To Vote or Not to Vote

Because I’m a precinct chair, I get some data on the election. I have access to names, addresses, and phone numbers of registered voters in my precinct. Additional information tells me who has voted in primary elections. Voters are then divided into tiers, so I can decide who to reach out to for Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts. I am encouraged to make use of the data by reaching out to them. The daily updates during early voting tell me who in the top couple of tiers has not voted. A week ago I spent an afternoon individually contacting many dozen voters to remind them of when and where to vote, and where to get information. A few thanked me. A few more texted STOP, even though I’m an individual doing it the hard way and not a list, but I’ll respect that.

image found here

Before last weekend my list started including another tier down, adding in not only those we could count on to vote Republican, but those we believe lean Republican. As of today, with just today and tomorrow left of early voting, all but 16% of the known and leaning Republicans in my precinct have already voted. The rest I am assuming plan to vote in person on election day. I can’t envision any active Republican this election year not getting around to deciding whether to vote.

I have a skeptical relationship with GOTV drives. Maybe this year more than any. Of course we need every vote we can get. We need a large enough margin to overcome any disenfranchisement done by voter fraud, which we already know is happening.[i] But what I don’t want to do—because I really hate that the opposition does this—they’re not actually giving voice to more informed votes; they’re giving additional voice to their own vote. They add numbers to their side without actually adding any more informed voters to their side.

I’m all in favor of adding more informed voters, which is why I see my job as a precinct chair—and as a political activist, if you must use that uncomfortable term—is inform people who appreciate getting the information, which seems easier for me to come by, because I’m dialed in, than it does for them.

One of the amusing stories—if these weren’t such serious times—is that one of the most Googled searches this past week (since the final presidential debate) has been “How do I change my vote?” 

Image found here

Oddly, there are several states that have a procedure for that—if they submitted a mail-in ballot that has not yet been counted. We can only hope that they are doing that securely, with no double counting or shenanigans. But maybe it’s not a great idea to vote before you know enough about your candidate. If your candidate, for instance, has had a long record of plagiarism, lying, and corruption[ii]—stories that have been widely available if you took a look—but you didn’t know about them until news stories broke through in late October, then I can see why you’d feel sick about having already cast your vote.

There's me with my "I Voted" sticker

I can see some wisdom in early voting. I often do it, usually just a few days before the election. I did that this week, exactly a week ahead of election day. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of my voting. I’m planning to work at our polling place on election day—but what if I got a sudden illness or got in an accident? I wanted my vote to be certain. I did it in person. Securely? I hope so, although our County Clerk has been unable to rectify a discrepancy of several thousand early votes—an error that simply should not ever happen. Early votes aren’t tallied; just the number of voters is what has been counted, and that is off by several thousand.  

Anyway, I voted early, and I’m glad for that opportunity. But I was certain my vote wasn’t going to change between now and election day. How certain were those people who voted early and then want to change their vote? Will they learn from this experience?

Unlike many, I don’t see voting as a right and obligation for every citizen; it is a privilege to vote, and should only be done after study, thought, prayer, and understanding. While I don’t advocate any kind of voting test (beyond being a legal citizen registered to vote who can prove identification), I do wish we could convince people not to take the privilege too lightly. As I may have said before, “with great power (to vote) comes great responsibility (to vote responsibly).”

Who should vote?

·         A person who has informed themselves about the candidates and issues and wants to express their considered opinion in a way that holds as much weight as anyone else’s considered opinion.

Who should voluntarily not vote?

·         A person who is uninformed, or worse, misinformed about the candidates and issues.

·         A person who sees only what limited sources of input tell them, and believe what they’re told without questioning.

·         A person who hasn’t read and understood the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

·         A person who lacks understanding about the freedoms protected by our Constitution.

·         A person who fails to understand that the proper role of government is to protect our God-given rights of life, liberty, and property.

·         A person who thinks our rights come from government, and who clamors for more invented “rights” at the expense of fellow citizens.

