Voter Turnout

EXCESSIVE ELECTIONS

It is easy to cite voting results that prove Americans take the right to vote too much for granted. We are the oldest democratic form of government in the world and a model for many others across the globe. Yet in the past century we have, as voting eligible peoples, not performed our civic duty very admirably. Closely contested presidential elections have struggled to tally 62% of the potentially available, non-incarcerated adult citizens. And presidential elections garner the best we can do. Congressional midterm elections, statewide gubernatorial elections and local city/county contests struggle to attain a sizable fraction of the presidential vote totals. Many places, however, have initial party primary elections with subsequent runoffs where the initial contest started with more than two candidates. Sometimes local school districts will even stage special elections for bond issues to decide on capital construction questions. Many such local elections have produced results on the basis of as little as 10% to 12% turnout. Who can claim with confidence that decisions made by such paltry representations of the body politic are indeed decisions made as a form of a democratic process?

Yet other than the occasional post-election editorial decrying low turnouts, little is ever done to reverse these trends or to boost turnout in subsequent elections. And, in fact, one major party seems intent on going the other direction, making it even more difficult for turnouts to rise. They push voter ID laws and restrictions on early voting while continuing to seek to produce and maintain legislative maps that gerrymander voter rolls in ways designed to maximize their numbers in spite of relative parity of voters at the macro level. Some in that party are more worried about the potential for undocumented immigrants voting in ways they abhor than they are ensuring that legal citizens vote in sufficient numbers to express a common will.

This being an essay, not a book, I will not offer data validating the generalizations I have made. Such data does exit and could be produced. Instead, my intent here is to suggest several simple changes available that could markedly improve voter turnout at little cost (if not produce a savings to the overall costs of elections).

We need far fewer elections. Send the voters to the polls less often. Presidential and midterm elections every two years in November are sufficient. They can be preceded by single open primaries scheduled at the whim and pleasure of various states, but without runoffs. Instead of separate party primaries, for all offices below that of President, have a totally open primary for a given office with the top two vote getters advancing to the general election in November. This could work for Congress and Senate as well as gubernatorial offices.

I would also take many currently elective offices out of the mix and convert them to appointive positions. This is most easily seen at the local levels. Why should voters elect county clerks, state superintendents of education or insurance, even attorneys general? Do local voters really have any idea who would make the best municipal or district judge? If we elect the mayor and the governor and the state legislators with appropriately representative turnout margins, why can't we trust those elected officials to appoint qualified people who will administer the various departments of government properly? And if they err they can be removed by the elected officials. And if the elected officials fail to act, they can be removed by election.