We’ve probably never seen so much commotion over voting itself, especially among Republicans.

Showing solidarity with their party brethren all over the country, New Jersey Republicans came out today with a plan to improve elections in the state.

The first sentence set the tone:

“In a year of unprecedented political occurrences, many of the normally unnoticed failures of our election system were laid bare.”

But that sentence also raises a problem.

Just what were these “unnoticed failures?”

The facts are clear. About 4.6 million New Jersey residents voted last Nov. 3. That was a record-setting turnout.

It stands to reason from any objective perspective that if more people than ever before are voting, where’s the failure? “Unnoticed” indeed.

Of course, this has nothing to do with numbers. As stated, the Republican narrative across the country is that the 2020 election was marked by pervasive fraud.

So, from a purely political vantage point, one can’t blame the state GOP for getting involved by forming an Election Improvement Committee.

And in truth, many of the suggestions make sense.

They include overhauling the registration system to more efficiently remove voters who have moved or died, automatic recounts if candidates are separated by 0.5 percentage points or less, upgrading the “Track My Ballot” website, beefing up the staff of county boards of election, setting statewide standards for “drop boxes” and a special website for voters to report “irregularities.”

At the same time, some of the suggestions veer off into the lanes of politics. The report reiterates long standing Republican opposition to universal voting by mail and support for voter ID cards. There’s also a rather jingoistic proposal that all election equipment be American-made by companies owned by Americans.

Generally speaking, the problem here may be that there is no real problem.

The 2020 election was different not because of a sinister conspiracy, but because of the pandemic. That’s why every voter was mailed a ballot. Even with that, voters had the right to cast a ballot in-person on Election Day. These were technically, “provisional” ballots, but that didn’t mean they weren’t counted.

Going forward, the signs seem to be that in-person voting will be back by next fall at the latest. That can render moot concerns by some about people being “forced” to vote via mail.

The report ends with an observation that “tens of thousands of votes cast throughout New Jersey were rejected (last) year.”

State data says that about 60,000 ballots were disqualified for a variety of reasons, including signatures that didn’t match the registration rolls, or no signature at all.

Two things come to mind.

That number seems huge, but 60,000 in context of 4.6 million votes cast is actually a pretty small number. It’s not even 2 percent.

Moreover, if 60,000 “illegal” votes were not counted, isn’t that evidence the system is working?

The report concludes that implementing these recommendations will enhance voters’ confidence in New Jersey elections. Few serious people would disagree with a need for voters’ confidence.

But the cynical will wonder if the Republicans’ main election gripe is that they didn’t like some of the results.