Make voting easier for everybody, not tougher
Either by egregious design or mindless planning, government keeps putting obstacles in the way of voters: Our view
Make voting easier for everybody, not tougher Either by egregious design or mindless planning, government keeps putting obstacles in the way of voters: Our view Check out this story on clarionledger.com: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/06/election-day-make-voting-easier-not-tougher-editorials-debates/1909802002/
The Editorial Board, USA TODAY Published 6:28 p.m. CT Nov. 6, 2018 | Updated 6:58 p.m. CT Nov. 6, 2018
Voting near Cincinnati on Nov. 6, 2018.(Photo: Liz Dufour/The Enquirer)
Turn Election Day into a national holiday
Way back in 1845, it made perfect sense for Congress to designate Election Day on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Today, 173 years later, not so much.
The day was dictated by the needs of America's farming society, religious practice and travel time to get to faraway polling places. A national election in the early spring or summer would have interfered with planting, while late summer or early fall would have hampered harvests.
November fell after harvest and before the harshest winter weather set in. Sunday was out because many people went to church and wouldn't have wanted to travel to polling places to vote on Sunday or Monday. Wednesday was often farmers' market day. So Congress settled on Tuesday for presidential elections and added congressional races later.
It has been been a long time since America had a largely agrarian economy. And voting on a weekday interferes with work, particularly for low-income workers with little flexibility.
In a society accustomed to fast food and fast internet speeds, citizens shouldn't have to miss work or wait hours in line to exercise a sacred constitutional right. It's long past time to make Election Day a national holiday, or move it to the weekend. At the very least, all states should join the approximately three dozen that allow early voting in person for people who have trouble with Tuesday.
While this year's midterm elections generated an outsized turnout, in a nation where just 60 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential contest and 37 percent voted in the 2014 congressional elections, government should be striving to make voting easier for everybody, not tougher.
Long lines, malfunctioning machines
Of all the things government shouldn't skimp on, keeping election machinery in working condition and enough polls open so everyone can cast ballots ought to be at the top of the list. But either by egregious design or mindless planning, government keeps putting obstacles in the way of voters.
In the mindless category, counties and states have been eliminating polling places since 2012, often to save money. And voting machines, which were modernized after the 2000 Bush-Gore election debacle, have grown decrepit. More than 40 states use machines that are no longer manufactured, turning repairs into a hunt for second-hand parts that often work poorly.
This is no way to ensure that Americans get to exercise their right to vote. Effects of this lackluster effort showed up across the country Tuesday. Reports of malfunctioning voting machines — including some switching people's votes — poured in from more than a dozen states to Election Protection, a coalition of about 100 civil- and voting-rights groups doing what should be the government's job.
In Arizona's Maricopa County, where many sites were closed in 2016, some polling places couldn't even open on time. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere, machines broke down. In Georgia, lines stretched around a poll site in Atlanta, and some voters in Snellville — where nearly half the population is minority — waited for more than four hours outside one site because machines weren't working.
Decrepit machines, along with fewer polling places and poll workers, leave voters confused about where to vote, having to travel longer distances, often waiting in long lines or giving up without voting.
The only thing worse? Republicans who control the voting machinery in states and purposely try to suppress voters.
Georgia was ground zero for this disgusting strategy. Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the GOP candidate for governor, employed all sorts of draconian measures that looked like they would keep minority voters from the polls. Similar strategies were at work from North Carolina to Kansas.
Back in 1977, after Jimmy Carter won the bellwether state of Ohio and the presidency, a top Ohio Republican was asked how his party lost. He quipped, "Because too many people voted."
Suppressing the vote has become an all-too-common strategy. It should end, along with brainless planning that deprives voters of a cherished constitutional right.
What do you think of our view on voting?
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