Are More Voters An Inherent “Good”?

Georgia’s new Trump-elected senator, Rev. Raphael Warnock, gave his first floor speech to the United States Senate, and it was a doozy. Unsurprisingly, he spoke in support of the Senate version of H.R. 1, the House’s attempt to usurp state control over their voter rules in reaction to some state’s efforts to rein in changes that facilitated voting in the last election.

“We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era,” Warnock said, pointing to a wave of bills that limit voting in Republican-controlled states like Arizona and his own Georgia. “This is Jim Crow in new clothes.”

He went on:

Politicians in my home state and all across America, in their craven lust for power, have launched a full-fledged assault on voting rights. They are focused on winning at any cost, even the cost of the democracy itself. I submit that it is the job of each citizen to stand up for the voting rights of every citizen. And it is the job of this body to do all that it can to defend the viability of our democracy.

To that end, Warnock argued, the Senate should pass the For the People Act, which would establish automatic voter registration nationally, provide for at least two weeks of early voting and preserve mail-in balloting, as well as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore pre-clearance to the Voting Rights Act, forcing covered jurisdictions to submit new voting plans for federal approval.

We’re well past the days of poll taxes and literacy tests, and there is really not much of a question but that Georgia’s new laws are designed and intended to eliminate the ease with which Democratic voters, in general, and black voters, in particular, can vote. But is this really “Jim Crow in new clothes”?

A friend told me a few weeks back how wonderful it was that the pandemic gave rise to changes in voting procedures that enabled so many people to vote who had never voted before. I asked him why he thought so, and he replied, “Isn’t getting more people to vote an inherent good?” Is it? There are low information, low effort voters, people who neither know nor care enough to make the effort to register and vote. They could have. They can. But if it requires more than minimal effort, they won’t. And they don’t know the issues or the candidates’ positions, but will sell their votes for a chicken in very pot. I don’t necessarily blame them, but why is it a good thing for them to vote?

Because most people have an eight-second attention span and will see this as a reflection only of the last election, bear in mind that while the effort last November was to get people who otherwise couldn’t be bothered to vote out to vote against Trump, this is a Democrat issue. But what happens when the Republicans offer the uninformed and unmotivated freebies to get their vote and the sides shift and Dems are crying rigged election because vote harvesters come in with bushels of mail-in ballots from their low information, low effort voters? If history means anything, it’s that sides change and arguments swap without shame.

There is little doubt that the states should not create impediments to the exercise of the civic right to vote. But what are impediments? And after that’s been defined, what about going beyond neutral into facilitating voting?

Is it an impediment to require that a person register to vote at some point in, say, the two years prior to an election, or is that too much of a burden such that anything less than same day registration is voter suppression? Is it too much to expect a voter to show identification, to show that he is the citizen exercising his civic right?

It’s persuasively argued that requiring people to show up on one day, and only one day, that isn’t even a holiday from work, to vote is too onerous for many. But what’s needed to lift that burden? A work holiday? A four-day in-person voting period? Universal mail-in voting with a requirement that stamp-free ballots be received by a certain date, or received any time within a three-month period?

Why not internet voting, a voting app, vote-by-Facebook or Instagram? If mail-in ballots require too much work to get right, or that voters have pens (old school writing devices using ink), is that not too much of a burden on their exercise of this civic right? Should registered-at-birth voters be put to the task of requesting mail-in ballots or should they be sent to everyone, regardless of whether they’re still alive, still at the same address, still living in this country?

One of the tacit challenges of being required to physically show up at the designated polling place was that it required some small degree of effort to vote. That meant that only people who cared enough to make the effort would cast a ballot. Granted, this presented a burden to those whose work made that effort greater, even impossible, when they were otherwise willing to do so, and this served as an impediment to voting. Combined with the reality that any single vote was of marginal utility (yes, there are outliers where a few votes swung an election, but they’re outliers), and so it was not entirely irrational to shrug off voting because it was inconvenient and one vote didn’t really matter anyway.

This isn’t to suggest any particular outcome is better than any other. But then, the pyramid of citizenship suggests that many, perhaps most, voters won’t have sufficient information and interest in governance to contribute much to the vote. It’s not that citizens don’t have the right to vote, just as they have the right to yell “Fuck the draft” at everyone they see or watch videos of them crushing poor helpless animals in high heels, but does that make it a good idea that they do so? And if it does, what is the tipping point of effort to be required to exercise their right, or must states make voting so easy and effortless that lifting a finger is “Jim Crow in new clothes”?

 

21 thoughts on “Are More Voters An Inherent “Good”?

  1. Kirk A Taylor

    So I’m a tax guy…
    And I’m preparing my writing on the latest tax law changes in the Coronavirus bill…
    They are a doozy and I don’t think the media has quite done the math on all of them, instead focusing on the stimulus.
    The Daycare credit changes alone could amount to several thousands of dollars for next year’s tax returns.
    We have moved so far beyond a “chicken in every pot” that it is laughable. It’s a Ferrari in every pot!
    The R’s are going to learn the lesson of Warnock and start offering their own chickens, as you pointed out.
    But holy crap do they have their work cut out for them, especially after people get their refunds next year!

