Voting is fundamental to our system of democracy. It is through our votes that we pass initiatives that shape our laws. It is through our votes that we elect people to the halls of government. Without the ability to voice our political desires, democracy does not exist. But, as with so many other facets of our political and social reality, the practice of voting, and of counting the votes, has become an exercise in the ridiculous as voter apathy and party corruption distort the outcome, leaving the average citizen less represented than ever before. The title of this essay, Fixing the Vote, is an intentional double entendre, for it most aptly describes both problems of apathy and corruption while admitting that something must be done.
For many of us, voting as a concept is instilled early in our lives through student council elections. We experience our first campaign slogans, often just clever rhymes, and encounter our first campaign smears, often just childish retorts. We learn the concept of selecting someone to “represent” our class interests, but since as school children we really have few pressing political goals, class elections inevitably turn into individual popularity contests, with the outcome being of little consequence, except for bragging rights to the winners. While this may expose us to the fundamental mechanics of voting, it also creates an impression of what politics in the adult world will be like, and the seriousness of the whole system is lost. Perhaps this kind of political indoctrination is part and parcel to some grand scheme to keep political (and therefore, practical) power concentrated in the hands of the elite classes, perhaps it is just a reflection of what our real life politics have become. Regardless, the result is the same: large numbers of adults eschewing politics and voting because it seems pointless or unimportant in the big picture of life.
The result is predictable: elected officials are selected by a minority of eligible voters and supported by corporations and unions and special interests. As fewer voters participate in elections, politicians become less accountable to their supposed constituents and spend more and more time currying favor with their money mills, passing favorable legislation for their corporate cronies and filling non-elected positions with their sycophant fund raising hacks. The common voter, seeing the corruption sitting at the table of power, loses even more confidence in “the system” and opts out of future elections. As elected officials come from a narrower and narrower sampling of society, they tighten the rules of admission, effectively keeping out those same people who are frustrated with the way things are, leaving fewer options for real change available at the ballot box. The whole circle becomes a vicious feeding frenzy, engorging itself on its own rotten fruit.
What then can we do to change the way things are? The problems of voter apathy, voter disenfranchisement, and political funding must be taken on squarely and addressed with Common Sense solutions. Each must be reformed for the whole to be repaired and for the people of this country to reclaim for themselves real representation in the halls of government, from the smallest towns to Washington, D.C.
Ending Voter Apathy In 2004, 58.3% of eligible voters cast ballots in the national election. In most local and state elections, the percentage was even lower. While this represents an increase from the 51.3% who voted in the 2000 elections, since 1976, the year of our national bicentennial, the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots surpassed 60% only one time- in 1992, when 61.3% voted. Even if all other problems with our voting process were removed, at least 40% of voting age adults in this country do not take the time to make their voices heard. The number one reason for not voting (at nearly 21% of respondents) was because people were “too busy.” Another 20% either didn’t like the candidates they had to choose from or felt their vote would make no difference. In fact, legitimate excuses such as illness, lack of transportation, and inclement weather together only account for 18% of excuses for not voting.
Ending voter apathy clearly will be tough work, but a little creative thinking could reinvigorate the average person to hit the polls, especially if they know that by doing so, they are helping themselves. And in our ever-quickening pace of life, with its increased productivity expectations, making elections a priority has got to be given higher visibility. We should start by making election days official holidays, with half-pay for all employed voters, and free refreshments for everyone. With the exception of medical and emergency personnel, all retail, service, and manufacturing activities would grind to a halt on elections days, encouraging citizens to participate in the running of their lives and deflecting the “too busy” excuse. We can sweeten the pot even more by instituting an election lottery. Create a lottery system that guarantees at least one winner in each state a substantial financial reward for participating in elective democracy, and multiple smaller awards for state and local elections. (The money to pay these awards could be culled from tax receipts earmarked for electoral expenditures.) These two measures alone could draw back many of the so-called “disenfranchised” voters by appealing to their “me” centers. You could further induce voting by adding a “stick” to the “carrot” approach, essentially fining any eligible voter who doesn’t vote. Combined with the reward possibilities, voting would begin to look less and less problematic.
Increasing the number of voter’s casting votes is the first step towards fixing the vote. As larger numbers of people make their voices heard, it becomes increasingly difficult for politicians to claim mandates for their programs that may not exist. It becomes harder to shun accountability when more of the public is engaged in the system. But increasing the number of voters alone doesn’t guarantee a better system. Eventually, those people who always vote and never win the election lottery will need to satisfy their own “me” centers, which is where voter disenfranchisement (and early education about civic responsibility) comes in to play.
