Our leaders say they care about voter turnout, but they haven’t done anything substantial about it. In order to encourage citizen engagement and restore public trust in the political process I propose the following changes:
1. Change the municipal election cycle so that we hold the Mayoral election in Presidential years. The next election should be in 2013 and then in 2016 and every four years thereafter. This will have the following benefits:
a. It will increase broad voter participation and reduce the influence of special interests. The last Mayoral election had less than 100,000 voters; the last Presidential election had more than 200,000.
b. It will save millions of dollars in election costs, according to the Boston Elections Department, by requiring elections only every two years.
2. Institute term limits for Mayor. The limit should be either two or three terms.
3. Institute same-day voter registration, and allow mail in ballots. (As California does: http://www.sos.ca.gov/election…
4. Lower the barrier for participation by reducing the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, and extending the time required to get signatures.
5. Give a specific amount of free air time on BNN for each candidate.
Other ideas such as campaign finance reform, not allowing carryover of campaign funds, “none of the above” options on ballots, are also worth discussing in the legislative process. Please weigh in!
Questions about how to increase turnout often lead to questions about what motivates people to vote. I can never answer the latter because for me I vote because the calendar tells me today’s Election Day – end of discussion. Legislators rightfully get criticized if they routinely miss votes, but for citizens it’s considered optional. I’m not privy to the specifics of Boston procedures not being a Hub resident, but the one idea you didn’t mention is moving the election day to Saturday. I’m sympathetic to same-day registration, but still have questions logistics thereof. What are the signature requirements in Boston? I know for state rep. its 150 which seems very reasonable. I’m normally opposed to term limits, but for the Mayor they maybe worth considering.
Not really a fair comparison, IMHO. Legislators get paid to vote — it’s their job. Citizens get paid to do other things, and for some people, that means getting the kids off to school between 7-8 am and then working 8-6, and then getting dinner on the table, and by then it’s too late. It’s unfair to give short shrift to the logistical problems that our current system creates for people who want to vote. I have seen suggestions that citizens should be paid or compensated in some other way for voting. Do you support that?
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p>I like the idea of moving election day to a weekend, but it would have to be done nationally in order to work; better, I think, is to get rid of the archaic idea of a single “election day” all together via no-excuse absentee voting, as Kevin suggests, as well as early in-person voting. And getting rid of these odd-year municipal elections strikes me as eminently sensible. And, of course, election-day registration remains an excellent idea.
It has more of the feel of being an “event”, though I think it should be a full 24-hour day. For the biennial November elections it should be the same 24-hour period regardless of timezone so that the polls all close at the same time. I know there’s plenty of absentee and early voting, but I prefer all voters have all the information rather than voting early only for something to happen in the last days of the race. I realize there’s a difference between legislators and citizens (though some, like the NH General Court, barely get paid), but I think both roles are equally important in our system. I don’t support paying people to vote. Some places require citizens to vote, which is tempting though there would need to be a way to essentially vote “present” if this were adopted.
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p>BTW, you seem awfully quick to label things archaic and thus implicitly bad. Governor’s Council, “hack holidays”, and now even Election DAY fit this pattern. It happens I disagree on all three counts.
No. I’ve thought through my positions on all three of those issues. They are archaic, and they are also no longer good ideas. Some “archaic” things are still useful, but the three you mentioned are not.
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p>By this:
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p>are you saying you oppose no-excuse absentee voting and/or early voting? Because only by outlawing those two mechanisms can you guarantee that “all voters have all the information.”
It is my preference that people vote on election day if possible, but I also see the value in early and absentee voting. I’ve voted absentee myself and I’m fine with “no-excuses”; it’s hardly enforceable anyway.
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p>Maybe you weren’t quick in the literal sense to dismiss the three things mentioned; I obviously can’t read your mind. You just sometimes remind me of Tony Blair with the attitude that came across as if it’s old it must be bad and moved to undo ancient but ultimately harmless traditions of the great “Sceptred Isle”. I have a very different outlook and sometimes like to keep tradition for its own sake.
An idea I’ve kicked around since I was a kid was to have election day be a National Holiday. Isn’t it one of the most important things to be celebrating?
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p>As you well know, Americans are the hardest working people in the world in terms of fewest vacation days. It might be fun to have some parades or fireworks or other things to celebrate the fact that we have the power to vote. It would set a great example for our kids as well.
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p>Electronic voting is another possibility to really make it easy for people, along with the extended times to mail in a ballot.
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p>Ultimately though, we need to have people who think their vote has real power and consequence.
Government offices will be closed, except for election operations, banks will close, of course, but the rest of the economy will be open for business as usual. What ever happened to holidays that were holidays, not just excuses for ‘special sales’?
Either that or Evacuation Day (though I’m not sure voting on St. Patrick’s Day is the best idea!) fall into the category of commemorating an event that led us toward the freedom manifested in our right to choose our own leaders. Veterans Day works too if you want to keep it in November.
Neg. Then the mayoral race will be overshadowed by POTUS and perhaps even COTUS elections. There’ll be more voters, but less information on the race.
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Neg. Let the people decide.