    1. SHG Post author

      A bill will eventually come due, but until then, who wouldn’t vote for free money for themselves?

      1. Bear

        When the bill comes due it’s going to be an economic earthquake. I worry for my and everyone’s kids and grandkids. Access to voting may prove to be the least of their problems.

  2. Elpey P.

    Justice won’t be done until the federal government mandates that the tech overlords preinstall a swipe left app on all smartphones.

    Oh wait, that still requires lifting a finger. Federal funding for eye tracking technology now!

  3. Miles

    Just gonna say it: I do not understand why requiring voters to provide identification is so controversial. Why is this a burden on the right to vote?

    1. SHG Post author

      To the extent I understand the argument (and I may not fully appreciate it), poor and minority citizens may not have any identification or have any need for identification (for example, if they don’t drive, they don’t need a driver’s license), and if they were required to provide it, it would serve to impair their ability to vote.

      1. Miles

        I understand that not everyone has identification (although it seems impossible in this society to function without it), but what I do not understand is why, if someone wants to vote, it’s too much of a burden to get an ID. Undocumented immigrants are quite happy to obtain a license or ID so they can function, but that’s too much of a burden for citizens? That’s my issue.

        1. phv3773

          To get a state ID here is Connecticut, you have to go to the DMV, and not the local Express office with limited services, but the big DMV two towns over. Do you like to go your DMV, and why not?

          OTOH, an ID requirement for voting was instituted here with little fuss a couple years before it became a big issue in other states.

          People have been doing banking by mail since forever, and banking over the internet for about 30 years. It’s just silly to think it can’t work for voting.

          1. SHG Post author

            Bank by mail? That’s a new one. So no problem with IDs in CT even if they have to go to DMV (which they could change if that was a problem, but apparently it’s not). Cool, but what does that have to do with anyone else anywhere else?

        2. norahc

          Imagine the outcry if people who wanted to exercise their First Amendment right to vote had to go through the same process as those who who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights, or their Fourth, Fifth or any other Amendment for that matter.

          Why is it okay to place a burden on one right to be exercised, but the end of the world to place it on another?

          1. SHG Post author

            Personal rights and civic rights function differently. You have a right to vote, but you can’t wake up tomorrow and decide to go vote for the 2024 presidential candidate, whereas you can exercise your 1A right to complain about it anytime (without an ID or postage stamp).

  4. Rengit

    If more voters is inherently good, why not teenagers? Why not children? Why not one of my grandmothers, who is 90+ and not quite a vegetable but vacillates between the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s as to what current decade we’re in, along with the rest of the dementia and Alzheimer’s sufferers in the elder and memory care facility? Or, to the extent we can’t trust them to do it themselves, a trusted guardian to vote on their behalf, who knows their interests best and will surely vote accordingly?

    More voters and more votes is always better. I think Boss Tweed said something along these lines.

    1. SHG Post author

      Being of sound mind might be implicit, but there is a push by some to lower the voting age to 16 because they’re so passionate and politically attuned.

  5. B. McLeod

    Bread, and circuses. The concept of buying elections by throwing money to the crowd is an old one. Democratic “analysis” here is rooted in their identity politics model (i.e., stereotyping). In that Democrats claim to represent the interests of common folk, while Republicans represent the wealthy, Democrats should always win if there are more voters. After all, there are more common folks than wealthy folks. Based on the Democratic premises, more voters can never be bad for Democrats, and are therefore an inherent good.

    1. SHG Post author

      There are always going to be more low info, low interest voters as well. Tap that market and you got it made.

  6. Jardinero1

    The issue of what is an impediment to vote is a political question. It’s healthy to hash that out every generation or so.

    I am unpersuaded by the hypothesis, circulating in Democratic Party circles, that removing all impediments to registration, and allowing ballot harvesting, will create a path to permanent hegemony in the legislative branch and executive branch, for Democrats.

    It’s a numbers problem. The numbers don’t necessarily work in favor of Democrats. White voter participation rates are about 65 percent, African American slightly higher, hispanic in the high 40’s, all other races around 50 percent. None of the groups break strongly democrat, except for African Americans. The rest are pretty much up for grabs depending on the candidate and the issues. Even if you register all of the current non-voters and harvest their ballots, you have zero guarantee that you will increase democrat percentages, even with African American non-voters. It is an enormous gamble for the Democratic Party. It is just as likely that you will harvest a republican voter as a democrat voter from the 87 percent of the non-voting population that is not African American. In fact you might have better luck harvesting republican votes from the current ranks of white, latino and asian non-voters.

    We are already seeing this in California. Republicans got their asses handed to them in the first election cycle that permitted ballot harvesting. Then, when Republicans adjusted their ground game to the new environment, they starting clawing back their prior losses.

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