The 'Right to Vote'

This was updated and published in the Fowlerville News & Views in the Dec. 20 issue.

    The ‘Right to Vote’ is a nice broad term. But within that breadth exists competing philosophies. Is it a natural, unencumbered right? Or does it (should it) have conditions? Pre-qualifications? And if the latter is preferable, what should those be?

   From the dawn of our country’s founding, those in power have sought to fortify and protect their political control of government, and all its spoils. Back then this political and social elite was comprised mainly of wealthy planters owning large tracts of land and prosperous merchants.

    One of the purposes of the U.S. Constitution, for all its virtues, was to create a republic, with a system of checks and balances, to guard against mobocracy—or as we know it, democracy. Also, with the control of voting and elections being a prerogative of the states, initially only property owner (stakeholders) could participate.

    That condition left a lot of other white men, not to mention women and free blacks, out in the cold.

    A lot of those white men had moved to lands and settlements beyond the Eastern seacoast and pretty soon they were demanding their political rights.

   In his book The Ideals of the Pioneer, Frederick J. Turner wrote that “a democracy of small landowners, of the newer immigrants, and of indented servants who at the expiration of their servitude passed into the interior to take up lands and engaged in pioneer farming. Indeed, in the period before the outbreak of the American Revolution, one can trace a distinct belt of democratic territory extending from the back country of New England down through western New York, Pennsylvania, and the South. In each colony their region was in constant conflict with the dominate classes of the coast.”

   It was in this West, said Turner, “that the struggle for democratic development first revealed itself, and in that area the essential ideas of American democracy had already appeared.”

   In this frontier area, after the Revolution and with more and more Americans arriving in those western outposts, “there arose a demand of the frontier settlers for independent statehood based on democratic provisions.”

   “There is a strain of fierceness in their energetic petitions demanding self-government under the theory that every people have the right to establish their own political institutions in an area which they have won from the wilderness,” Turner wrote, adding, “No one can read their petitions denouncing the control exercised by the wealthy landholders of the coast, appealing to the record of their conquest of the lands for which they had fought the Indians, and which they had reduced by their ax to civilization, without recognizing in these frontier communities the cradle of a belligerent Western democracy.”

   To understand the context of this conflict, initially the territories that became the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio were considered by some in power as extensions of the existing states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina and thus under the control of those governments.

   These western pioneers eventually took control of their own political destinies; the new states were brought into the union, Andrew Jackson became the first Westerner elected President, and the voting franchise was expanded.

   But not every American of adult age was allowed to vote and, even when they eventually had that legal right, obstacles were erected by the different states to limit or discourage participation. Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests were two of the preferred means, and early on there was even a religious test aimed at excluding Jews. However, if needed, intimidation, terror and violence were employed.

    Women struggled for decades to gain access to the voting booth, with the leaders of the Suffrage Movement often ridiculed and harassed for their efforts. Passage of the 19^th Amendment less than 100 years ago finally gave them that American right. Black men supposedly gained the voting rights and the opportunity to hold office with the passage of the 15^th Amendment after the Civil War, only to see it erode and become nearly non-existent in the South with the Jim Crow Laws. After much struggle during the Civil Rights Movement, it was regained with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

     Yet the obstacles keep cropping up. Encumbrances designed to either discourage or disqualify the participation by some of our fellow citizens in our elections.

* * *

 FAST FORWARD TO MICHIGAN

    Last month the Michigan Senate, with its Republican majority, approved a bill to eliminate straight-ticket voting. Earlier this month the House of Representatives did the same, also along party lines. The House, however, had coupled this with approval of No-Reason Absentee voting.

    Marty Knollenbert of Troy, the Republican senator who had sponsored the measure to eliminate the straight-ticket option contended that this will motivate voters to consider all of the candidates on the ballot and not just go into the booth and make a single mark for one party.

     "Shouldn't we encourage citizens, as part of our collective civil duty, to fully engage in the selection of our leaders by pausing, making a thoughtful decision and voting for an individual based on his or her merits, not based solely on partisan affiliation?" said Knollenberg in defense of the bill.

   Republican State Representative Klint Kesto, when speaking in favor of the measure, said, “Is there something wrong with encouraging the general populace and voters to say, ‘hey, educate yourself about the candidates beforehand?’

   (And while you’re at it, be sure to eat your vegetables and clean your plate. We know what’s best for you.)

    Voting for the person rather than the party is the mantra of most ticket-splitters. Certainly, it has its virtue, as does the ideal of a better educated voter. However, a couple of obvious questions that arise are: If we’re supposed to vote for the person rather than their party affiliation, then why not make the ballot a non-partisan one?  and Why go to the trouble of holding primaries (at taxpayer expense) to nominate party candidates, if it’s better to vote for the person?

   Of course, these questions are rhetorical. The Republican and Democratic Parties are not going to disappear or become irrelevant in the foreseeable future. Many voters are still going to judge a candidate by his or her party affiliation, regardless of this legislation.

     Personally, I’ve never used the straight-ticket option. But that’s my choice. If I wish to vote a straight ticket, then that, too, should be my decision, not a legislator’s. And if I or other voters wish to support the entire slate of candidates put forth by a party, then that should be an easy option, not a time-consuming one.

