October Surprises" as well as the "Russian dossier" type fabrications. It would also cut the profits of news publications, stations and print shops, although each "job" would require double the space of the initial claim or accusation, so maybe it would even out.

Violations could escalate to make the rules effective: first violation would deserve a monetary fine, a second... elimination from a debate... a third, removal from the subject ballot.