Voter Disenfranchisement The way the system works now, by the time an election day rolls around, the choice of candidates is extremely narrow. Through a system of awkward primaries that exclude all but the majority party candidates through a concerted lack of exposure by the media and the electoral commissions, voters often feel as if the only real choices available are not representative of their own political and social goals, and decline to vote at all. The effects of this practice alienate voters and exclude a potentially large body of candidates from getting a chance at all. To the political parties and their poster children, this system has guaranteed a perpetual sew-saw struggle of pathetic proportions, but the reins of power are certain to remain within their spheres of influence, so they prefer the status quo of low turn-out and limited candidate eligibility.
Again, a little imagination could offer a solution to this problem. The primary system should include an independent (or non-affiliated) election primary as well as the organized party primaries, with the top two or three non-affiliated candidates getting a place on the final ballot as well as equal exposure. These “all-comer” candidates could offer viable alternatives to the present cadre of politicians, many of whom would be needed to really get down to the business of creating change.
Disenfranchisement also addresses the problems of voter registration and convenient polling stations. While only 9.5% of non-voters listed these as reasons for abstaining, that still represents several million people who need to be casting their
votes. To erase the problems with voter registration, we should move to an automatic registration program, perhaps using biometric indicators and Social Security numbers to get every person in the voter rolls. If it were a biometric indicator, like fingerprint or retina or DNA, the information could be gathered upon birth, stored in an encrypted data base until one achieved voting age, and then registered with the appropriate state and local jurisdictions automatically at the appropriate time. Upon voting, one would simply match their bio data to that in the record, and proceed to the ballot. Through the Social Security system automatic registrations based on the address of ones job could help establish proper jurisdiction for allocating ones vote. And while the debut of computer or online voting has so far been fraught with claims (both documented and undocumented) of fraud and abuse, the problems of poll convenience could be eliminated through a digital voting system, albeit one with stringent security mechanisms, tangible voting records and receipts (necessary anyhow, for the lottery enticement), automatic count verification, and total transparency.
Political funding is the third leg of reform with regards to fixing the vote, and it deserves an essay all on its own, because it includes reforming how we fund campaigns, how we learn about our candidates, and how we verify that votes are valid. I hope you will join me again as I explore more solutions that will give government back to the citizens.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2005 at 6:49 am and is filed under Common Sense, Democracy, Government, Politics, Reform.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Opinion surveys consistently that the majority of Americans cannot name their congressional representatives and senators.
Yes, this is apathy. Clearly,these people have better things to do.
But how exactly does it serve the country to have them voting?
That is an important question, Ken. Is because you feel these dummies will invariably vote Democrat? What does that say?
I would argue that they have tuned out because things aren’t bad enough for them to care. After every election, the police still work and their jobs and roads are still there, so they don’t really expend the effort to watch the news.
I agree its pathetic, but hey, that’s freedom.
You have a right to a vote in the same way you have a right to a gun…
But just because you have right to a gun doesn’t mean everyone should should have one.
In fact, the fact that most people don’t have guns says something good about our society: most people trust the police to provide security.
When I recently moved to my new house, I recused myself from voting for local school board officials because I didn’t know anything about them.
I wish others would do the same.
The guy that wants to vote for Bush because he is a Texas Rangers fan: stay away! The woman who wants vote for Gore because the way he kissed Tipper was so romantic: stay home on election day!
But surely someone who opposes “voter apathy” must certainly support ending district gerrymandering in CA and Texas (and most states)?
Right?
In CA, you have a state that recently had elections to its statehouse, and not a single seat changed hands because the party in power drew its own districts.
That is a recipe for “voter apathy.” A bad kind of voter apathy – exactly the kind you talk about here.
Am I right, Ken?
September 27th, 2005 at 5:46 pm
Ken,
Another thoughtful essay. No need to explain the double entendre. I thought it appropos.
Indeed, to fix the vote, we have a multi-layered problem. Part of the issue is also that there are no candidates that reflect those who purposefully don’t vote. That is, if I don’t have anyone who looks like me or I feel like can represent me, then why should I vote?
This is a bit of a chicken and an egg question. If there are no good candidates, then I won’t vote, but if I don’t vote, why would any good candidates run?
A few other thoughts I have are thus – if we can give all registered citizens a social security number, what prevents us from simultaneously allowing them to vote upon their 18th birthday?
Moreover, we could actually allow all registered drivers the opporutnity to register to vote as a matter of checking a couple of blocks on their license application. Yes, this would mean that 16 year olds could get the vote as well, but if they are old enough to drive a car, I think I could trust them to vote – hell, why not?
On another tact, if you want to encourage voter turn out, why don’t we make the actual federal voting day (that could coincide with major local votes) a National Holiday – automatically giving people a day off would mean that folks wouldn’t have to juggle their work schedules to make their way to the polls.
Lastly, if we can allow folks to coordinate and vote in corporate share holder elections effectively, why can’t we do the same kind of electronic voting (from your home, library, or school) on line. This would remove the hassle of voting at polling stations (avoiding lines, shceduling conflicts, etc…) and put the actual voting control so close to the voter, it would behoove them to vote.
