11.12.05
How to improve voter turnout
After the dismally pathetic and disappointing turnout in the past election, Ryan Teague Beckwith over at WakePol has four ideas to improve voter turnout. I’ve got a few ideas of my own…
- Stop letting the General Assembly draw district lines to guarantee safe and non-competitive seats.
- Stop making it so hard for candidates to get on the ballot. It’s easier for political parties to get on the ballot in Iraq than it is in North Carolina.
- Start using Instant Runoff Voting
- Move toward Proportional Representation instead of the winner-take-all system we have now, so that even minorities — political minorities (and I mean “other than Democrat and Republican”) — can have a vested interest in the system, instead of the massive apathy we have now.
Talking about making Election Day a holiday is just polishing the brass on the Titanic. You are not going to significantly increase voter turnout and still maintain the status quo. And you are not going to get high voter turnout without the prospect of drastic change. A sudden increase in voter interest will not be to tell everyone that things are just hunky-dory.
Politicians know this. The system is the way it is, if not by design, then by happy coincidence. There is no motivation to reform the system by those most able to implement the reform. Quite the contrary, they are very comfortable and don’t want to change anything. The fewer choices, where they are the only choice, and fewer people — their people — voting is exactly what they want.
I find the hollow lip service to the contrary completely insulting.
Lookup H88 (The Electoral “Fairness” Act) and notice the changes the GA made once it got to the floor. I was there in the morning when the bill passed out of committee, and I was foolishly optimistic. What the GA did on the floor (at 1:00 in the morning, I might add) was a world-class sandbag.
Janet Cowell doesn’t like the bill. She ruminates: “There are practical considerations that have to be weighed. The question is: Do you knowingly hand over the majority to the Republicans?” At least she’s honest and doesn’t make any qualms about the fact that the onerous ballot access barriers exist to protect the status quo.
We live in a political duopoly. Voters are smart enough to know they are only being given a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. What waste their time on such a choice? They know it doesn’t really matter which of the two parties are in charge.
Until the Democrats and Republicans stop getting to decide who their competition is, voter apathy will continue. But they like things just the way they are, much to our dismay.
One of my favorite quotes came from JFK: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
