Discussion for article #230476
In most countries, election day is a holiday. Everything’s closed, so voters aren’t faced with the choice between voting on the way to work or school, thereby running the risk of being late, or voting on the way home, when lines are long, and someone needs to pick up the kids and make dinner. That’s how you get higher voter participation.
Of course, since this makes voting easier for working-class people, in particular, I’m sure our G.O.P.-controlled Congress would embrace national legislation to make this happen.
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Why do people keep saying that Colorado holds elections exclusively by mail? Some single-item special elections may be mail-only, but general elections still give the voter the option to go to a voting center and vote in person. The voting centers also provide same-day registration service. Neighborhood precincts may be gone, but it’s not mail-only.
It would have to be different from a national holiday to help the working class. It would require a forced closure instead of being an optional one.
I would love to see that along with a refundable tax credit for voting and a ‘sin tax’ for not voting.
A third post from Emiliano ( who said he was done posting for an extended period of time)
Maybe the Democrats are planning on doing this. Judging from what I have seen, probably not.
It is absolutely clear that Democrats haven’t a clue as to how to engage Americans under 45 AS A GROUP to vote in off-year elections.
Yes, some exceptional youth are active in the Democratic Party. Many are also working in a vast number of projects designed for social justice.
However, too many are simply not engaged. Whatever means that Democrats have used to get higher turnout for them are ineffective and, make no mistake, the system we have requires voting against the Republican Party as the only viable means to neutralize the agenda of the 0.01%.
I grew up in Europe with political leanings which would make the average U.S. “Progressive” seem like a Gerald Ford Republican. BUT, upon re-entering the U.S. I became aware that the Democrats, while not being as “pure” or Bernie Sanders-esque as I would like, must be supported. It’s a PROCESS. Get more Democrats IN and then work from there.
But I digress.
The point I would like to make here is this:
The Democratic Party needs to spend whatever is necessary to hire a consultant firm–pay 'em whatever they want!!!–and task it with this:
“Your job is to devise a strategy to get people under 45 to the polls in ALL elections: state, national, off-year and Presidential”
If Madison Avenue can wind up sticking a cellphone in everyone’s ear in the space of 10-15 years, some firm should be smart enough to induce those under 45 to save themselves (and their future) from the Republican Party and the 0.01%.
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Agreed. Allow only drug stores and grocery stores to stay open, or something along those lines. Otherwise, it would just turn into a big “SALE!!!” day.
Two-thirds of the states mentioned – Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon – fit easily into Yankeedom or Yankeedom Extended, regions where traditional civic responsibilities like voting are probably taken more seriously than anywhere else. For more on this, see the county-level map and related discussion in Colin Woodard’s American Nations (2012 Penguin Books). It might be interesting to see if western Oregon, especially the Willamette Valley, differs from eastern Oregon in turnout since the former comprises an old Yankee core stemming from long-distance immigration as early as the 1840s, while the latter does not. This doesn’t explain Colorado or Alaska though. There, contentious issues or candidates might might be the more important driver of turnout.
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Why even have precinct voting? Why not vote where people already go…drug stores, grocery stores, malls, etc. Voters could have an ATM equivalent card with a pin #, cast their vote and get a paper confirmation. If they can’t figure out how to do this, they could ask any bank and learn. OR, we could be as advanced as Estonia, and do it 100% by phone. Works for them!
There is a reason voting is not easy, and there is a reason votes are not verifiable. And it is impossible that those reasons are good ones.
“It was putting power in the hands of the voters, and it’s basically continued over the last 100 years,” Moore said."
And that is exactly what scares the “s***” out of people like the Koch brothers, their tea party stooges and other bazillionaires. The idea that the common man might have an opinion and exert that opinion upon their self proclaimed entitlement.
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“…power in the hands of the voters…”
Perhaps the single most vital part of the liberal foundation of America crafted by our Founding Fathers.
Which is why conservatives are obsessively working to end it.
There are many reasons why the turnout in Oregon is high. It would be difficult to duplicate all of them nationally, but one of the biggest is that we make it easy to vote. The ballot arrives three weeks before Election Day. We print a Voter’s Guide which details the candidates and issues that will appear on the ballot. You can vote at ANY TIME so work schedules or weather are never an issue. You can mail your ballot, or drop it off at any number of local places…library, city hall, courthouse and others. You can vote at the last minute at the County elections office.
