I’ve spent the past six months working for the Democrats on a daily basis.  And when I say daily, I mean seven-days a week, without more than one 3-day break in August to go to a friend’s wedding.  It’s been rough, especially because the pay worked out to less than minimum wage.  To add insult to injury, some of my co-workers (who were paid more than me) didn’t have to endure the same kind of labor as myself.  In particular, I had four jobs: to doorbell until my shoes filled with blood; to phone-bank until my ears went deaf, to recruit other poor-saps to join me at the oars; and to determine how private individuals planned to cast their ballot.

The latter was, although less arduous than the former, often socially more treacherous.  For there is a popular belief among certain classes in America today that politics and voting are private matters not to be discussed with strangers.  I for one would like to challenge this assumption by now answering the questions some of the fine voters in Washington’s 28^th District posed to me while out on the campaign trail that I wasn’t always able to address candidly at the time.

“I can’t believe you’d dare to make these calls on a Sunday.  This is the Lord’s day.” – angry elderly gentleman who obviously wasn’t in church praying when he picked up the phone.

We in the United States practice a tradition understood as separation between church and state.  Although it’s not written in the Constitution, it’s generally understood as binding, and therefore the Democratic Party doesn’t feel the need to consult the Pope – much less Pat Robertson – with its campaign strategy.  Besides, being Jewish I don’t recognize Sunday as the Lord’s day anyway.

“I don’t appreciate being bothered at this hour (5:30PM on a Thursday.)  You should be more considerate with your calls.” - middle aged man.

What hour of the day would you prefer to be bothered?

“What business do you have asking people how they’re going to vote?  How I vote is none of your damn business.  That’s why we have a secret ballot isn’t it?” - angry elderly woman who seemingly failed high school civics.

Annn!  Wrong!  The United States didn’t start using the secret ballot until 1892.  Even today, constitutionally protected “oral ballots” are exercised at the local levels, and in the parties’ primary system through “caucuses” where individuals congregate with their neighbors and publicly cast their votes by raising their hands “yay” or “nay.”  Washington State is no different, as many first time caucus-goers learned this past February (read about my personal caucus experience here.)

So why are most rational people okay with this very public form of political expression?  BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY – a system of government that is singularly guided by the principle that politics specifically should not be a private affair.  In a democracy, politics is intentionally brought out into the open via debates, campaigns – and yes – voting.  Those who demand privacy in politics really want to be absolved of the decisions they make.

Personally I believe that the way you vote has a direct impact on my life.  Therefore, I don’t feel uncomfortable asking you to share your views, nor taking a stab at correcting them if necessary .  Of course, I believe you’re entitled to disagree with me and would give my life defending that right for you.  Nonetheless, I feel entitled to know, as the framers of our constitution did when voting was introduced as a public occasion.

I recognize of course that there are some serious drawbacks to forcing people to take some responsibility for their actions, but there are many advantages as well.  For one,  by returning the electoral process to the public sphere, we might effectively decrease the potential of voter fraud.

After all, few would disagree that it’s much harder for a deceased resident of Cook County to register his/her vote at a caucus location than via an absentee ballot. Few would disagree that it’s much harder to intentionally rig an election with a caucus location (usually a school gymnasium) than, say, “a broken voting machine,” simply because everyone is there to watch and weigh your actions.  Therefore I would argue that there is no surer way to preserve the integrity of our elections process than to publicly voice our votes and have them counted in the open.

“Sigh…How did you get this number?” – Middle-aged woman with apparent limited tech skills.

Great question!  All you readers listen up.

When a candidate files to run for public office, the secretary of state/county auditor provides him/her with a list of all the registered voters in the district.  Once the ballots are received and counted, the names are removed from the list and sent back on a daily basis as “match-backs” to the candidate’s campaigns.

The moral of the story: vote early, unless you want to be called.  In Pierce County roughly 2/3rds of registered voters waited until the last four days of the election to cast their ballots this year.  Campaigns believe, based upon historical electoral turnouts, that certain demographics – namely lazy people – cannot be counted on to get their vote in on their own.  They therefore believe – admittedly without any real evidence – that the more calls they make, the more votes they ultimately accumulate.  It sucks for everyone, especially the people calling you at night.  So please, for the love of God, vote within the first week of receiving your ballot.

“I don’t like that system.  What right does the government have to report to anyone other than myself as to whether or not my voted is counted or not.” – same woman.

I feel as though I already answered this question above.  But the bottom line is, whether you approve or not, that’s the way it is.  If you don’t like it fine, elect someone else to be your auditor.  Of course, the only way to do that is to actually VOTE!

“My employer just notified us that we are all going to lose our jobs if Barack Obama becomes president because the company will not be able to afford the taxes his administration will impose.  I was planning to vote for Barack, but now I have to think about the welfare of my family.” – anonymous

This isn’t really a question, but since Right-wingers with clout attempt to use scare-tactics like this every now and again to garner votes for their candidates, I thought I should expose this seemingly isolated incident that happened in the 28^th LD just two days before the election.

From what I understand, what this employer did is flat out illegal.  He literally threatened to fire every employee he had if Barack Obama won, thus indirectly forcing them to vote for McCain.  Without more background information, I cannot expound further on this situation.  I will only say that several members of the local party have already begun investigating what legal action they can take against said employer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Politics, Politics & Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.