There were five propositions on the back of the ballot in New York. If you didn’t know about them, you might not have turned the ballot over and voted. Apparently 11% of voters didn’t, although it’s unclear whether they didn’t know or chose not to vote. Two of the propositions related to issues that have generated extreme outrage elsewhere, in the red sort of states where some focus their cries of voter suppression, like Georgia and Florida. As New York is safely blue (except when it isn’t, as was learned in Nassau County), few seemed to take notice.
For months Democrats have been arguing that it’s too hard to get a ballot in America, so Congress must step in to keep the electorate from being suppressed. New Yorkers apparently don’t agree, since they soundly rejected two big ideas that Democrats want to impose on the whole nation via their other voting bill, H.R.1. The first is same-day voter registration. New York’s constitution says updates to the voter rolls “shall be completed at least ten days before each election.” A ballot measure to delete that provision failed, as of the latest numbers, 58% to 42%.
The proposition was to allow same-day registration to vote, because it would be too hard to register in advance of voting day. The substantive argument is that same day registration creates a plethora of issues about how poll workers are supposed to determine voting eligibility at the polling place. Or do they just let people sign a paper that says they’re eligible and vote? The argument there is that we have no serious voter fraud, so why not trust people? After all, it’s a civic right.
The proposition was defeated by 16%. It wasn’t for lack of clarity, as plagued other propositions on the ballot. This one was perfectly clear to anyone with a basic ability to read. This one addressed an issue that was argued in a great many editorial and op-eds. This was a basic tenet of those supporting voting rights and against voter suppression. And it crashed and burned.
New York’s constitution also reserves absentee voting for people who are genuinely “absent” or unable to appear “because of illness or physical disability.”
As it turns out, voters think absentee ballots are called that for a reason. They decided to keep the constitutional limitations, 56% to 44%. On both of these ballot measures, 11% of voters left the question blank. Yet they were rejected by large enough margins, according to the unofficial results Wednesday, that even if all the undecideds had voted “yes,” it wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcomes.
This, too, has been the subject of enormous discussion. Mail-in voting. Why not? It was never the law in New York, which only permitted absentee ballots for those who were, in fact, absent, but this proposition would have enabled everyone to vote by mail just because they wanted to, no excuse needed. And it, too, crashed and burned.
There was very little (by which I mean none) discussion about these ballot initiatives in advance of election day. Plenty of candidate flyers were sent out, telling us how awful the other person was and how they were going to destroy the metaverse, but nothing about changes to the state Constitution, to voting rights.
Perhaps the assumption was that these issues were so widely discussed already in connection to voter suppression in red states that it was time blue states cleaned up their own act and didn’t maintain voting laws that were just as bad, if not worse. Perhaps the proponents of these measures took for granted that the good blue citizens of New York would see these changes for the goods they were, and would obviously vote to make voting more effortless so that more people would vote. More people means more democracy, or better democracy, or so the platitude goes.
Yet, it didn’t happen. It wasn’t even close.
One explanation for this defeat was that the city voters didn’t bother to turn out for this off-year election, secure in the knowledge that Eric Adams would crush Curtis Sliwa as mayor, and thus the proposals were defeated by upstaters. Why they voted against the proposals wasn’t entirely clear, but they aren’t known to be as sophisticated as city slickers.
The progressive feedback loop in Washington and online has convinced itself that Democrats are waging a grand civil-rights battle against vote suppressors. As usual these days, the Democratic Party is out of step with their non-progressive supporters. This is the same with state voter-ID laws, which the Democratic bills in Congress would undermine, despite their broad popularity.
It appears that their grand civil-rights battle is being fought in red states, and that a great many Dems support the proposition that states that vote red need to make voting more effortless so that more presumed Democratic voters will turn the state purple, if not blue. There is no basis to argue that we have a massive voter fraud problem in this country, even though the seeds of doubt have now grown into mighty willows in some fertile Trumpkin minds. And yet, both New York propositions failed.
Perhaps the explanation isn’t about voter turnout in the city as opposed to upstate. Perhaps it isn’t that people believe that Georgia and Florida are, in fact, trying to game the vote for the sake of overturning an election should Trump fail to be re-elected come 2024. Perhaps it didn’t need a lot of advance warning and argument to let New York voters know that their state laws were just as bad, if not worse, than the ones that outraged them down south.
Voting is a right, but a civic right. One that needs to be exercised, and the act of exercising one’s franchise, of registering to vote, of the inconvenience, even difficulty, of going to a polling place to vote, reflects a belief that people who are too lazy, unwilling or disinterested to make the effort have made their own choice. If they can’t be bothered to register, can they be bothered to learn who the candidates are and what they stand for? And if they have no clue who they are voting for or why, do they really contribute anything to democracy?
