Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

As we close in on a much needed conclusion to this election season, I’m reflecting on all the work Tides has touched dealing with the voting process. We’ve helped facilitate the raising and spending of some millions of dollars on voter registration, get-out-the-vote, and voter protection efforts. Now that makes us feel pretty good. As others abandoned some of the groups doing the best work, we stood our ground knowing how important it is to make good on the American idea – a democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” in Lincoln’s famous words from Gettysburg.

The idea of democracy has a checkered past in America. We claim inventing it, I suppose along with the French who in the same era overthrew their monarchy, but what an interesting beginning. A nation born of refugees, criminals “transported” from Britain, religious minorities seeking freedom to worship, and others unwanted and unwelcome in their home countries – all of whom participated in one of the great displacements of Native peoples, almost without a second thought or serious misgiving – created a new form of government called democracy. But who could vote? Men of property. Actually, white, European men of property. It would be thirty years before “common” men were given the franchise, 8 decades before slavery was outlawed and the beginnings of multi-racial democracy haltingly began in the Southern States (it took another hundred years to pass the Voting Rights Act), and nearly 150 years before women were deemed eligible to participate in this most essential act of citizenship.

A quick check in Wikipedia shows the abysmal truth, and what would be to some hypocrisy, of the American record. Barely more than half our eligible voting age population votes. In 2004, it got up to 56% or so. In contrast, Australia with its mandatory voting rules regularly sees 95% of its voting age population casting ballots. In Europe, numbers range from the mid-seventies to low ninety percent rates of participation, with Italy one of the highest despite what is often described as a fractious culture of governance.

As the US welcomes the most recent waves of immigrants to its shores, as we have regularly done for more than 2 centuries, we really ought to consider doing something to pull ourselves out of the laggard category. Really, it’s quite embarrassing to try to explain to people from countries where regularly 4 in 5 people vote why we can barely engage more than half our adults in deciding who should lead us. And to have our headlines dominated by charges of voting fraud instead of demands for easier ways to participate only adds to one’s dismay.

So, what could change? So, why not make voter registration a federal process….like registering for the draft, or getting a social security card? The states certainly can’t argue that they are doing a better job of it. And, just like paying taxes, somehow the feds can figure out where people live, if there is any doubt about that.

Second, why not move Election Day to a weekend? Tuesdays were chosen back when rural farmers only went to town for Wednesday market days, so they wouldn’t have to make two trips. Makes no sense now. Perhaps better, why not let people vote over the course of a month, like they do in Oregon…by mail.

Finally, why not make voter suppression efforts – clear attempts to intimidate, mislead, or discourage voting – a felony?

The sad truth is that some political interest groups prefer low rates of voting. Ironically, the same groups often tout themselves as the most patriotic. How can it be patriotic to discourage democracy?