Why Early Voting Needs to be BANNED
OK, I'm convinced. I used to think conservatives wanted to ban early voting because only the wrong people were benefiting from extended voting hours. You know, those lowly working stiffs who might have trouble getting away from the workplace; the elderly, low-income, dark-skinned, etc.
But now law professor Eugene Kontorovich has shown us the light. The real benefit of cracking down on early voting is that warm fuzzy patriotic feeling we get when we're all crammed simultaneously into the polling place with our neighbors on that one special day. Or something. Here, I'll let Professor Kontorovich explain it:
“A single Election Day creates a focal point that gives solemnity and relevance to the state of popular opinion at a particular moment in time; on a single day, we all have to come down on one side or the other. But if the word 'election' comes to mean casting votes over a period of months, it will elide the difference between elections and polls. People will be able to vote when the mood strikes them — after seeing an inflammatory ad, for example.
Voting then becomes an incoherent summing of how various individuals feel at a series of moments, not how the nation feels at a particular moment. This weakens civic cohesiveness, and it threatens to substitute raw preferences and momentary opinion for rational deliberation.”
Doesn't that just tug on the ol' heart strings? When you were reading those two stirring paragraphs, you probably heard our National Anthem while visualizing Old Glory waving in the breeze.
And in this same spirit, we also need to crack down on all absentee ballots. Oh, you're fighting and getting shot at in Afghanistan? Sorry; if you can't be bothered to come back to your own country on the first Tuesday in November and take part in this sacred ritual with your Fellow Americans, then you really don't care, do you.
Labels: early voting, Eugene Kontorovich
posted by Tom Harper @ 6:04 PM
13 Comments:
"Solemnity"?!! Give me a break.
What a bunch of crap!
???? I'm still trying to understand what he's saying other then "I'm getting paid to come up with an intelligent reason to convince you not to vote early"
Is he talking about when the you can go to the polls at County Election Central and Vote as soon as the Ballots are released? Or the Vote by Mail Ballots?
Perhaps Diebold has hired him to try to get us to have faith in their fixed, right wing biased, voting machines!
Whatever! Jerry coined it correctly
Erik
It used to be tougher for me to vote. I would actually weigh the pluses and minuses of the candidates. And yes, I actually voted for a few Republicans back in the day. And though I am an Independent I can safely say that all future national elections will see me voting for the Democrat. I am so angry at what the Right has pulled over the last oh I guess 30 plus years, they will never see me vote for them again. SO sign me up for next 5 or 6 elections and please put all the X's on the Left.
Yum, yum...I love me some words like "elide". It tips me off to the importance of what I am reading...even if it makes NO FUCKING SENSE WHATSOEVER! What a self-important douche bag.
Satsu Imo: LOL, these wingtards keep coming up with one flimsy talking point after another.
Jerry: It sure is.
Erik: That's all it is, just a talking point that some rightwing donor paid him to come up with.
MRM: Same with me. I'm not devoted to either party, but it's the GOP that's been moving further and further to the extreme margins and coming up with one sleazy tactic after another. Until that party gets completely purged of their combination of corporate hegemony, "Christian" fanaticism and chickenhawk warmongering, they don't deserve a single vote from anyone.
jadedj: Self-important douchebag is exactly what he is.
Well, I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that what the professor says makes a lot of sense.
In these parts, the black community is up in arms about the shortening of early voting period because it makes it more difficult for politicians and preachers getting the entire congregation up in arms on Sunday morning, loading them into vans, and hauling them to the early voting place. It happens folks.
And, I can clearly remember a time when election Tuesday was an exciting time, a time when you were reminded how important voting was and yes, a patriotic time when you felt a camaraderie with your fellow citizens in line, often discussing the merits of one candidate or another right up until time to pull the lever (yes boys and girls, there were levers back then).
However, I believe the single biggest thing destroying that sense of nationalism is early voting results publicized in the media. There should be no election results announced publicly on national elections until the polls have closed throughout the nation (possibly excepting Hawaii). Often, as was the case in the last national election, the race is decided before most people in California have even voted. So, if you're one of them, any sense of the importance of your vote in a democratic society is kicked in the head.
Mr. C: Well, at least we agree on not broadcasting election results until all polls have closed.
I have some nostalgia for Election Day and that group/camaraderie feeling. For me that's a thing of the past anyway because all voting in Washington State is done through the mail.
However, Republicans are more determined than ever to limit the vote, and I don't think their motives have anything to do with voter fraud or Election Day camaraderie. As you'll see in this article, things are heating up.
I agree the R's are trying to restrict the vote and for quite some time now they have advanced packing a district, allowing gerrymandering minority districts so as to "pack" the district with Dems thereby diluting the Dem impact in surrounding districts. All kinds of shenanigans going on out there.
I am not sure that increasing a sense of nationalism is particularly a good thing. A lot of people have died because of nationalism.
Mr C,
I remember all too well the 1980 election being out in California and it was still light out in the late afternoon and the Networks declared Reagan the winner over Carter and a lot of us were still trying to get out to Vote. I think that was wrong.
My other earlier Memories of Election Tuesday were watching an older generation of Black People finally being able to see the promises of the 15th Amendment and finally being able to pull that lever. Driving bus and car loads of people to the polls is done all over the country by all sorts of different people to get their faithful out, especially the only group that was especially eliminated from voting even after the 15th and 19th Amendment and are now again the target of Republican repression. (why don't they just integrate?)
Keep in mind, just because they drive you up there, once you get into the booth you are by yourself and can vote anyway you want to.
So much would be solved if we had Saturday Elections like I'm told most of the modern world does.
Erik
Eric...I submit that most of the modern world has left our ignorant asses behind in many ways.
Mr. C: Yup, the GOP's 2-prong battle plan is gerrymandering and doing everything possible to prevent the "wrong" people from voting.
Jerry: Nationalism can be dangerous when it goes beyond mere pride and loyalty and turns into hatred of everything foreign or "other."
Erik: I sure remember that 1980 election when Carter conceded publicly while polls were still open on the west coast.
Saturday elections would definitely be an improvement.
jadedj: LOL. Sad but true.
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