Jeff Jacoby. A sample:
Are some citizens so uninterested in political affairs that they won’t bother to cast a ballot unless they can do it from their living room couch, or are given a month-and-a-half to get around to it? Yes. But what is gained from encouraging such lazy or apathetic people to vote?
Why can’t we bring back poll-tests?
You want whiny? Here’s your whiny for you:
I can’t believe I am agreeing with Jeff Jacoby, but based on the bit you quoted here, I am. What is gained by encouraging lazy, apathetic, uninformed people to vote? I am not suggesting that anything should be done to stop them or even discourage them from voting, but isn’t it better to have a smaller turnout by people who care enough to inform themselves, think carefully about their decisions, and vote according to that?
If I don’t know enough about or understand an issue or a set of candidates, I leave that part of my ballot blank rather than make an arbitrary, uninformed vote. I’d far prefer to see people stay home if they can’t be bothered to care or know about what they are voting for.
I find myself in the same unpleasant position. The slick marketing of voting, enhanced by drive-by “convenience”, brings the rite of democratic elections down yet further toward the significance of American Idol or an Internet poll or email petitions. Democracy was won through enormous struggle and sacrifice. I have to wonder how well it can survive when it’s reduced to equivalency with choosing which potato peeler to buy from Amazon.
Early voting has been bothering me throughout this election cycle, even though it may happen to favor Obama this time around. It enables even more voting without information. It degrades the significance of voting as a democratic rite and right. The mail-in variation destroys the hard-won principle of the secret ballot, grossly encouraging the age-old evils of vote-buying and intimidation.
I can’t see what good comes of degrading the fundamental ritual of democracy down to the level of buying a big mac. We do not respect what comes easy or cheap. I think we need to quit marketing and concentrate on making sure the right to vote is a reality for everybody — that’s the failure point in our system. It matters that everybody can vote. It matters just as much that voting remain something worth making an effort for.
Fortunately, my solution is something Jacobs would probably hysterically oppose: making election day a national holiday, say the last Wednesday in October or something. The real problem with voting now is that workers at the bottom of the pyramid are pressured not to take the time to vote. A holiday, with mandatory closing of all but essential businesses, would fix that while it restores the sacred trust that the right and privilege of voting was always supposed to be.
I agree with you, except on one point. As a postal worker, I assure you that your mailed-in absentee ballot is scrupulously handled by the USPS. As a former Judge of Elections, let me go through the procedure once it is delivered. In Illinois, the absentee ballots are sent unopened to your local precinct. After the polls close, a check is made to see if you also came in. If you did, the ballot envelope is marked “Voted in Person” and sent unopened to storage with the other ballots. If you didn’t vote in person, the envelope is opened, and the contents are placed in the ballot box without anyone looking at it. Really, no one looks at the handful of absentee ballots. Besides, being illegal, everyone is exhausted and in a hurry to get the damn things counted and then go home.
In Illinois, we have early voting but BY SEQUOIA MACHINE ONLY! Trust the US Mail, not some hackable voting machine.
Regarding the holiday, I believe most of Europe votes on Sunday afternoon. Precincts are small enough that the long lines are avoided. Of course, here in the USA, the Sarah Palins want you to spend all day Sunday in Church.
Bullshit! Some of us are disabled. Some of us have no cars. Some of us are elderly.
Some of us are students, living on campus. Some of us are business travelers or people on-call 24 hours. Some of us are parents juggling jobs and kids with only a tight window for voting. Some of us live in places where blizzards make driving or walking outdoors dangerous.
California usually has a long list of propositions, and there are probably other states where people might want to think about bond issues or school board members. It isn’t just the top of the ticket, but choices and decisions all the way down. That takes time.
Mail-in ballots can be verified with an address and signature check. If there are a bunch of names from one address, a check can be made to see if it is a frat house or senior center or whatever. Mail-in ballots usually arrive early enough to get the checking out of the way before election day, and even afterward there is a period of time before the tally is certified. In places with hackable machines (such as California), the paper mail-in ballot provides a backup.
Do you want to disenfranchise everybody except the chauffered rich and sunbelt dwellers? (If it takes McCain 9 cars to go to Starbuck’s for a morning coffee, how many are required to escort him to the polls?!?)
The circumstances I mention (elderly, disabled, student, etc.) apply to Republicans and Libertarians and Greenies as well as Democrats. Snow falls on everyone. So does old age.
Yet, we all have the Right to Vote.
My vote-by-mail ballot arrived 2 days ago. đŸ™‚
I believe the fact that a name and address is associated with a mail-in ballot is one of the arguments against the system.
WRT taking ones time deciding: do Californians not get sample ballots before election day? The voting booth is not a place to make your decisions, it’s a place to record your choice.
Well, in 2004, my 80-something parents stood for 2 hours in a line that stretched around the block. Fortunately, it didn’t rain.
