Tag: voting

Small District Democracy

election reform, voting, Democracy, districts

Virtually every election-related reform one could imagine was discussed this week at INC ’23 in Austin, Texas. INC stands for Independent National Convention, a gathering of non-partisan pro-democracy activists with Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich, two former congresspeople and presidential candidates, headlining the event.

Speaking on a panel on Election Systems Reform, I highlighted the rhetoric of expanding voting rights. For example, the New York City Council decided to swell those rights by giving non-citizens the vote — even while a solid majority of New Yorkers were opposed. Recently Washington, D.C.’s Council bestowed local voting rights to people in the city (and country) illegally, as well as to foreign nationals working for foreign governments at the city’s many foreign embassies.

Allowing the staff at the Chinese and Russian embassies to cast ballots is clearly an expansion of voting rights. But does it make sense?

I also pointed out that making it easier to vote by having, say, six weeks of early voting (as we do in my home state of Virginia) comes with a cost: more expensive campaigns. And anything that increases the price tag of running for office decidedly benefits incumbents.

My key message, however, was this: In a representative democracy, even if the rules and mechanics of the election process are spectacular, we still need someone to vote for, someone to actually represent us.

Making it easier or more efficient or transparent to go through the frustration and angst of our current contests between candidates Bad and Worse, both soon to be bought off, seems of limited appeal.

The change that would best overcome big money political influence and provide real representation to citizens — improving both elections and governance — is simple: a far smaller ratio of citizens to elected representatives.

Stephen Erickson, executive director of Citizens Rising, specifies “small political districts of 30,000 inhabitants or less, at all levels of government throughout the United States.” Compare that to the average of over 700,000 people in today’s congressional districts.

The audience seemed to think this “Small District Democracy” made common sense.

I’m Paul Jacob. And I think it is the very best reform we could make.

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ballot access election law national politics & policies

Alien National Capital

Joe Biden, democracy, voting, illegal immigrants

While the 58th anniversary of the Selma, Alabama, Bloody Sunday seemed an apt occasion to address the right of all citizens to participate democratically in their government, leaving the job to President Joe Biden was … awkward. He said nothing of consequence.

But back in 2020, candidate Biden said this: “In order to be able to vote, it’s important that you be a U.S. citizen.” That’s consequential.

In 2021, however, when the New York City Council extended suffrage to foreign nationals living legally in the Big Apple, against the will of the majority of New Yorkers, I don’t recall hearing even the slightest peep from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now the wackos in Washington, D.C., have enacted a non-citizen voting measure that goes further. It allows Russian nationals working for Mr. Putin at their embassy in our nation’s capital to vote on city candidates and ballot issues and welcomes onto Washington’s voter rolls Chinese citizens here promoting Xi Jinping and the interests of his genocidal regime.

The District of Columbia’s ordinance extends the franchise even to people here illegally, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world able to avoid deportation to cast a ballot. Legally.

Thankfully, House Joint Resolution 24, which seeks to block the D.C. non-citizen voting ordinance passed the U.S. House last month, garnering support from every Republican present as well as roughly one in five Democrats. Action now moves to the Senate.

“After years of lamenting so-called ‘foreign interference’ in our elections,” argues Sen. Tom Cotton (R‑Ark.), “every single Democrat ought to join in invalidating this insane policy.”

But will they?

Congressional Democrats might claim that their support for local control in D.C. excuses them for allowing this non-citizen voting measure to become law. But it’s not even a fig-leaf after Biden declared he would sign the congressional Republicans’ repeal of another D.C. council enactment, a controversial crime “reform” law, which District officials then hurriedly withdrew to placate nervous national Dems.

Talk about awkward!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Biden certainly has a cavernous credibility gap on election integrity. After he attacked Republicans as “un-American” and the 2021 election reform legislation enacted in Georgia as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” the Peach State saw “record breaking turnout” in last year’s election. Sadly, much of the media merely ignored reality; CBS News headlined one report, “Effect of Georgia’s voting law unclear, despite high turnout.”

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Accountability election law

Democracy by Tortoise

It may take three weeks!

The counting of ballots for 2022’s General Election was pretty much wrapped up on election night. In most states. Yet, a week after election day, California election officials have barely counted half the ballots cast in a number of very close congressional districts as well as other state races.

“I anticipate it’s going to take at least a couple of weeks,” offered a Sacramento County Elections spokesperson, “if not three weeks, to process the bulk of the ballots that have come in.”

Why the tortoise pace?

“In short,” KTLA-TV in Los Angeles reports, “it’s a product of the state’s massive population and laws that make it easier and more convenient for every eligible voter to be heard.”