·         A person who thinks they have a right to other people’s money—as long as they use government to steal it and hand it over to them.

·         A person who thinks a person’s skin color or other “intersectional” characteristics are more important than a person’s character or even shared political beliefs—such persons are the real bigots.

·         A person who thinks big states or urban populations should dictate to smaller states and rural and suburban areas how everyone should do things.

·         A person who thinks America is inherently and systemically evil—you can’t vote for a slight tweak to what you abhor; you overthrow it, or you leave it. So please feel free to leave.

·         A person who doesn’t want free and fair elections, but thinks that lying, cheating, stealing, and fraud are acceptable ways of conducting an election—as long as it goes their way.

·         A person who thinks anyone who disagrees with them is evil and should be silenced.

·         A person who accepts deeply ingrained patterns of corruption from those on their side of the partisan divide, but who accepts not even a single flaw in someone on the other side.

If you’re one of those persons who shouldn’t be voting, do us all a favor and recuse yourself this election. As for next time, you can earn the privilege by doing the right things and becoming the sort of person who ought to vote.

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[i] “Texas Poll Watcher Testifies On 2020 Voter Fraud In Houston: Report,” Ken Webster, Jr., October 26, 2020, KTRH News Radio. See also “The Alleged Organized Voter Fraud Ring in Harris County” September 26, 2020, Houston Business Connections Newspaper. And see also “RIGGED ELECTION: TX 'Ballot Chaser' Illegally Pressures Voters To Change Votes,” James O’Keefe, October 27, 2020, Project Veritas YouTube. And see also “Chain of Custody? What’s That?” Kris Maxymillian, October 22, 2020, Conservative Texas Facebook. And see also “Printing Issue Affects 1/3 of Mail-In Ballots in Tarrant County, Administrator Says,” Ben Russell & Lili Zheng, October 27, 2020, NBCDFW. For an example beyond Texas, see “No Signature Match? No Postmark? No Problemo! It's This Week in Ballot Shenanigans!” Victoria Taft, October 23, 2020, PJ Media. And also consider “Joe's Freudian Sniff? Joe Biden Just Said He's Got a Great 'VOTER FRAUD Organization' Going,” Victoria Taft, October 24, 2020, PJ Media.

[ii] “Evidence of Joe Biden Corruption Just Keeps Piling Up, and the Media Refuses to Cover It,” Tyler O’Neil, October 29, 2020, PJ Media. See also “BOMBSHELL: Hunter Biden Email Names Kamala Harris, Others as Key Contacts for 'Joint Venture' With China Energy Co.,” Bryan Preston, October 22,2020, PJ Media. 

Debriefing the Primary Election

Texas was part of super Tuesday, holding our election on Tuesday. Mr. Spherical Model and I worked at our polling place. And I’d like to do something of a debrief, because there are things to learn and other things to be concerned about. This isn’t going to be about who won any races.

As usual, Mr. Spherical Model served as presiding judge (PJ), and I was a bilingual clerk. I worked only part of the day. I came in at noon and worked through closing, precinct convention, and delivering our polling materials to the drop-off center. Anyway, I didn’t experience the setup. But I experienced the results of it all day.

Against all our requests, the middle school we were in refused, again, to place the Republican and Democrat polling places in separate rooms. So we shared the orchestra room. It’s tight enough to cause some discomfort—maybe especially for voters. But it was not quite impossibly awkward.

Mr. Spherical Model and our alternate judge (AJ), who, because this was the primary, is also a Republican, came to the school late in the day Monday to set up. This included setting up tables, and placing—but not opening or unsealing—the e-slate booths. And JBCs, e-pollbooks, and papers remained at our house until Tuesday morning, with the official cell phone being charged overnight.

The Democrat workers came later. Mr. Spherical Model had set it up so that each party could have two welcoming tables for check-in, more or less parallel. But the Democrat PJ wanted to assert her independence by setting things up differently. That’s their choice. But the consequences affected us all day long.