Anyway – thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter. Look forward to the dialog in the comment section as well.
September 27th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
Hi Ken,
Sorry I haven’t been commenting as much, but between my site, The Impeach Bush Coalition, Blogcritics and Blogtemps I haven’t had as much time to read and post.
I’m afraid you are just scratching the surface on this one. Having worked in politics on the election side and having been a co-designer in a Yale University GOTV study, I think the roots of our election quagmire go to the point that i really think we need a compete overhaul of the system.
If we are still claiming to have a participatory democracy then we need to get rid all the barriers to entry both for politicians and voters.
For voters – voting needs to be easy. I agree that a national holiday would help, but even then, most people don’t want the hassle of standing in endless lines and dealing with all that. An electronic system with special encoding might be developed so that people could vote online would be ideal – there could still be polling places, but this would allow folks to vote from anywhere – thus no absentee ballots for overseas and invalids etc. – everyone could easily participate. we could see upwards to 75% or more. Everyone could be pre-qualified – certainly if credit companies and drivers license places can pre-qualify you then so can the voter registration people.
From the Politician standpoint, one of the reason’s we are in the place we are in is because of the election system – it’s all big money right now, which means that only well connected people can even get in the game – and well connected usually means beholden to anyone. The only true way to go would be to level the playing field so that there was NO outside money and everyone had the same budget and the same advertising time – thus the would be no soft money, no hard money and no contributions of any kind.
If everyone was pre-budgeted then anyone could run and have a fair shake.
Lastly, I think we would need to do away with the electorate system and allow votes to be votes by district so that there was no winning of states, you actually had to get the most votes.
And finally people in this country are so woefully uneducated, especially about their leaders that some form of educational system should be in place otherwise we shouldn’t be having the American people electing anyone and we should have qualified people selecting candidates and not bother with the “people”
That’s my long winded thoughts.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
“Fixing the Vote, is an intentional double entendre, for it most aptly describes both problems of apathy and corruption while admitting that something must be done.”
I got my cat Fixed, and look what it did to him! 😉 That more describes how I felt on Nov 4th..
September 29th, 2005 at 12:39 am
This makes more sense than almost anything else I have read.
I think I might totally agree with you, and it’s rare that I will totally agree with anything.
September 29th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Does not seem to matter who we elect they all loose interest in voters once they get elected.
September 30th, 2005 at 4:15 am
indonesia has 80% voter, if you like to know
September 30th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
(responses)
John- The country is served by active participation of its citizens through voting because they are taking part, giving back, being involved. More involvement leads to less divisiveness overall, at least so far as people can say that they have beenheard. It would diminish the effect of naysayers and complainers and return a modicum of participatory society.
I don’t care if people vote democrat or republican, though i would prefer they vote not along party lines at all, but rather for those who they feel will truly serve with honesty and integrity. Personally, I have no allegiance to a political party per se.
I would say they have tuned out not because things aren’t bad enough, but because they haven’t been engaged and the crop of pols are thieves and liars (metaphorically and actually.)
And while being new to an area may be an excuse to preclude oneself from voting, its an excuse, nonetheless. To say people who know little about a candidate just shouldn’t vote excuses the apathy that leads them to know so little. I would rather they spend a little time learning instead of not voting at all.
And yes, I do support an end to gerrymandering and redistricting and will probably vote for the reform plan on the California ballot that puts district writing out of the hands of politicians. That practice has led to a great decrease in election viability for outsiders.
Thanks for the comments John.
Windspike- I agree that opening up the candidate process is vital to ending apathy, and it is tricky, but the funding reforms I’ll talk about may have some ideas to help alleviate this problem.
And yes, we could create, manage, and keep inviolate an electronic system if we put our minds to it.
Thanks for stopping by, as always.
Rudicus- I can’t argue with much of what you say, only that you seem to get it. I will be discussing funding reforms in the next essay. Hope to hear from you again.
Chandira- Ouch! Glad I’m not the cat!
MJ-Thanks for letting me know! Hope to hear from you again.
Jill- And that is another reason why we need to open the field and remove the money. Stay tuned…we may find a way to change in spite of it all.
Eko- Sound like their system is more “democratic” than ours, if one measures the amount of public participation as a factor for determining self- rule. (Of course, Indonesia has its problems too…)
October 2nd, 2005 at 2:31 am
Late coming in on this, but you touch on one thing that is significant, I think. That is, the partisan voting thing. If one of the main contributors to voter apathy or disenfranchisement is the quality of the candidate, then a contributing problem is also that the voters are well aware that their vote is not really for a candidate, but for a party platform which is established entirely outside the voters’ control. The politicians are more often just telegenic figureheads, while the real Machiavellian machinations occur behind the scenes, and few of us are privy to that information.