Every once in a while, someone calls for a new constitutional convention to fix the myriad problems people have with the existing Constitution. Do away with the Electoral College? Make the Senate more democratic? Allow for the criminalization of hate speech? End the right to keep and bear arms?

But what if that same convention decided to do away with the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and/or Eighth Amendments? It’s not that people hate constitutional rights, but that they hate the rights that enable others to do what they don’t want them to do, often under the same protections they hold dear for themselves. People are funny that way, being overwhelmingly clear that should the Constitution be changed, it will be to their benefit and not to the benefit of their adversaries. Silly people.

The New York Times indulges in the same fallacy when it criticizes California’s inability to count ballots in a reasonable and timely fashion, creating a cesspool for conspiracy theorists to fabricate claims of voter fraud, or “rigged elections” as the president calls all elections where he or his sycophants don’t win, and proffers a fix to the problem.

The solution can start with Congress establishing a national deadline of Election Day for the arrival of mail-in ballots, as 35 states already require. If that sounds strict, remember that a deadline is unavoidable. The only question is when it should be — Election Day or days later. The variety of state approaches over the past decade makes clear that a later deadline does not increase turnout or eliminate late ballots. Regardless of when the deadline is, a small fraction of people will miss it.

A federal election reform bill should also make it easier for people to vote in advance. It should set national standards for access to early voting and mail-in voting. Previous bills supported by Democrats — such as a 2022 bill named for John Lewis, which passed the House but failed in the Senate — contained these provisions. Colorado can serve as a model. It mails ballots to all eligible voters, offers several convenient ways to return them and requires nearly all ballots to arrive by Election Day. After Colorado adopted this system more than a decade ago, turnout rose and is substantially higher than California’s turnout.

If, as anticipated, the midterm Congress, or at least the House, will be majority Democratic, there is a possibility that the initial federal voting law will favor reforms along the lines of Colorado’s, although it will be subject to amendment, filibuster and veto, which would likely kill the bill or change it such that things like voter identification find their way in. And perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, given that voter identification, per se, is a very popular idea when stripped of the conditions that will turn it into a mechanism of legitimate voter suppression.

But has anyone on the Times’ Editorial Board heard of the SAVE Act, which The Donald so desperately desires his minions in Congress to enact?

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution states:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Constitution expressly permits Congress to stick its nose into the regulation of elections, which means that it’s almost certain that any federalized rules would be constitutional. Congress has always had the authority to craft the rules, subject to a minor exception for Senators. They can, in other words, swing the door wide open to reimagine elections to address the popular grievances of the day.

The New York Times assumes that only the rules it deems salutary will strut through that door. Oh, sweet summer newspaper.

Claims of voter fraud, of voting irregularities, know no party. In the past, they’ve been raised by both Dems and Reps, meaning that everybody would like to make a tweak to their own advantage at one time or another. Things like voter ID are hated by the far left as precluding some handful of people who can’t manage to get any sort of governmental picture ID, but strike the rest of the nation as basic, reasonable and a sensible way to end the threat of potential voter fraud, whether it’s real or imagined. Why not?

What will come of it? Where will it end? Who knows, but be very careful what you wish for because you might just get it. California’s voting process is ridiculous and unacceptably long, but either California can clean up its own mess or we can turn to Congress for a fix that’s quick, easy and very dangerous. The New York Times should be far more circumspect than calling for the easy fix that could result in a war over onerous voting regulations it might very well lose.