I’ve drawn up a diagram, because this was pretty crazy.

Our voting room, a middle school orchestra room, not necessarily to scale.
I think the voting booths took up more space than shown.

All voters come in the same door. Then they meet a greeter who guides them to a check-in table for their chosen party. You can see that the Republican tables—both of them, are easily accessible. The Democrats’ check-in table (they only wanted to use one, with both JBC machines on it) was over to the far half of the room, but not in sight. Around a corner. Past all their voting booths. You can’t see in my drawing, but, because of the height of the booths, their check-in table was invisible until they rounded the corner.

If they had had a greeter who would meet their voters and guide them to their table, fine. But they didn’t. They did have a greeter outside (so did we) to direct people to our room, which had its own door to the outside, so they wouldn’t wander through the school. Occasionally the Democrats had someone, down beyond that random table for paperwork, who would guide them to the check-in table, if we could get them that far.

The difficulty was, if they saw our second table, but not that far side of the whole room with nothing directing them there, they would head to our second table. Right in front of them, on our table, was a sign indicating it was for Republican voters, and a sign taped to the front of the table as well. And we had tried to explain to them, “Republicans are voting in this half of the room; Democrats are voting in that side of the room,” pointing all the way over there.

We’re not supposed to presume things. But we know from statistics that 90+% of blacks vote Democrat. A fair percentage of Hispanic voters as well. Anyway, all but one of the Democrat workers were black. None probably from this precinct, which has what is probably a normal distribution of around 12% black (none live on our very diverse street). So, if they were black and started walking toward one of our tables, we would have to ask, “So you’re a Republican voter?” At which they would look horrified at us, say, “No! Democrat.” And we would have to walk them past their tiny entrance sign, and sometimes walk to the aisle between their voting booths, and point to their check-in table.

After the first twenty or so, I was finding that to be pretty annoying. Why not let them just flounder until the Democrat workers took care of the problem of their making? But Mr. Spherical Model reminded me to smile and be a goodwill ambassador. Which I did.

There was a man, well into the day, Hispanic, who answered the “which party” question with, “Democrat. I don’t like Republicans,” right to my face while I had been smiling and treating him respectfully. Mr. Spherical Model saw the exchange and said, “Smile anyway.” Maybe at some point they’ll realize the good people helping them were Republicans. And maybe they’ll even notice the ones setting up the room badly and making their lives more difficult in many annoying ways are often Democrats. Who knows? At least we are who we are, regardless of what they say about us.

The Democrats were unprepared in many ways—some of which got reported (because I took our AJ outside and called our ballot security guy on my phone for her to report to) for being essentially illegal, even though I am unaware of anything they did to commit any actual voter fraud.

There’s a protocol for setting up a polling place. Everything comes very organized. Boxes containing big, labeled envelopes and accordion folders, with papers for certain purposes. There’s a checklist. All you have to do is go down the checklist, and you’re set up correctly. If you do that correctly, the day tends to run smoothly, and then you just follow the closing checklists at the end of the day.

They didn’t use the checklist. They just laid everything out all over their back table, spread it around, looked for what they thought they needed, and did it their way. They had the machines connected to take voters at 7:00 AM, but any other business, like signing in workers and giving them the oath, got left undone. And there were papers they said they weren’t given, so we shared ours with them. Our AJ their original supply lying around on their table later; they just hadn’t found them, because, as their bristly PJ said, “I have my own way of organizing things.”

By law we’re required to give a voter count every two hours. It prevents fraud by showing what kind of voter traffic there was throughout the day. You get the count from your JBC machines added together. Their PJ was reminded by one of their workers that she needed to do that. She didn’t want to bother. This is what it looked like at the end of the day.

their mostly unmarked vote count at the end of the day

I can find out how many in my precinct voted on election day, and in early voting. But, because of countywide voting (first time it’s been done in a primary election here), I can’t find out how many voters came to vote Democrat at our polling place. Also because of countywide voting, we no longer get a printed tape of voting on each machine for that day, since the machine now includes ballots from all over the county. That’s one less check against fraud.

