Category: Voting

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general freedom Voting

Dis Democracy?

Democracy

Starting the new year and awaiting a new administration, do we deserve to ‘get it good and hard’?

In the winter issue of Cato Institute’s Regulation, economist Pierre Lemieux acknowledges H.L. Mencken’s famous line — “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” — and sympathizes with “disappointed voters” following last November’s election.

“The common person does know what he wants,” argues Lemieux, explaining that “he succeeds so well in his private life.”

Of course, our economic marketplace and our political marketplace are markedly different.

“The electoral choices presented to voters are typically a confused mix of unreliable promises and obscure policies,” Lemieux writes. “Contrast that with the clarity and variety of market choices.”

He notes the ways regular folks are being politically disempowered: “The value of lying as an electoral asset seems to be on the rise. The public education system appears to have not had much success in encouraging the quest for truth. And the common people have been infantilized by their own governments …”

Lemieux worries that “when the common person is given the power to decide what his fellow humans should want … things can go very wrong.” 

He’s correct, of course. But it isn’t a problem unique to democracy or the participation of regular folks. When any government has such enormous power over “fellow humans,” yes, things go wrong. Enormously wrong. 

Yet, in democracies, the problem of political tyranny is far less pronounced than in anti-​democratic regimes, and more effectively remedied. Democratic government is messy, woefully imperfect and can lead to awful policies and real tyranny. Still, it lacks a superior alternative.

Until then, give me democracy. 

Good and hard? Preferably good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture Voting

Don’t Kill Yourself

democracy, peace, freedom, elections, voting, propaganda, hysteria

As Donald Trump appeared to be winning last night, the number of Twitterers who proclaimed a hankering or a design to kill themselves rose dramatically. Michael Malice and others found humor in it, but it’s a super-​saddening development, if you ask me.

These Kamala Harris voters are not really going to kill themselves. It is just something to say on Twitter.

I really hope I’m not wrong about this.

I’ll leave to others the counsel of life. That is the job of friends and family and emergency hotline dispatchers. My counsel is different: talking about suicide because your candidate lost is undemocratic. If the authoritarian pronouncements of both major candidates alarmed you about the danger of anti-​democratic trend, this fad should raise the alarm several decibels.

The whole point of democracy is to allow a transition of power sans bloodshed. And that requires both contenders and supporters not to shed each other’s blood … or their own. When they fail.

It’s a requirement. Not to over-react.

The losers have to accept the loss, and the winners have to refrain from using the state to punish the losers further. 

It’s sort of that simple.

Resignation is key, as scientist Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) indicated: “Going to bed, reasonably resigned to Trump win at this point as it seemed to me from a distance for some time. He may be a nut, a liar, and a crook, but the bright side is a likely boost free speech and due process at unis and bump in tech sector, if we survive the rest.”

We will survive. If Trump wins the Electoral Vote (I’m going to bed, too, before a final determination), or if Harris does.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law Voting

Feds Push Noncitizen Voting

Democrats, machine, voting, elections, democracy, immigration

Two states are in trouble with the federal government, which is in trouble with them.

Florida is suing the feds because the Sunshine State needs the cooperation of the federal government to check the status of certain persons on its voter rolls.

Florida is bound by law to maintain accurate registration rolls. The federal government is bound by law to cooperate with requests from state and local governments for the information required to fully assess whether a person on the rolls has the right to vote and to be registered to vote.

But when Florida asked Citizenship and Immigration Services for just this kind of information, the USCIS balked.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is suing Virginia to prevent that state from cleaning up its own voter rolls. 

Virginia Governor Youngkin castigates the federal action as “an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine to remove noncitizens from voter rolls — a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a noncitizen and then registering to vote.”

Power Line plausibly suggests that what’s happening here is that the politicized, misnamed Justice Department regards the votes of noncitizens as most likely to be votes for Democratic candidates. So why not discard established law and established procedures if this would help tilt elections in favor of Democrats?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall Voting

No Argument

billboard, amendment, Constitution

Vote For! Vote Against!

What else do you need to know?

Well, speaking just for myself, I prefer political ads that tell me at least something about an issue or a candidate prior to their exhortation to vote for or against him, her, or it. 

Messaging ought to at least suggest why to vote a certain way. 

And that’s what stuck out about an electronic billboard in North Carolina, which does absolutely nothing to persuade — zip, zilch, zero to answer the question why. 

It simply states, “VOTE AGAINST THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.” Next to those words is a picture of a ballot with the “Against” oval filled in — and circled, too, for good measure.

The instruction is quite clear, but, well, why? 

And what the heck is this even about?!

