Two ways to decrease conservative power, voting booth edition
by David Atkins
I wrote yesterday on the need for progressives to mobilize and organize in order to have a real impact on the political direction of the country, and mentioned that some of the forms this would take might not seem immediately germane to the people powered issues at hand. One avenue would be campaign finance reform, a subject that brings dull stares to most audiences, but which is absolutely essential to restoring our democracy.
But another is simply allowing more of the 99% to actually vote at the polls. Big corporate interests can spend a lot of cash on elections very effectively, but it only goes so far and it can only fool so many people. Significantly broaden and deepen the voting pool to include those to less receptive to conservative messaging, and buying elections becomes a much more difficult and expensive proposition even for the likes the Koch brothers.
They know this quite well, which is why we're seeing so much effort on the Republican side to restrict voting rights. But the news is not all grim: the California Assembly has passed a same-day voter registration law, allowing voters to register to vote all the way until election day. This is a no-brainer and doesn't open up the potential for fraud, as voters registered on the same day would still be checked to make sure no multiple votes were cast. As a volunteer working every day on the election here in Ventura County, I've already talked to about a dozen people who are unable to vote here because they discovered they weren't registered here, and only discovered that within the 15 day window prior to election day. Those people and thousands like them have been needlessly disenfranchised. Allowing for same-day registration will significantly increase the pool of voters especially among the young and "others" on the fringes of society, making it more difficult for conservatives to purchase elections.
There's another way to increase voter turnout, too: moving elections to weekends. The fact that American voter turnout is so low is partly because we vote on a day that is not amenable for many working-class people. Of course, mail ballot voting has helped to assuage this problem, but most Americans still vote at the polls on "Election Day." Why do we vote on Tuesdays? For no terribly good reason. It goes back to an 1845 law, established to give people traveling by horse-drawn carriage to take all of Monday to travel to the county courthouse after allowing Sunday to be devoted to rest. Yes, that's the actual reason.
No, these aren't huge advances that will suddenly make single-payer healthcare possible. But they're small ratchets away from conservative power. It's in small ratchets like these that conservatives have made it possible for them to gain power, as Hacker and Pierson amply demonstrate. And it's in small ratchets that we can help take it back, too.
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