Only once during the day did we have to cancel a vote because the voter got all the way to the booth with her code entered in the machine before realizing she had the wrong ballot in front of her. So we had to cancel that, which, because it’s a rare occurrence, was a bit of a challenge to do correctly, so that she could afterward go to the Democrats and get a new code. If we hadn’t been so diligent in getting voters to the right party, that painful problem could have been happening all day long.

We got a lot of questions from voters. I don’t mind answering these. You don’t know what you don’t know sometimes—until you ask and learn about it. One common question was, “Why are we separated? Don’t we usually just vote together?” Yes, but this is a primary election, in which you decide which candidates should be representing your party on the November ballot. “Oh, OK.” They learn by asking. But it’s concerning they were voting in a primary election without knowing what a primary election is.

A variation that I find humorous is, “Why can’t I vote straight ticket?” Because all the candidates on your ballot are of the same party; this is to decide who the candidates for your party will be. I mostly didn’t mention that straight-ticket voting has now been ended by the legislature, so there will be no more one-button voting for Democrats anymore. Republicans tend to be deeper thinkers and want to read all the way down the ballot, and will leave blanks where they don’t know enough about the candidates in a particular race. Too many Democrats follow orders: “You don’t need to know anything about the candidates; just vote Democrat, and that’s all you need to know.” So they’re confused about how to vote a primary ballot. And this year the Democrats will be starting a campaign to get their voters to go all the way down the ballot, instead of just voting top of the ballot and leaving.

Ignorance can be solved by education and experience, so there’s hope for change. But you can’t fix stupid. One voter said, “How am I supposed to know who to vote for when I haven’t heard of any of these names?” Indeed. Maybe you should do some research, using your sample ballot and the internet (before you show up to vote in ways that affect us all, I also thought but didn’t say).

At one point I had a nice little conversation with their outside greeter that made my day. He’d said it was good to show the world how well we get along. Because the news makes it sound like we’re all at war. But really we’re all just people, people who happen to disagree on some things, but we can let that go and get along. I really appreciated that. It was more like other times we’ve shared the polls with Democrats, who are not mostly different from us; they just haven’t been educated to think through issues the way we have.

What I think is, many blacks and Hispanics around here are religious people, who serve God and value strong families. It makes no sense to me why they would vote Democrat, when that agenda is anti-religion and anti-family, and has the added deficiency of causing huge economic roadblocks. People who love freedom, prosperity, and civilization shouldn’t be voting for tyranny, poverty, and savagery by voting Democrat.

I don’t assume my Democrat neighbors are bad people; I assume they don’t know enough. The question, then, is how to reach out and speak to voters who have been blindly voting Democrat, because they’ve been told “they’re the good guys,” when what these voters really want is the freedom to live their lives as they choose, in ways that lead to directly out of poverty toward prosperity, and in ways that coincide with their natural love of civilization. We’ll all be better off if they can hear that message and have it sink in.

Voting Words

Early voting has been going on for a week already. We’re a week away from the end of this most unpleasant of all presidential campaigns ever. News out this weekend makes it appear certain that both major party candidates  ought to be in prison, rather than anywhere near the White House. Nevertheless, one of these two is likely to be our next president. It’s too awful to dwell on.

Today I’m just sharing a few words from the quote file on voting. I was surprised to see how many times I’d collected economist Thomas Sowell’s words on this topic. But there are other contributors as well.