As questioned before, there is a difference between voter suppression and voter facilitation. How far should we bend over to make it easier, effortless, to vote? For voters who take the time to learn the issues, know the candidates, think about their vote, do they really want their vote to be canceled out by someone who can’t be bothered to get off their couch? Maybe the New York defeat of these propositions was a message that a little effort is the least people can do to exercise their civic right to vote.
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Here in Texas our lege passed some voting reforms that were apparently so bad it caused the Democrats to skip the state to deny a quorum, temporarily at least. I say “apparently” because the media is parroting the left’s cries that the changes are simply awful while neglecting to tell us what the changes actually are. The only specifics I’ve heard relate to the elimination of 24 hour voting and to the elimination of drive through voting. Which, yeah, I guess that’s bad(?) but isn’t anywhere near Jim Crow.
So while I think voting should be encouraged to the extent possible I have a hard time taking the left seriously on this.
” On both of these ballot measures, 11% of voters left the question blank. ”
Waiting for the cries that HIDING these on the back caused ‘voter suppression’ and they would otherwise have been votes for and, therefore, every blank vote should be counted as a ‘Yes’ and the negative results overturned as a matter of policy and equity.
I found it quite curious that there was no bold faced note on the front that said “turn the ballot over, you idiot, there are propositions on the back,” but then it’s not as if NY isn’t run by the party of the gooder folkx.
I taught this stuff. There are some good studies out there. Mostly they show that making it ‘easier’ to vote doesn’t seem to increase voting all that much. Those who don’t care, really don’t care
The concern, as I understand it, is that methods which allow vote harvesting will be used to get people who really don’t care if it takes more effort to say no than “fine.” Whether the number is significant is another story.
On election day in 2000, I visited my mother in her Alzheimer’s care facility. (She would be dead within a few months.) I found her in her daily haze in her bed with a “I Voted!” sticker on her gown. The woman across from her was a literal zombie who also had a “I Voted” sticker on her hospital gown.
My mother had a faint memory of some nice people coming to visit her early in the morning. I’m sure that her roommate had no memory or consciousness of anything. The roommate “disappeared” (died) shortly thereafter.
Asking at the nursing station, the SEIU had union workers at the door at 6:59 am who piled in at 7:00 to vote the entire care facility. The care facility was required by state law to allow voting “assistance” which in this case amounted to forced vote harvesting of the sick and dying.
By myself, I can’t outvote entire nursing homes. I think you are naive about the corruption the bubbles beneath the electoral surface. Same day registration with no ID requirement? Why bother having an election at all?
As vote harvesting goes, that’s pretty awful. I don’t know how often that would have any serious affect on an election, but it’s still wrong.
Having an affect on one election is one too many. In 1948, Lyndon Johnson won his election to the Senate by 87 votes after 200 votes were found in Box 13 in Jim Wells County. Most historians agree that the votes were fraudulent. His election was harmful to world history, though others may disagree. It can’t be argued that it did not change history.
True that it can, although one election in 1948 doesn’t raise deep concerns about it. Also true that it shouldn’t, and that’s true of both sides.
I was a permanent resident between 2002 and 2007, when I acquired US citizenship. In truth, there are very few differences in the things LPRs and Citz can do, but the major one is the ability to vote (others are things you’ve talked about like not being deported at the end of an incarceration). I worked hard to get the right to vote, it cost money (the filing fee was $400) and an exam (funny story about that but not for here since it’s off-topic). I vote every chance I get, even when there is no candidate for me to vote for (gerrymandering). It infuriates me that people who couldn’t be arsed to get off the couch have people bending backwards to facilitate voting. But then, maybe I’m not the kind of person the parties want voting in the first place?
People who have jumped through the substantial hoops of becoming a US citizen often have little patience for the whininess about natural born citizens who can’t be bothered to exercise their rights.
Upstate, around Albany, Saratoga, and Warren Counties, the GOP ran some TV ads saying the propositions would facilitate voter fraud (riffing off Trump’s tune) and seemed to get some traction, but I think red Upstaters were pretty enthused to vote anyway.
Not a peep down here. Nada.
Obviously, New Yorkers must start their voting reforms with, “every question must appear on the front of the ballot.”
We’re brilliant, but not too bright.
While massive voter fraud on the level to make Trump win is crazy, how does anyone know what fraud is being committed if there is no way to find it? Claiming there is no voter fraud certainly sounds better than saying “We made it impossible to detect voter fraud, so we don’t look for voter fraud, so we don’t find any voter fraud, so there is no voter fraud!”
Vote-by-mail is very convenient but makes voter fraud extremely easy.
I moved between vote-by-mail Oregon and Washington and the post office was kind enough to forward my ballot to the other state. Last month, I received ballots for both of my adult children. I could easily have had three votes and, if my kids found out, would they have have reported their father for fraud?