THE LONG WAY HOME: RECLAIMING DEMOCRACY
EXPAND
THE ELECTORATE
By
Jack Random
If you believe
in democracy, you want to expand the electorate. You want every voice to be heard. You want everyone to vote, every vote to
count and every opinion to be represented.
If you believe in democracy you fight to break down all barriers to
participating in the democratic process.
You make it as easy as possible for every eligible voter to cast a
ballot.
If, however,
you are not certain that representative democracy is a viable system of
government, then you tend to believe that only the elite and well educated
should vote. You would prefer that the
working class, the poor and the minorities – too often victimized by
substandard education – sit on their hands at election time. You would rather their collective votes not
be counted in any real sense. You would
rather the “best and the brightest” choose our elected officials. You would rather the common rabble stay home
and watch football, soap operas or reality television.
This is the
dirty little secret of American democracy.
The elite have found ways to carry on the pretense of a functioning,
majority-rule democracy while creating and perpetuating a corporate-dominant
virtual oligarchy.
The very last
thing the anti-democratic forces want to see is an expanded electorate where
everyone or nearly everyone who is entitled to vote actually votes.
According to
the Census Bureau, in 2016 there were an estimated 245 million citizens eligible
to vote. Of that total roughly 158
million were registered to vote, of whom roughly 138 million or 56% of eligible
voters turned out to cast their ballots.
While most Americans want to believe that our nation is the world’s
shining example of democracy, we rank 26th on a list of 32 developed
nations in voter turnout. [1]
Those who
support the way we conduct our democracy would have you believe that most
Americans just don’t care. Who
knows? Given how unresponsive our
representatives are to the basic needs of the people, maybe they don’t.
They would
have you believe that those who do not vote should not vote because they are
uninformed and uneducated. The truth is
far more sinister.
The American
system in its current form is designed for low voter turnout. Virtually every aspect of our election
tradition is intended to suppress voters.
We hold our elections on Tuesdays – a day when working people are
engaged in labor. Voting requires workers
to get up an hour early or to invest a couple of hours after their working day
is done. We could just as easily hold
elections on weekends or during the course of a week or even two weeks. We could make voting day a national holiday
so that no worker would find it difficult to locate his or her precinct and
cast a ballot.
The most
recent trend in voter suppression is aimed squarely at the student
population. Activated by climate change,
income inequality and the blatant racism of the Trump administration, college
and university students have begun voting in greater numbers. According to the Institute for Democracy
& Higher Education at Tufts University, student voting more than doubled
from the midterm election 2014 to the midterm 2018. Consequently, Republicans have found ways to
make it difficult to vote in the state where a voter attends school.
In Austin,
Texas, they closed down early voting stations on college campuses. In Florida they did the same in 2014 but a federal
court overturned the ban for 2018. They
are poised to try again. In New
Hampshire the legislature passed a law requiring students to get their driver’s
license and vehicle registration within the state. It is no coincidence that university students
vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
According to an Axios poll, an estimate 75% of students favor impeaching
Donald Trump. [2]
It should not
matter how the vote breaks down but it clearly does. Such efforts must be fought relentlessly in
the courts and in the court of public opinion.
In response to
Republican voter suppression laws, many states have moved to pass legislation
expanding access to the ballot box.
Automatic voter registration laws have been proposed in New Jersey,
Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts and Utah.
As noted above, other proposals to expand the electorate include
same-day registration, expanded voting periods and election holidays that
enable workers to take time off to vote.
Many states
make registering to vote more difficult than it should be and often require
documents that they know many eligible voters do not have – most notably photo identification
cards. At present eight states have
strict photo ID requirements while ten states have less strict photo ID
requirements. In states controlled by
Republican legislatures there is a push for such requirements because they tend
to affect poor and minority voters.
We could make
it easy for everyone to register. The
1993 National Voter Registration Act required the Department of Motor Vehicles
to offer voter registration. Some states
automatically register citizens to vote when they get their driver’s license or
official identification. Fifteen states
and the District of Columbia offer some form of automatic voter
registration. All states should do
so. Automatic registration should apply
not only at the DMV but at banks and utilities or anywhere that requires proof
of residency. Registering to vote should
be as easy and convenient as signing a petition outside your local grocery
store. If memory serves me, activist
organizations used to do just that.
It is a
peculiarity of the American system that every precinct and every state is
allowed to create its own system of voting.
The process and the facilities should be uniform across all states and
the District of Columbia. An
economically disadvantaged neighborhood should not have antiquated machines
that cannot serve the number of voters in the district. Every district should have the same machines
and same number of machines to serve their voters.
Some have
suggested that voting should be mandatory.
I cannot go that far. Voting
should be considered a civic duty.
Citizens should be proud to vote and should be rewarded for doing
so. Instead, because jury duty lists are
generated from the voting list, people are effectively punished for
voting. Proponents of the current system
will say that jury duty is not a punishment but as long as such duty is mandatory
it is an undesirable consequence of voting.
I suggest that governments should offer tax deductions for voting and
jury duty should come from the DMV list.
We have to
change the way our political system works.
We have two parties dedicated to winning at any cost. If the Democrats could gain advantage by
enforcing requirements that would suppress Republican voters, I have no doubt
they would do so. Both parties should
concentrate on lifting their own vote totals rather than suppressing the
opposition. Both parties should be
dedicated to free and fair elections.
When they abandon that fundamental principle, the voters should exact a
very costly penalty at the polls.
When that
happens we will have a stronger and more vibrant republic. When people are invested in their own
government, the nation will be stronger.
When elected officials know that poor people and working people will
vote, more of them will listen and respond to their needs. When more people vote there will be fewer
officials who pay homage only to wealthy corporate contributors.
When every
vote counts and every vote is counted, the virtues of democracy will be
self-evident and the principles of democracy cherished.
1. “US trails
most developed countries in voter turnout.”
By Drew Desilver. Pew Research
Center, May 21, 2018.
2. “As student
vote surges, so do efforts to suppress it.”
By Michael Wines. New York Times,
October 25, 2019.
Jack Random is the author of the Jazzman Chronicles – a
collection of 99 essays written from the year 2000 to 2014. He has also authored novels, plays, poetry
and short stories.
