We Need Better Voters
One of my favorite common sense political maxims came from an unlikely source, the arch segregationist joke of a Governor of Georgia for part of the 1960's, Lester Maddox, who said we could not have better prisons until we have better prisoners.
With George W. Bush apparently having won the 2004 Presidential Election, I submit we cannot have better Presidents until we have better voters. The Harris Poll of October 21, 2004, showed significant numbers of likely voters held beliefs about Iraq that were not only unsupported by any credible evidence, but in some cases were actually unsupported by any evidence whatsoever and flatly contradicted by overwhelming evidence.
Cheney kept sneaking in his undocumented claim of a possible tenuous link between Saddam and AlQuaeda, but the Harris poll went much further in asking if there were strong Saddam links, to which 84% of Bush voters said yes and 37% of Kerry voters agreed. The belief that Saddam helped plan and support the 9/11 hijackers was held by 52% of Bush voters and 23% of Kerry. The Bush-Kerry voter mistaken belief that Iraq had WMD when the US invaded was 58 to 16 and the mistaken belief that several of the hijackers were Iraqis was 40-31.
The Harris poll link for these questions is at
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=508
A CNN obit of Maddox, who died in 2003, includes a fascinating account of the "fluke" election that brought him to office, defeating Jimmy Carter in the primary and later becoming Carter’s "strange bedfellow" Lieutenant Governor when Carter took his turn in the Governor’s office.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/25/maddox.dead/
With George W. Bush apparently having won the 2004 Presidential Election, I submit we cannot have better Presidents until we have better voters. The Harris Poll of October 21, 2004, showed significant numbers of likely voters held beliefs about Iraq that were not only unsupported by any credible evidence, but in some cases were actually unsupported by any evidence whatsoever and flatly contradicted by overwhelming evidence.
Cheney kept sneaking in his undocumented claim of a possible tenuous link between Saddam and AlQuaeda, but the Harris poll went much further in asking if there were strong Saddam links, to which 84% of Bush voters said yes and 37% of Kerry voters agreed. The belief that Saddam helped plan and support the 9/11 hijackers was held by 52% of Bush voters and 23% of Kerry. The Bush-Kerry voter mistaken belief that Iraq had WMD when the US invaded was 58 to 16 and the mistaken belief that several of the hijackers were Iraqis was 40-31.
The Harris poll link for these questions is at
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=508
A CNN obit of Maddox, who died in 2003, includes a fascinating account of the "fluke" election that brought him to office, defeating Jimmy Carter in the primary and later becoming Carter’s "strange bedfellow" Lieutenant Governor when Carter took his turn in the Governor’s office.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/25/maddox.dead/
posted by Tom Blake | 4:46 PM
6 Comments:
Tom,
Are you starting to sour on democracy? Maybe you are discovering that our founding fathers were right in their fear of democracy. They were completely, even fatally committed to a federal government, but they wanted only the right sort to determine how that government would be run. But who are the right sort? In their day, it was easy. The right sort was white males with property.
Today, who would be your right sort? College educated? No. Many of my friends who are college educated are supporters of Bush and the moral values he stands for. How about union members? No. They are very unreliable today and, anyway, hardly anybody belongs to a union. That would really be elitist.
I think the right sort would be those livng on the coasts of the USA. But just to make sure, I'd draw a line down the Cascade Mountains of the West just past San Francisco then westward to the ocean. In the East I'd include all the New England states and add New York and New Jersey. I'd also include Maryland and Virginia so that I would not isolate Washinton DC.
I would give all those folks the vote and then I would tax the hell out of the rest of the country.
John from Phoenix
Democracy is still the best form of government, and universal suffrage is the best way to conduct elections. In the two centuries since the founding of the American government, we have moved toward universal suffrage and I would not want to turn back the clock. We are now into the nuances, such as how great an effort to expend to try to count a ballot that was not cast in total clarity. Democrats are taking the lead on this one, with Republicans resisting. We should never forget the thousands of votes not counted in Florida in 2000 that would have elected Gore. The likely correct assumption is that it is mostly less educated voters who make ballot casting errors and that they would more likely vote Democrat, but with the possible "dumbing down" of the Republican electorate, this could be in for a change.