Thomas Sowell
image from here

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Without a sense of responsible citizenship, voters can elect leaders who are not merely incompetent or corrupt, but even leaders with contempt for the Constitutional limitations on government power that preserve the people's freedom.—Thomas Sowell, “Is Democracy Viable,” 3-1-2011

Politicians can solve almost any problem -- usually by creating a bigger problem. But, so long as the voters are aware of the problem that the politicians have solved, and unaware of the bigger problems they have created, political "solutions" are a political success.—Thomas Sowell, “Random Thoughts,” 10-17-2011

If you’re not paying attention, it’s your patriotic duty not to vote.—John Stossel, 1-12-2012

The cult of youth politics in this country, generally speaking from the left, is that young people, simply because they are eager and they are passionate, they must also be right. That is not a democratic understanding of politics. That is not a civilized understanding of politics.  Barbarians are enthusiastic and excited. Civilized people in a free society who take their citizenship seriously—they may be passionate, but they don’t simply vote on their passion. Or, if they do vote on their passion, their passion is informed by reason.—Jonah Goldberg (interview around 8-3-2012)

Let's stop and think, if only for the novelty of it.

—Thomas Sowell, “Entitlement Reforms,” 8-28-2012

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”—Adlai Stevenson quoted in “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire” in Rabbi Pruzansky’s blog 11-7-2012

All the opportunity for self-government through the rule of the people depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box…. The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action….

Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day.—Calvin Coolidge

If you don’t understand the issues, but want to do your patriotic duty, then stay home on election night, whether in the primaries or in the national election in November. Uninformed voters turn elections into a game of playing Russian roulette with the future of America.—Thomas Sowell, “Grow Up!” 2-1-2016 

I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy

2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against, and

3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.

― John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley, October 6, 1774

When a citizen gives his vote to a man of known immorality, he abuses his civic responsibility and he betrays the interest of his country.—Noah Webster

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we’re compassionate, we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.—Penn Jillette

Govern wisely, and as little as possible—Sam Houston

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”—Thomas Paine

A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind—if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else—then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease.—C.S. Lewis

Voting and Econ Lesson

One of the best pieces I’ve read recently is Mike Rowe, theDirty Jobs guy’s response to someone who encouraged him to use his platform to encourage voting—to Get Out the Vote.

Mike Rowe
image from here

I wrote a piece about whether to GOTV just before the 2012 election, which seems even more necessary this year. I’m in agreement with Mike Rowe. Here is part of his response:

Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it. I also share your concern for our country, and agree wholeheartedly that every vote counts. However, I’m afraid I can’t encourage millions of people whom I’ve never met to just run out and cast a ballot, simply because they have the right to vote. That would be like encouraging everyone to buy an AR-15, simply because they have the right to bear arms. I would need to know a few things about them before offering that kind of encouragement. For instance, do they know how to care for a weapon? Can they afford the cost of the weapon? Do they have a history of violence? Are they mentally stable? In short, are they responsible citizens?

And he continues:

Voting is a right, not a duty, and not a moral obligation. Like all rights, the right to vote comes with some responsibilities, but let’s face it—the bar is not set very high. If you believe aliens from another planet walk among us, you are welcome at the polls. If you believe the world is flat, and the moon landing was completely staged, you are invited to cast a ballot. Astrologists, racists, ghost-hunters, sexists, and people who rely upon a Magic 8 Ball to determine their daily wardrobe are all allowed to participate. In fact, and to your point, they’re encouraged.

The undeniable reality is this: our right to vote does not require any understanding of current events, or any awareness of how our government works. So, when a celebrity reminds the country that “everybody’s vote counts,” they are absolutely correct. But when they tell us that “everybody in the country should get out there and vote,” regardless of what they think or believe, I gotta wonder what they’re smoking.

What we need are better voters, so we don’t get the intolerable choices we got stuck with this election. He suggests:

I can’t personally encourage everyone in the country to run out and vote. I wouldn’t do it, even if I thought it would benefit my personal choice. Because the truth is, the country doesn’t need voters who have to be cajoled, enticed, or persuaded to cast a ballot. We need voters who wish to participate in the process. So if you really want me to say something political, how about this—read more.

