“Hawaii’s vanishing voter,” the series on voting issues that I wrote for Civil Beat, wraps up today with a final story looking at a few international comparisons. Click here for a list and links to the previous six stories that ran last week.
For those who wonder, I found it easy to work with Civil Beat editor Patti Epler, who tried not to panic when the flu knocked me out of commission (and out of communication) at an inconvenient time.
It was an interesting series to work on, although it dragged out longer than I had anticipated. Hawaii’s low voter turnout, election after election, was the starting point. Why do we generally have the lowest voter turnout in the country? Unfortunately, the more I looked into the question, the murkier it got. Hawaii, it turns out, is just the tail on the dog. Just as Hawaii lags the mainland in voter turnout, the U.S. lags most of the world. And voting rates have been falling over time in many of the industrialized democracies. Questions about elections in Hawaii become just a small part of the much larger puzzle.
After wallowing in the data from numerous election studies for weeks, talking to a number of researchers, as well as local voters and election observers, I came away with the impression that falling voter turnout may be a wholly rational reaction to the takeover of the election process by big money, corporate power, and the advertising-media-PR industry. People are more alienated from the election process on a variety of levels. Even those who are politically aware and politically active increasingly turn to social activism as a more realistic form of political participation that provides more meaningful returns than traditional reliance on the ballot box.
In any case, I just wanted to plug the series and invite you to browse through the stories.
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Ian, Amen as to your impressions about why voter turnout is low. I have talked to ordinary, knowledgeable people who are totally turned off by all major candidates (and I suppose the campaign process) and just won’t be voting. I have not had the time to read your series yet to see if you covered this, but I bet if write-in candidates were allowed, there would be a better turnout. I presume candidates and their supporters who believe they are electable are not in favor of write-in candidates, when elections can be won with a small margin of votes.
The 1978 Con Con gave serious consideration to requiring ballots to include a “None of the above” option. I don’t suppose that would facilitate election of any particular candidate, but it might get more people to the polls and serve as a gauge of voter dissatisfaction with the offerings, the process, etc. If nothing else, it might provide a dose of humility to the winning candidate, especially if NOTA gets more votes.
We actually do have a way to vote “none of the above.” Vote a blank for any contest where you disapprove of all the candidates, or where you realize you don’t know enough about the candidates to cast an intelligent vote. “Blank” was often the winning candidate for school board contests (before we amended the Constitution to have the Governor appoint them), and “blank” will probably remain the winner in many OHA contests. Indeed, sometimes “blank” gets more votes than all human candidates combined! “Blank” has also been successful in defeating Constitutional amendments even when there were more “yes” than “no” votes. See my essay on empowering the blank votes at
http://www.angelfire.com/big09a/BlankVotes.html
Fair point but blank votes are only inferentially NOTA. Voters could have missed that section of the ballot, liked two or more but not one more than the others, etc. NOTA is a vote — not a non- vote or a blank — that affirmatively rejects the “live” options.
I did an in-depth study before, during, and after the elections of 2010 to discover whether dead people vote in Hawaii. The bureaucracy at the Office of Elections and the Department of Health is very uncooperative and, indeed, hostile toward such investigations. The stonewalling was astonishing. My webpage about that little effort at investigative reporting is at
http://tinyurl.com/2azu7c6
Here’s a semi-humorous and semi-serious proposal to get rid of lots of bureaucrats, and to avoid the hassles of voter registration, same-day registration, absentee voting, early voting, requiring voter ID, etc. Ever hear of “inky pinkie?” They use it in third-world nations. You might recall seeing voters in Iraq proudly holding up their purple fingers as proof they had voted (no, not the middle finger). You go to the polling place on election day, mark your ballot and put it in the box; and then stick your finger into a bowl of permanent purple ink which stains your finger and will not wear off or wash off for more than a day. Gotta be alive and show up in person to vote. Each person gets exactly one vote.
Ken, I clicked through to your linked article and I saw nothing which qualifies as an “in-depth study” of vulnerabilities in our voting system.
For those not inclined to read Ken’s commentary, here is his “money quote”:
“My most shocking discovery was that at least one dead person remained listed in the pollbook on the primary election date of September 18, 2010 and therefore anyone claiming to be that person could have received a ballot and voted.”
Some resident had died 3 weeks before the primary election and the Office of Elections had not yet purged the dead person’s name from the voter rolls. Ken has no evidence anyone else voted in this person’s place, but that does not stop him from suggesting the opportunity for widespread voter fraud if people all across the state are posing as the recently deceased voters and casting their ballots.
Well, I guess that is the only plausible theory for explaining why Ken’s favored candidates keep losing elections.
Excellent series. Hope you write more for Civil Beat.
Thanks for the series.
On an unrelated note: I sometimes wish you used Disqus commenting (but never Farcebook!) because I’d like to ‘like’ Ken C.’s post re: ‘inky-pinky.’ 🙂
Not voting may be rational given the morass you describe, but I will always vote regardless of my frustration simply because people have died to sustain my right to vote. That right is the core of our democracy and the sacrifice of those who achieved it must be honored despite one’s dismay at the current choices.
I completely agree with you Ian. Big money and big money owning media outlets have soured many people on the voting process. For Ken Conklin, its kind of weird you say a blank vote is a “no” vote, when a blank vote regarding the rail was considered a “yes” vote. Blank votes should just not be counted, period.
It is my impression that voting is following the same trend as many community activities where it is increasingly difficult to attract participants, especially from younger people.
Anecdotal examples from my experience include the deserted student section at the football games and the predominance of older fans in the rest of the stadium, community support organizations I belong to which are full of grey heads with numbers dropping every year, etc.; condominium associations that can’t find even three people to serve on the board, etc.
And I don’t think voting happens in isolation from grass roots organizing and advocacy. For whatever reason, progressive organizations have little or no presence in most people’s lives where in past years, they were very important because they brought people together, provided a wide range of services, and helped build solidarity and support for voting and political action. Think co-ops, granges, and union halls.
I would like to have seen your story making international comparison separate out the mandatory voting countries. Would also comparing the US to other voluntary registration/voting countries be more instructive? Or did I just miss that? Just curious because, while I have often toyed with pursuing mandatory voting here, I’m not sure I want uninformed, prejudiced, etc. cretins voting just so that it looks like we have a high participation rate. I mean, an ignorant vote is no vote at all, right?
@ohiaforest3400: Aisoos… prejudiced much?
The decision to not vote can be as rational (or irrational) as the decision to vote.
Domhoff’s book “Who Rules America?” is as timely today as it was when it was first published in 1967.
Two other factors regarding low voting must take into account our unique form of electoral rules such as the Electoral College and the historical role of the Deep South.
Oh, and Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone” points out the isolation of America at the individual level which runs counter to the democratic/electoral process which is a communal process in many respects.
Low voter turnout is not necessarily a bad thing. It can certainly indicate a lack of severe pressure on the society, a lack, for example, of extreme privation, violent contention between factions, or mass social dislocation due to the aggressive use of force or forceful frauds and takings. That is to say, low turnout might be a sign that most people think things are tolerable to hopeful and –why worry about what we can little influence? The interested and the dutiful are the voters, the rest sit it out because, well, they’re content.
Lack of public education for the duties of the citizen is part of it. An a-historic ignorance of the rarity and preciousness of our right to vote is part of it. But isn’t it better that the interested and informed are voting while the ignorant and uninterested are staying out of it?