We do NOT make any attempt to discourage voters! We’ve had one case of “voter fraud” since vote-by-mail was adopted, and that was inside a County Clerk’s office, not by a voter. In short, we do it because it works, it’s cheaper, it’s simpler, and we actually want people to participate. The states with low turnout do everything they can to ensure voting is a chore.
It really IS that simple.
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The authors do not explain how they are defining turnout. Is it the percentage of registered voters who voted? The percentage of the voting eligible population who voted? The definition makes a difference. The VEP turnout for Oregon for the last 40 years does not support the hypothesis that voting by mail ballot has increased turnout. Having lived in Oregon and Minnesota (I’m now in Montana), I believe the most important factor in those states is the civic culture that places a high value, and a sense of duty, on voting. Convenience has its merits, but a conviction that voting matters is what motivates citizens to vote.
Yep, Orygunyuns have embraced Progressive ideas for a long time now. It’s a HUGE reason my wife and i love living here. Well that and the climate, mountains, ocean, great wine, great fresh food etc etc.
But embracing Progressive ideas does not mean that we’re all starry eyed liberals Our land use laws are very conservative for instance.
I’m uncertain whether legislating by initiative is progressive or conservative but regardless it makes sense to do this. Big money still comes into the state trying to influence our votes by obfuscation and confusion but it’s often as ineffective as it is effective. Monsanto, duPont and Dow spent upwards of twenty four million dollars trying to defeat a ballot measure to label GMO based foods and it is just barely failing…will go to recount. The next time this initiate shows up it will likely be passed and the chemical companies will see sales of their pesticides fall in Oregon but our streams will be better off for it.
I often wonder what this country might be like if as a nation people could draft ballot initiatives for national elections. That would just scare the shit out of our corporate brothers and sisters.
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Respectfully, I would argue while not agreeing with the Found Fathers interest in keeping power out of the hands of the rabble, hence only the white male property owners of the day could vote. Now who does that sound like?
I would notice that all the states mentioned each have a population smaller than Los Angeles County and not too significantly larger than San Diego County or Santa Clara County, all of which are in California. Just a perspective.
Also: Oregon doesn’t have a ton of minorities. So Republicans in the state have less people to try and restrict voting access to.
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Yep, the initiative process was a product of the Progressive movement in the 1920s… although your southerly neighbor was the first adopter if memory serves.
I too take pride in the liberal (little ‘l’ intended) nature of my birthland. Unfortunately, the So Cal conservative transplants continue to try and force their morality on the rest of the state and degrade the civic spirit.
I’d be scared to death of a national initiative process, see the effects of Citizen United writ large.
That’s a good point to raise, JbRb. Thank you.
I concede that our Founding Fathers might not have had a fully enlightened awareness of what they were creating at the time, that they were subject to the ethos of their time (women’s rights, slavery, etc), and that they had to work within the context of a population where many people (especially in the aristocracy) were convinced America would be best served by a jolly ole monarch, like the one they had in England.
Still, the system they wound up with allowed the “rabble” to break from their confines, and the process worked. For instance, women gained the right to vote, not by the decree of a king, but by a Constitutional process that included the assurance of basic rights applicable to everyone. A result, I would argue, that could not have happened on a foundation of… well, of any system of government existent at the time.
Lots of possible perspectives here, I know : - ) Hope to chat more with you in the future. Thanks again.
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Hard to say how it might play out. But if we extrapolate the dollars spent just on our GMO labeling initiative to the national level it would mean the chemical companies shelling out a little north of a billion dollars on just that one initiative. Assuming there would be some economies of scale in running a national campaign against the measure the figure might be as low as $500,000,000. Still a big chunk of change for just one initiative.
Paying to suppress initiatives that are unfriendly to our corporate citizens could become mighty expensive.
Lot’s of Tejans moving here too. I hate seeing trucks with I heart Tejas stickers or Duck Dynasty crap on their bumpers.
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Voting by mail? We can’t have that; if we allow voting by mail, too many of those people will cast ballots.
We need to have voting as God intended:
20 machines at Republican-leaning precincts, with all of them functional.
2 machines at Democratic-leaning precincts, with one of them broken.
Cumbersome, labyrinthine voter ID laws that no one really understands, with only non-Caucasians required to comply.
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Regarding eastern vs. western Oregon: the rural and eastern counties of the state often surpassed the average voter turnout of 70.35% for the state as a whole. Some eastern counties approached 80%.
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