Spend a few hours every week studying American history, human nature, and economic theory. Start with Economics in One Lesson. Then try Keynes. Then Hayek. Then Marx. Then Hegel. Develop a worldview that you can articulate as well as defend. Test your theory with people who disagree with you. Debate. Argue. Adjust your philosophy as necessary. Then, when the next election comes around, cast a vote for the candidate whose worldview seems most in line with your own.

He continues with a couple of paragraphs about the right and responsibility of informed voting. And then he concludes with this:

In the meantime, dig into Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. It sounds like a snooze but it really is a page turner, and you can download it for free.

So, thank you, Mike Rowe, for using your celebrity to share wisdom, yet again.

That’s two mentions, in one short piece of Economics in One Lesson, which I happened to start ^th anniversary edition from 1996. The original was written in 1946. It’s amazing that words written 70 years ago seem so current today.

reading a couple of days earlier. I’m only a few chapters into it yet, but he’s right that it is quite readable, and under 200 pages. It has been on my list of stuff to read for several years—and actually on my shelf, waiting to be read for a few months. I have a used paperback, 50

There’s a premise the book makes early on, explaining why so many economic efforts go awry. This is from page 1:

In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

In this lies the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

Here at the Spherical Model we have a similar saying about unintended consequences:

Whenever government attempts something beyond the proper role of government (protection of life, liberty, and property), it causes unintended consequences—usually exactly opposite to the stated goals of the interference.

I’m sure I’ll want to refer to Hazlitt’s book more as I read to the end, but I think this is going to be a main theme. And I want to quickly apply it to one example: Obamacare, or the inaptly named Affordable Care Act.

When the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments about whether the government had the power to compel citizens to buy a product or service, there was discussion about how healthy young people were getting away with lower costs, or going without insurance, which was unfair to older or chronically ill people. The only way to lower their costs was to bring in a lot of healthy people who would not need the coverage, to even out the risks, and the costs. There was an assumption that the government ought to have the power to even out life’s unfairness.

But, just as Hazlitt suggests, the group that needed lower cost insurance because they would make more use of it is only one group. If you focus only on the goal of solving their issue, you might end up doing harm to other—maybe every other—groups in society.

If there is a time for a person to choose to pay for health care out of pocket, it might be when that person is young and healthy. Such a person might still want catastrophic coverage, or might want to risk not having it. But if this young person is at the beginning of a career, and making only $15 an hour, he is probably not going to appreciate being forced to pay $1000 a month for coverage he doesn’t want or need, just because some older (and probably wealthier) person wants his coverage subsidized.

And, of course, as it turned out, you don’t get to keep your doctor; you don’t get to keep your coverage; and costs have skyrocketed—even for the group government was targeting to help in that SCOTUS conversation. (Michelle Malkin offer her personal experience in this piece.)

How did we get here? By electing leaders who get the attention of various factions by promising them things—and by voters who fall for it.

So, I’m with Mike Rowe: go vote, if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing, stay away from the polls. If you want to get ready for future elections, read. Start with Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.

To GOTV or Not to GOTV?

My son Political Sphere has expressed a different view of Get-Out-the-Vote campaigns than most people do, and I am persuaded to agree. GOTV drives are used by both sides. In theory, you have a large supply of engaged, informed citizens who haven’t been voting simply because they have not known how to get through the bureaucracy of registering to vote and then getting to the polls. So, you help with that and serve the country. In an ideal world.

But this is not an ideal world.

There are times and places I think voter registration drives, followed up with encouragement to get to the polls, are entirely appropriate:

·         Where a lot of people have moved recently, such as in a new neighborhood or a relatively transient apartment neighborhood;

·         Where young people, often going off to college, are voting for the first time, or for the first time away from home and need some guidance;

·         Where immigrants have recently completed the naturalization process and now, as citizens, get to exercise their right to vote.

But rounding up uninformed voters, doing something for them and persuading them to vote for whom you say—even if this may be a legal tactic, it does nothing to bring more informed voters to the polls and does dilute the vote of informed, engaged voters.