   The more relevant question is “what was this all about?” Is there an underlying motive in this proposed legislation; perhaps one less laudatory? According to the state capital reporters Zoe Clark and Rick Pluto, who host the Just Politics feature on Michigan Radio, “Straight ticket voting is considered one reason why Democrats in 2014 were able to nearly sweep the down-ballot education board races while Republicans did better up higher on the ballot. Straight ticket voters tend to break toward the Democrats.”

   This, they noted, is not the first attempt to end straight-ticket voting.  In 2001 the Republican majority in the Legislature passed a similar measure. However, the Democratic Party successfully launched a petition drive and voters, in a state-wide referendum the following year, indicated that they preferred to keep straight-ticket voting as an option.

   To avoid history repeating itself, the bill this time around included an appropriation that means it can’t be voted on in a referendum and possibly overturned by the voters. Attaching an appropriation on a controversial piece of legislation is a tactic that’s increasingly being used to negate a petition drive.

    So, with this bill, a voter is denied the traditional and convenient option of voting a straight ticket, and also denied the right to overturn it via a referendum.

    The No-Reason Absentee Voting Bill had been championed by Lisa Posthumus Lyons, a Republican member of the House from Alto. In the initial House vote held a couple of weeks ago, she had successfully tie-barred it with the proposal to eliminate straight-ticket voting.

   That combined bill was then sent back to the Senate. Last Wednesday, after a day and night full of negotiations, the Legislature voted, mostly along party lines, to eliminate straight-party voting, but also removed the tie-bar that would have allowed for no-reason absentee voting.

   The votes were 24-12 in the Senate and 54-51 in the House.

   

    Our local senator Joe Hune was one of two Republicans who opposed end the straight-ticket option and he also favored no-reason absentee balloting. Our local state representative, Hank Vaupel supported both proposals.

    The no-reason absentee voting legislation, had it passed, would have allowed all voters to apply for an absentee application in person at their local clerk’s office without needing to meet one of the six acceptable excuses.

    Under current law, absentee voters must be 60 years or older, be out of town when the polls are open, be an election worker or be unable to vote on Election Day due to a physical disability, religious tenets, or incarceration.

   Lyons chaired the House committee that heard testimony on the straight-ticket proposal as well as her bill. That hearing saw a number of municipal clerks speak in opposition to eliminating straight-ticket opting. They stated that it would result in even longer lines and waiting time for voters on Election Day. Lyons contended that her bill would offset that problem since more people could avoid the polling place altogether.

    While Lyons’ bill would have removed the need for voters to qualify for an absentee ballot, it would have required that voters visit their clerk within 75 days of every election. Currently, qualified voters can request to be placed on a permanent list so that they automatically are mailed an application for an absentee ballot in future elections. This in-person requirement, was the main reason Democrats voted against her proposed bill, contending that it still placed an unnecessary obstacle before voters.

    State Rep. Lyons, speaking after last Wednesday’s vote in the House that supported the Senate’s bill to remove the tie-bar, noted that she wanted to help alleviate the lines at polling places. She was one of five Republicans to join all the Democrats in voting against separating the two. She expressed disappointment with the outcome.

     "Because this bill falls short of addressing very legitimate concerns, in the end I could not support it," she explained. "I do not believe this policy alone is in the best interest of Michigan's voters, and it is unfortunate that the legislature squandered the opportunity to enact good election reform that is not pro-republican or pro-democrat, but pro-voter."

    The Senate Republican leadership had already poured cold water in previous attempts to pass ‘no-reason’ absentee voting legislation, so it was no surprise that the most of the caucus voted to reject the House bill.

   “The Senate is very supportive of the straight-ticket elimination, not so much on the no-reason absentee,” Senate Majority Leader Alan Meekhof had said prior to the vote in a published report by the Associated Press.

   That same article quoted David Robertson, R-Grand Blanc, who is the Senate Elections and Government Reform Committee chairman as saying that he “opposes expanded early voting because (in his opinion) voting should not be “effortless” and the candidates should have time to “fully develop their candidacies and fully develop the issues of those candidacies.”

   To that end, he has introduced new legislation “that would prevent clerk’s offices from being open on weekends to process absentee voter applications or issue ballots, except on the Saturday before an election, and prohibit such functions as satellite locations. His bill would also stop clerks from cross-deputizing each other to help college students register in person without having to drive home to do so and would allow poll challengers inside clerk’s office up to 45 days before an election.”

    The most eloquent rebuttal to all of this came from Sarah Dydalek, the Walker City clerk. In her testimony before the House, she said: “It just doesn’t make sense that we have to make it difficult for people to vote in Michigan.”

   Amen to that.

   I understand the temptation of political partisans to fortify their position against their perceived foes from the other party. But it should not be done at the expense of this fundamental right of citizenship.

    While there should be responsible safeguards to ensure the integrity of the vote and keeping corruption at bay, those safeguards should not be turned into an obstacle course that (by design) discourages or prevents people from freely and easily casting their ballots.

    We talk emotionally about our veterans and current military personnel who have protected or are now protecting our freedoms and way of life, and more so about those who have died in the line of this duty. And rightly so. But men and women have also been threatened and even killed in this country, struggling to obtain those same freedoms, including the ‘Right to Vote’. They, too, are American heroes, and the legacy of what they earned with their toil and blood ought not be diminished and tarnished by political calculation. To repeat what Rep. Lyons said: “This is not pro-republican or pro-democrat, but pro-voter.”

    The ‘Right to Vote’ belongs to “all” American citizens of age, not just those who support or agree or look like you.