Per the Book of Rule, published earlier this year, there are 48 Presidential Democracies in the world, all with universal suffrage, and 12 making voting mandatory to some extent. Here are some interesting variations on the cumpulsory vote requirement: Brazil is optional for voters 16-18 and over 70; Ecuador mandatory only for literates 18-65, optional for others; Bolivia age 21 required for singles or 18 for married. Specific disenfranchisees include active duty armed forces in Guatemala and all armed forces and police in the Dominican Republic.
The day after I put this post on line, Feedster, a blog news search engine, was reporting the Lester Maddox line from Sense from Seattle to people who were searching for jokes.
I'm with you Teresa. Election Day should be recognized for the special day that you so eloquently expressed it to be. Lengthy voting lines in Ohio were a national disgrace. I used to vote at the polling place and felt good walking in and then leaving with my "I voted" feather. But as it became more inconvenient and as the ballots became more crowded with candidates and issues, I switched to using an absentee ballot so I could take the time to study and fill it out ahead of time and then put it in the mail. I would like to see all balloting be done by mail, and at least in the case of the one national election (President), I think Social Security numbers should be used for ID purposes to validate the ballots. Though they were not intended for ID purposes, SS numbers have become the defacto best way to distinguish individuals. Even if we all mail ballots in, we could still have Election Day as a holiday to be able to gather and watch the returns in the time, place and company of our choice.
Here is a link to cut and paste to get the Whittier Poem: http://seacoastnh.com/The_Arts/For_Better_or_Verse/The_Poor_Voter_on_Election_Day/
Election Day belongs in the same category as the Blue Laws. It made sense in days past, but is obsolete in today's lifestyle. For the last several years my son-in-law has commuted to California to his job on a weekly basis. He is not here on the Tuesday Election Day to vote. His wife is so busy with her job and taking her kids to dance, music lessons, and the like that she probably would not vote. (For many people voting is one of those conscience driven things that often gets ignored.) Fortunately, Arizona is enlightened about that and has promoted voting by mail for many years. I can't remember the last time I went to a polling place. I read recently that some state (Florida?) is considering having an Election week instead of an Election Day. That would be a welcome innovation for people too lazy to vote by mail. I don't advocate voting by internet yet because I understand too well the integrity and security issues involved. After having spent 26 years developing computer operating systems I know well the difficulty of developing a system that not only is secure, but one that people believe is secure. I am aghast that computerized voting systems are being developed without a paper trail to settle disputes and to prove integrity. These issues will one day be settled but not for a decade or so. Back to the main theme - voting should be made as easy as possible while maintaining the security and integrty aspects. The idea, especially for people who attend this blog, should be to enfranchise as many people as possible. Election Day does not do that. The way it is done in Arizona, there is a several week period for mailing in your completed ballot. If you miss that cutoff, you can still go to the polls. When the polls close, the votes are counted. They happen to be counted immediately after the polls close, but it wouldn't have to be that way. They could be counted a week later. But that would take away all the drama that the broadcast media rely on for commercial time. Finally making Election Day a holiday would have the opposite effect from what you want. The next thing that would happen is that people would lobby to have Election Day fall on a Monday so they would get a three day weekend. Why do Veteran's groups insist that Veteran's Day be observed on Noevember 11? Because no one is around to celebrate the sacrifices of veterans when it is held on the Monday closest. Another thing I've noticed is that the junk mail industry probably likes doing away with Election Day. (The opposite effect on the broadcast media if we did away with Election Day.) As more voters in Arizona vote early, we get more campaign mailings for a longer time.
John from Phoenix
Even with voting by mail, we could still have a holiday to celebrate the process, if not as Election Day then maybe as something broader like Democracy day. Though I am retired, I am enough of a working man advocate to always be in favor of another holiday - and make it a Monday for a three day weekend, or four if you work a 4 day week.
As for November 11, that was the date of the WWI Armistice and the specific date has been preserved, though the meaning of the holiday has changed somewhat. Check out my "Veterans Day is a Morph" article in the November archive.
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