What we take most for granted is generally what is most valuable to our lives. Presently, voting comes to mind. We are in the final days of a very difficult four years for peace and justice. The only way to change the path we are on is through elections — to move toward that sustainable world we believe is attainable, with leadership that understands the global situation in which we now live.
We all have heard how things can go wrong (see the Elections page): voter suppression through unreasonable tests (id, payment of fines, past voting history), eliminating polling places in partisan ways, trash talking the postal service when mail-in ballots will be critical in a COVID world … the list goes on. All would agree that elections are important — yet we treat them like they are rummage sales.
For our elections, we use volunteer staff, with uncertain training on untested software located in whatever free space election officers can find. And election day is the first Tuesday in November – a day no event organizer would ever choose to predict a big turnout – with generally bad weather in the middle of a work week.
So imagine:
What if we actually treated Election Day like the most important day of the year? What if we hired the most proficient clerical staff available for reasonable pay – say $25/hour to start?
What if we trained these people on the software a month in advance and tested it weeks before Election Day?
What if we rented space for polling booths in many well-attended commercial spaces and public areas, in spaces so convenient and numerous that lines are not an issue?
What if we made Election Day a national holiday — as they do in many other countries — or if we spread Election Day over a weekend, to make it easier for working folk to get to the polls?
And what if we allowed each candidate the ability to put their statement in the voter pamphlet for free?
Would these changes cost money? Of course — but what is the price of electing corrupt politicians who can waste more money in one day than the cost of a free and fair election that would last two years? We have become accustomed to this warped and ineffective system — which only works well for incumbent politicians and the corporate money that puts them in office.
It’s time for a change. These common sense ideas need to be discussed — because the only reason we can “afford” to throw away over $700 billion on an inauditable and wasteful military budget and trillions in tax giveaways to the ultra-rich is that we cannot afford to invest $1 billion in free and fair elections. Happy mid-summer…
Bruce Giudici, Connections editor