The Big Population argument falls flat. California has more votes to count but likewise more people available to count them. Nor does California have higher voter turnout or rules so different from other states that count much faster.

California law allows ballots to be mailed as late as election day, which does indeed slow the counting. That could of course be tightened up. But it seems the main thing California might do differently is work harder at getting the votes counted. State law only requires that county election offices have folks working six hours a day, with weekends and holidays off.

“We’d rather get it right,” says Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D), “than get it fast.”

Mr. Secretary, the problem is that the longer the election drags on without a winner being declared, the less confidence the public has in the process.

Get it right. And fast.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers

Surfin’ U.S.A.

Back in the Spring, a pollster was detailing his findings to a group of us. The Democrats were none too popular, he informed. And informed. And further informed. But at one point, the pollster stopped to remind: “Don’t get me wrong, that’s not to suggest the public is fond of Republicans.”

“We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history, we have Joe Biden who is the least popular president … since presidential polling happened,” Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen explained on Fox News, “and there wasn’t a red wave.”

Barely a ripple.

Voters, he continued. “looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said, ‘No, thanks!’”

Calling it “an absolute disaster,” Thiessen advised the GOP to do a “a really deep introspective look in the mirror right now.”

Watch for cracks.

More than the abortion issue or the mixed blessing of Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, I think the GOP’s problem was the lack of any serious, cohesive and positive agenda. We are indeed facing massive inflation, crime, cultural revolution … but what are you going do ’bout it?

Answers aren’t coming from the Republican Party.

In last year’s red wave across my home state of Virginia, it wasn’t now-Governor Glenn Younkin who made respecting the rights of the parents of public education students a cataclysmic issue. Parents did that.

The Republican Revolution of 1994 rode a tsunami produced in no small part by the term limits movement. With term limits measures on the ballot throughout the country, the GOP gained 52 seats to secure a majority after 40 consecutive years in the minority — even defeating the Democratic House Speaker.

Want candidates to ride a popular, pro-freedom wave?

Better start splashing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags democracy, election, red wave, voting

ballot access national politics & policies partisanship

Launch a Thousand Lawsuits

In the last couple of years, the Republican National Committee has launched 73 lawsuits in twenty states to challenge slack, lax, state-law-defying election rules and prepare for further lawsuits if the elections in November are afflicted by any shenanigans. A good start.

The litigation pertains to things like treatment of poll watchers, how absentee ballots should be counted, and whether noncitizens may be allowed to vote. The RNC has achieved some important successes.

In June, a New York court ruled that a new law giving almost a million noncitizens the right to vote in New York City is unconstitutional. The RNC has also sued to block noncitizen voting in two Vermont towns.
A court ruled that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated the law when imposing new restrictions on poll watchers.
Nevada and Arizona must now provide poll-worker data to ensure that both major political parties are represented at voting sites.

A lot of electoral hanky-panky in 2020 was never adequately investigated. Many of us were blindsided by the brazenness with which foes of one-citizen-one-honest-vote exploited COVID-19 fears to undermine election integrity. (It was an emergency. Safeguards just had to be scuttled, supposedly.)

Until the time machine gets invented, though, we’re stuck with the electoral results of that year. We can no longer contest the 2020 election.

But we can darn well contest the 2022 election if and when we espy dubious electoral doings.

And the 2024 election too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access judiciary

Zombie Vote Protected

A few weeks before the election, a federal judge has blocked Arizona legislation to combat voter fraud.

Opponents routinely characterize efforts such as this Arizona measure to ensure election integrity as “voter suppression.” Charges of racial discrimination often get tossed in to allow for the customary level of hysterical partisan denunciation.

According to Jon Sherman of the Fair Elections Center, even if HB2243 is “not discriminatory on its face . . . it is an open invitation. It declares open season for discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, dress, English proficiency, anything else.”

Of course,HB2243 extends no such invitation.

The legislation states that registration forms shall contain such things as a statement “that if the registrant permanently moves to another state after registering to vote in this state, the registrant’s voter registration shall be canceled.”

It also authorizes the county reorder to cancel a registration when he “is informed and confirms that the person registered is dead.”

Sounds like it could certainly suppress the zombie vote.

Legislation should be as carefully worded as possible. But no degree of precision in a law designed to prevent persons from voting who are not entitled to vote will prevent opponents from charging that it’s really, deep down inside, about “declaring open season for discrimination.”

Had the Arizona legislature passed the new law in plenty of time to grapple with legal challenges, the reformmighthave been in place for the mid-terms. Let’s hope HB2243 is in place and free of judicial encumbrance by 2024.

Enacting this kind of legislation is of many things that need to be done to safeguard elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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