This billboard is paid for by NCAAT in Action — the AAT stands for Asian Americans Together. If one goes to the group’s website, one finds … nada. No information whatsoever about North Carolina’s Citizen Only Voting constitutional amendment, the only amendment on the ballot.* 

I harken back to Georgia and the 2021 joint statement by Asian Americans Advancing Justice-​Atlanta and the Asian American Advocacy Fund, which seemed to subscribe to the notion that only citizens should vote but still “collectively condemn[ed] the statements made by Georgia’s Secretary of State … emphasizing that ‘only American citizens should vote in our elections in Georgia.’”

Confused? These Democrat front groups don’t make any case at all against the idea of reserving suffrage to citizens. Why? They have no credible argument. 

But they still want voters to defeat these measures.

The good news is that they don’t represent the vast majority of Asian Americans, who strongly favor only citizens voting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* In full disclosure, I serve as chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting. 

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media and media people partisanship Voting

Spilt Ink

Iowa, voting, elections, illegal immigration, newspaper, ink

“Iowans should vote no,” argues a Des Moines Register editorial, because defeating the Citizen Only Voting Amendment on the statewide ballot would “send a message — to legislators, to our neighbors at home and to the rest of the nation and world — that Iowans reject exclusion and suspicion and instead put a premium on inclusion and trust.”

Let’s unpack.

Ballotpedia summarizes Amendment 1 as prohibiting “state and local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote and allow 17-​year-​olds who will be 18 by the general election to vote in primary elections.”

Nothing suspicious there. But there is an exclusion, of course. The measure would exclude noncitizens from voting in state and local elections.

“The context,” or what the TDS-​afflicted newspaper has apoplectically convinced themselves is the context, “is repeated assertions by President Donald Trump” and other Republicans “that immigrants without citizenship frequently register to vote and vote (more often for Democrats).”

The actual context is simply whether the state constitution should proclaim that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote. A policy that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are unsuspiciously excluded from voting on, but which would have prevented the 19 U.S. cities now allowing noncitizens to vote, including in most cases those here illegally, from doing so.

The Register nonetheless declares that “a higher standard is called for when the enduring language of the state Constitution is involved. That document should emphasize what unites Iowans.”

Yet nothing has united legislators more than this Citizen Only Voting Amendment, which passed each chamber of the Legislature twice without a single dissenting vote. 

Bemoaning that “seven states have already, in the past six years, made identical or similar changes in their state constitutions,” The Register further complains that “this fall, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin join Iowa in voting on similar amendments.” 

The objection? “That’s a lot of ink spilt to enshrine imaginary protections against imaginary problems.”

These imaginative editors acknowledged, in the same piece, that “[e]xperts say it ties lawmakers’ hands from ever passing laws to permit residents without citizenship to vote in certain local or state elections, such as for school boards.”

Passing Amendment 1 means politicians at the capitol in Des Moines will have to go back to Iowa voters if they want to allow noncitizen voting.

No crying here over spilt ink.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture Voting

Democrats and Noncitizen Voting

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? 

It depends. 

Which Democrats do you mean?

A clear majority of voters who identify as supporters of the Democratic Party oppose giving the vote to noncitizens. Specifically, they support the Citizen Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on the ballot this election in eight states — Idaho. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.* 

For instance, polling shows Democratic voters in North Carolina favor the only citizen voting measure by an eight to one margin. Among Republicans the margin is a whopping 22 to one. Most Democratic legislators joined every Republican in voting to place the amendment on the ballot, but less enthusiastically: 42 yes votes, 16 no votes and ten abstentions.

In Georgia, 70 percent of Democrats supported passing a Citizen Only Voting Amendment. Republican support was 93 percent with 76 percent of independents in favor. But while every Republican in the Peach State’s House of Representatives voted in the affirmative on HR780, not one single Democrat did so. 

Though not as lopsided as Republicans or independents, 83 percent of whom favor citizen only voting, 59 percent of Kentucky Democrats are supportive, a four to one margin. Yet, while every Republican legislator voted yes, less than one in five Democratic legislators were supportive. 

In Wisconsin, 76 percent of voters like the Citizen Only Voting Amendment, including 57 percent of Democrats residing outside the legislature. Inside the legislature, every single Democrat opposed the amendment. 

In this two-​year legislative cycle, votes were cast in 21 chambers in eleven states. The partisan difference between elected Republicans and Democrats was stark. Not a single Republican voted against the COVA, compiling over a thousand yes votes. Conversely, more Democratic legislators voted against COVA than for it.

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? Most elected Democrats, yes. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Additionally, all 19 of the cities where noncitizens are now legally voting, including noncitizens in the country illegally, are very progressive. All are sanctuary cities and governed (nearly) exclusively by Democrats.

* Voters have previously passed COVAs in six other states going back to 2018: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.

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