I started a fuss that resulted in redrawn precincts, but in 2006, my parents went to the polling place on their voter ID cards, two blocks from their house, and were told they had to vote at a place on the opposite side of the township, about 20 minutes. My father: “At the price of gas today, that amounts to a poll tax. That’s illegal!”
I don’t know what kind of obstacles they’ll face this year. My mother’s been frail lately. I, and they, surely do wish they could vote by mail.
Most places you can vote by mail. You just have to lie and say you expect to be out of town on Election Day. If your parents don’t feel OK about lying, just arrange an overnight trip for them. Usually out of the county is far enough.
For people of working age, it’s even easier. “I expect to be on a business trip.” “Oh, well, the trip was canceled.”
Christ on a stick. We have Christian church services on Saturday, so people don’t have to get up early on Sunday. Our whole lifestyle is founded and based on convenience and he’s going to complain about absentee/mail-in ballots?
Well, OK, if Jacoby is talking about absentee or mail-in ballots, then I absolutely disagree with him.
What a relief! Thinking I agreed with Jeff Jacoby was making me quite nervous.
for starters.
Yes, people should be informed and take responsibility for the conduct of their public affairs.
Yes, Voting should be made as easy and convenient as possible.
Early voting, online registration, absentee ballots and a holiday for elections are all necessary elements and simple to institute.
Voter fraud, despite all the GOP hand wringing has been virtually non existent. Voter abuse however has been rampant and it is not being perpetrated by Ma and Pa Kettle.
Yes, that was a whiney ass statement.
Bob
Online registration? When you register you have to show two forms of identification, one of which has to have your address. How do you show ID on-line? Do you trust everyone? Do we put in yet another crappy hackable system such Ohio’s (and Illinois’)?
BTW, neither form of ID (here in IL anyway) needs to have a picture. You can use a piece of mail and a credit card among other choices. Most people use a Driver’s License and a credit card, but there are about ten other forms that are acceptable. For example, your topoor person can show their Medicaid card and their Social Security card.
Arizona has online voter registration here
While there are some people who don’t vote because they are lazy or don’t care, the overwhelming majority of them don’t do so because they are too honest and patriotic to participate in a blatantly corrupt and fraudulent system. It’s nice to pretend that voting makes a difference and that the system isn’t entirely controlled by the corporates but the reality is that all you’re doing by voting is aiding and abetting the plutocrats and legitimizing their fraud. Go ahead and vote, but don’t think for a moment it will make a difference. (I’m referring to federal elections, not state and local elections, which still have some legitimacy). But the US is a plutocracy not a democracy, and simply pretending that isn’t so is a sign of apathy, not responsibility.
“the overwhelming majority of them don’t do so because they are too honest and patriotic to participate in a blatantly corrupt and fraudulent system.“
I am sympathetic to your point of view, but what evidence do you have for your claim that the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not vote refrain from going to the polls for this particular reason?
I understand and sympathize with what you say but just this once go to the polls and vote for Obama, bring your equally reticent friends.
If the election is stolen you have proved a point.
If Obama is inaugurated you will be a happy convert.
Where’s the down side?
Bob
Voting for Obama is not the answer for those who have the complaint voiced by Mikep.
“If Obama is inaugurated you will be a happy convert.“
A convert to what exactly? Are you suggesting that would make someone a true believer in the American national electoral system? Hardly.
already has a poll test–again! They send absentees three huge (12 x 18) pages of tagboard, with an incredible range of projects. Then (surprise) you can’t mail it unless you put 3 stamps on it (trick!) and it won’t fit through some of the slots in mailboxes.
What I notice is that Republicans are always in favor of minimizing voter participation, and Democrats are always working to increase it. That says a lot to me….
If you want to see voter fraud and abuse, just look to the efforts of the Republican party in Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004 where all kinds of people, usually black, were unable to vote because they had names that were only a few letters off of known ex convicts. And, who makes those new fangled machines that every now and then manage to lose a certain number of votes often to the detriment of the Democrats?
When the Rethuglicans call the Democrats on vote fraud, it is a classic case of projection.
Did I miss something? Did you read the article? Even if you only read the snippet Booman provided, how does that relate to low-information voters?
Sure, make Election Day (or I guess that should be election day) a holiday, but what correlation do mail-in/online/absentee ballots have with low-information voters?
The snippet BooMan posted refers to lazy, apathetic voters. It is a very reasonable logical step from that to low-information since laziness and apathy generally do result in low or poor information.
Neither the snippet nor BooMan’s remarks makes it clear that the writer is referring to absentee and mail-in voters. Therefore, BooMan risked some people misconstruing the point by not making it clear.
Jacoby is trying to cast suspicion on the motives of those who cast absentee ballots and vote early by offering bogus arguments.
Some of the real reasons Republicans are afraid of early and absentee voting is revealed in the first comment — absentee voting sidesteps several Republican strategies to suppress or steal the vote:
I can’t imagine voting by mail. I love to go down to my polling station and vote in person.
The lovely “I Voted” sticker is nice, too. I’m proud to wear that on my person for the day.