Back in the summer of 2010, before I set up this blog, I wrote a piece about GOTV, some of which I published in a Facebook note. The early part of the piece relates to a situation specific to Houston at the time (but a pattern used across the country by trained “community organizers”). The second half recommends who should recuse themselves from voting for the sake of the country. I would never advocate any voting test, or any suppression of legal votes. I simply suggest what thought processes ought to be adhered to by voters. Let me add this caveat: there are many 2008 Obama voters who have since seen the light. If their repentance is sincere, and they can see clearly the principles to base a vote on this time, I do not insist on their self-recusal.

This day before the biggest election of my half-century life, I hope that every single thinking, informed, principled voter will cast their vote, while anyone who has up until now neglected their civic duties might do that for yet one more day—for all our sakes. And may the best candidates win.

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Questionable GOTV

The opposition has used get-out-the-vote drives as a way of enhancing their chances to win. [As I write this, in July 2010, they have shipped in voter registrars and activists from Chicago and elsewhere for a project called Turn Texas Blue. They’re here in Harris County, in and around Houston, to multiply their voting position as many times as they can.] They find the portion of the population that is least informed, and then they essentially buy their votes. “I’ll drive you to the polls and treat you to lunch; oh, by the way, vote for the Democrats.” “Here’s a new trash can; remember when you vote it’s the Democrats who provided it, because we know your needs and meet them.” “You’re too weak to leave the assisted living center and get to the polls? No problem. Here, I’ll help you fill out your absentee ballot. You haven’t studied the candidates? No problem. Trust me, you want to vote for the Democrats.”

There’s something perverse about it. If you attack them for it, they can claim they’re just doing a service so that everyone can have a voice. But they’re not actually giving voice to more informed votes; they’re giving additional voice to their own vote. They add numbers to their side without actually adding any more informed voters to their side.

So what can we do except try to get out a higher percentage of voters likely to vote conservative? We do it differently. No buying votes. We canvas neighborhoods, try to locate conservatives, and provide information that will allow them to make an informed vote. It’s not an approach that appeals to stupid or buyable voters; it is merely an attempt to get the attendance of good citizens higher on voting days. It’s how it should be on both sides, but isn’t.

If a person isn’t motivated enough to get themselves registered to vote and make a decision about candidates, do we really want them having a say in who gets to make our laws and levy our taxes? In truth we’d be better off if they just followed their usual pattern of ignoring civic duty.

Who Should Vote

There is no voting test. We don’t do that here in America. But with great power (to vote) comes great responsibility (to vote responsibly). Those of you who can’t do that, we’d all be better off if you didn’t have a reckless say in who gets to make our laws and levy our taxes. How about some self-restraint, for all of our sakes?

You should recuse yourself from the upcoming election if…

• You voted for Obama because you wanted to be part of the historic vote that put the first black president into office. This means you are racist, voting for a person because of his skin color instead of the content of his character or even shared political beliefs. That was irresponsible. You’re not capable of casting an informed vote.
• You voted for Obama because you believed “hope” and “change” meant something good for America, just because you wanted it to mean something good, and not because you looked into what this man was hoping to change. Your lack of attention to detail was irresponsible. You’re not capable of casting an informed vote.
• You voted for Obama because you believed his policies would be best for the economy and the safety of the country and you do not regret your vote. But his policies are disastrous for the economy, for our nation’s safety and sovereignty, and for maintaining of God-given inalienable rights. If you are unaware of the damage he is causing, then you are not sensible enough to vote in an election that affects the rest of us. You’re not capable of casting an informed vote.
• You voted for Obama because you believed transforming us from a constitutional republic into a semi-dictatorial socialistic state would make America better, then it is understandable why you voted for him; you are as seditious as he is. But people who hate the republic of America should not consider themselves worthy of voting in our elections, since they are America’s enemies, so you should recuse yourself. You’re not capable of casting a vote in the best interests of America and Americans.