In the years between 1776 and 1789, our political ancestors
accomplished two significant revolutions. The first was a military revolution
securing our independence. The second was a governance revolution that
established that people had a right to govern themselves through elected
representatives. This new government would be a republic, based upon the will
of the people as expressed by their periodic vote. Therefore, voting is the
fundamental definition, and the basis for the existence, of our republic. When
a qualified voter is hampered, the authority and very basis of the country is
lost. So our moral and civic imperative is to take every possible step to
ensure that each eligible voter is able to vote in as simple and accessible a
manner as possible. Unfortunately, all too frequently that has not been the
case, as the rules and mechanisms for voting have been skewed for political
advantage on behalf of one political candidate, party, or societal group –
including in the 2018 election.
The rules and responsibilities for voting are a “layered”
responsibility, distributed yet interconnected among federal, state, county and
local governments. The federal government establishes the qualifications for
elected federal officials, and it establishes the definitions and processes for
U.S. citizenship – a mandatory status across the country for voting (U.S.
Constitution, Article 1, section 8). The Constitution also mandates that each State
similarly use a republican form of government (Article 4, Section 4).
Beyond these basics, the federal government generally defers
voting decisions and mechanisms to the states, and whoever is an eligible voter
for state offices is also an eligible federal voter. In the beginning of the
Republic, most states limited voter eligibility to white, adult,
property-owning males. The “property-owning” requirement was ultimately dropped,
but the other criteria were kept; federal amendments subsequently expanded
access and made it more consistent:
-14th Amendment, 1868: “All persons born or
naturalized in the United States … are
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State
may … deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“The right of citizens … to vote shall not be denied …”: “on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” -15th
Amendment, 1870; “on account of sex” -19th Amendment, 1920; “by
reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax” -24th Amendment,
1964; [for 18 or older] “on account of age” -26th Amendment, 1971.
Within these overriding federal requirements, voting processes
are carried out in the individual states as they see fit. Typically, the state
legislature sets some ground rules, and divides the state into federal and
state districts for elective offices. The state Secretary of State, usually
through a state-level Board of Elections, oversees the state-wide mechanisms and
timeframes for voting, and certifies the official ballot. County &/or local
election Boards register voters, organize the precincts – including
determination of voting sites and the technology(ies) to be used – and conduct
the actual voting and counting. This pyramidal hierarchy allows for desirable flexible
and discretionary decision-making across the levels, but opens the door to
inequities, rogue actions, and a diffusion of responsibility. This has
certainly been the case in Election 2018.
Gerrymandering Political Districts: Political districts are
defined every ten years by state legislators who have a
conflict-of-self-interest in drawing these maps to favor their own voters. This
practice has been going on for over 200 years, but has reached its zenith over
the past decade. It is one of the greatest current threats to our democracy,
and requires a separate essay on its own to discuss fully. Suffice it to say
that my adopted state of North Carolina has become a poster child for what is
wrong. District maps look like a Salvador Dali painting; cities, college
campuses, even city streets are inexplicably divided to break up concentrations
of similar voters; Congressional seat outcomes by party have no proportional
relationship to total votes cast (1,748,173 Democratic votes – 51.5% of the
total – elected 3 seats – 23%; 1,643,790 Republican votes – 49.5% – elected 10
seats – 77%). Federal and state judicial rulings have overturned district lines
drawn, but issued too late to be applied to the 2018 election. It has been a
decade long fight wasting millions of dollars. Similar lawsuits have been filed
in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Wisconsin.
Voter Fraud: Claims of illegal voters and massive voter
fraud have been made without evidence. According to studies by Arizona State
University and The Brennan Center, cases of voter impersonation were .0003% to
.0025% of votes cast in 2012-2016. (“One is more likely to be struck by
lightning than represent another at the polls.”) Only a handful of voter fraud
cases have been successfully prosecuted.
In 2016, almost all state Secretaries of State denied any substantive problem
exists. Donald Trump’s special commission to investigate this “problem”
disbanded due to a lack of interest and substantiation. A non-problem needs no
“solution.”
Voter ID: These days we have to show a picture ID to conduct
many daily services, so showing an ID when voting can seem reasonable. But as
usual, the devil is in the details. What will constitute a valid form of ID? A driver’s
license (not everyone drives); a college ID; a hunting license; a special
state-created ID (how do you widely distribute and pay for those without it
being a new poll tax)? States are inconsistent on this question, and the answer
often smacks of favoring the lifestyle of favored voters (e.g. in Texas:
hunting license-yes; college ID-no). Finally, how does a state philosophically
reconcile requiring an ID to vote when such cannot be required for mail-in and
absentee ballots? Theory and practice collide.
Voter Registration: In 2018, the Georgia Secretary of State was
also the Republican nominee for governor in a tight race against an
African-American female Democratic candidate. As Secretary of State, he sat on
and suppressed over 50,000 new voter registration forms – 70% from black
constituents – refusing to process or respond to them. An additional 3000 registrations
were set aside due to a new “exact match” rule. The judiciary overruled him on
this blatant conflict of interest and demanded that these forms and ballots be
processed. (His last-minute charge – without proof – that the state Democratic
Party hacked the Georgia voter database was appropriately widely derided.)
Dirty Tricks-1: Kansas also had a Secretary of State that
was the Republican nominee for governor. (He was the same individual that Trump
picked to chair the now-defunct voter fraud commission.) Dodge City is an
Hispanic-majority city. The local County Clerk shut down the ONE central voting
site – the Civic Center – that had previously served all 13,000 voters. (The
average for Kansas is one site for every 1300 voters!) Claiming that the
original site was “inaccessible due to construction work,” she then moved the
site outside the city limits to a place one mile from the nearest bus stop. A
judge agreed with the lawsuit filed to reverse this action, but ruled that it
was “too late to change it without causing even more disruption.” (In fact, there
was no construction happening at the Civic Center.)
Dirty Tricks-2: North Dakota’s small population includes a substantial
number of Native-Americans living on reservations, and who were the margin of
victory for a Democratic Senator elected in 2012. It is the only state that
does not conduct an advance voter registration. At the last minute, the
Republican-dominated Board of Elections instituted a rule that voters show an
ID that included the specific street number of their address – even though the
reservations do not assign such to their residents – affecting around 5,000
potential voters. Once again, a judge agreed with the lawsuit filed to reverse
this action, but ruled that it was “too late to change it without causing even
more disruption.”
Voting machines changing people’s votes in Florida and
Texas; reducing the number of polling sites and/or the days of early voting;
long lines and inoperable voting machines. All are examples of barriers
instituted to affect either one’s right to vote, or the ability to access and
express that vote. It is said that when you cannot win on the strength of your
position or your argument, then simply change the rules in order to win. We
clearly have politicians more than willing to change those rules to win at any
price.
We have had 200 years of suppression and barriers to voting
in America, most invented during our slavery period or the Reconstruction Era
after the Civil War. Many of us thought such nefarious activities were now
behind us in favor of inclusiveness and fairness. Instead, it appears that we
still have a way to go. When we undercut voting, we undermine democracy itself.
Voter suppression, in its myriad forms, is a real occurrence and genuine issue
facing us today. With that understanding, we should begin preparing now for Election
2020.
© 2018
Randy Bell www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com