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Yip. There’s no reason to make it harder for people to vote.
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I’m not sure that having more people on the ballot will result in more competitive elections. The incumbent has lots of power and inertia; many challengers almost guarantees the mayor wins (short of a jungle primary or somesuch).
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Yip. I’d go further. Let’s get space in the Globe and Herald, radio time, etc. Heck, work out a deal with the billboard companies who lease public space to turn over their billboards to politicians come election season. Anything that reminds people that elections are coming and there are choices is a good thing methinks.
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p>The reason people aren’t voting is because the choices aren’t stark enough. If people believed that government would function radically differently based on the election outcome, there’d be more voters. Of course, that radical upheaval isn’t necessary in the long term interest of the City.
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p>As for elections on Saturdays, I think it’s regressive in this sense — white collar voters work M-F (generally). However, folks who work in the service industries — travel, tourism, retail, etc — tend to work Saturdays, and they tend to earn less. I worry that shifting election day to Saturday would repress lower income voters.
then do it in the non-presidential even years.
The 2005 Results (PDF) were 64001 for Menino and (30468+2+314)=30784 for anyone else. Two to one sounds like a landslide. 97160 ballots cast. One online source I found said 355000 registered voters in Boston. Yeah, low turnout.
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p>My theories on what non-voters are thinking:
1. Things are ok. Nothing to get upset and insurgent about.
2. Things suck, but there isn’t an interesting alternative.
3. What? Politics?
4. Voting is hard/inconvenient/confusing/threatening.
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p>1 doesn’t need to be fixed.
2 and 4 might be fixed by election reform.
3 will need longer term social changes.
I think that, rightly or wrongly, most people view elections — especially local elections — as an irrelevant waste of time.
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p>Why? Here are some of my anecdotal and unscientific perceptions of how people feel:
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p>1. “The fix” is in. Entrenched political professionals have learned how to work the system to their own self-serving benefit. The result is, too often, the perception on the street that the voters don’t count.
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p>2. The problems are too big. A great many people feel that the problems that beset our cities and towns are so overwhelming that no elected official can have any substantive influence. Hence, “why bother”?
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p>3. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The current process effectively filters out any candidate who might rock the boat.
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p>4. No alternatives. Related to (3) above, the perception that there is no electable party or movement that offers a genuine alternative, and that even if elected they would have no power to accomplish anything.
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p>The larger observation is a general perception (again, rightly or wrongly) that elected government is increasingly irrelevant to the important aspects of day-to-day life. I fear that the rightwing has been dominant long enough, and has cut into the necessary bone of effective government deeply enough, that we may be the last generation that even bothers to try. The observation that no better alternative has been offered does not seem to get much traction among the younger demographic that is the most exposed.
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p>As in many things, I view low voter turnout as a symptom more than a problem. Politics has always been a lagging, rather than leading, indicator. I think the answer is to change our culture, so that the politicians will (because they must) follow. That is a long (decades or generations), laborious, and often private and informal process. It took decades for the rightwing to insinuate their poison into our culture, and it will take decades to correct the problem.
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p>It seems to me that when more people feel strongly and intimately connected to their communities (whether geographically, economically, or politically), when we grow a culture that celebrates generosity of spirit and affection (rather than power, money, or “victory”), when we demand that each of us pay attention to and then live our core values, then many of these other things we cherish will follow.
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p>We should remember that half of this nation still approves the use of torture “often” or “sometimes”. Our culture has been subjected to a well-funded and well-executed onslaught of fear, insecurity, and xenophobia for decades. It will take decades to heal.
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p>In the meantime, it certainly looks like another term for Mayor Menino. Oh the joy — I didn’t like the Tall Ships anyway (sigh).
I pay my property taxes, my auto excise tax, I register to vote and I vote…but apparently if I don’t mail in my annual local census, I’m removed from the active voting list, per MGL Chapter 51 Sec 37A
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p>That law needs to be repealed.
but it doesn’t un-register you, so if you show up on election day, it shouldn’t be a problem, AFAIK. I never fill that thing out.
silly laws should be repealed…I was just declared inactive…and you have to fill out an affidavit on election day saying you live where you live, also if you live in a town with a open town meeting, they may not have both lists (active and inactive) so you could be denied the right to vote at town meeting becuase your not on the active list…didn’t they do something like that in the South for a 100 or so years? Repeal the f*cking law.
problem solved. A little pragmatism never hurt anyone.
In a post on how to increase voter turnout, I suggest repealing an obscure law that ties a local street census to the abilityfor a voter to remain on the active voting list…and you think that this law is OK and people should simply accept this barrier and fill out the form. So maybe we should expand this law–in the spirit of increasing voter turnout–by requiring anyone who gets a speeding ticket to be removed from the active voting list, because by you logic, they should be speeding.
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p>Why does it make sense to have someone who votes regularly (me) and declare then “inactive” because they failed to fill out a form? Simplely stating that I should fill out the form is a weak answer. As I suggested–similar laws in the South were constructed to bar people from voting.
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p>The idea here is ti get more people to voter, not try and figure out more hops to make people jump thru to vote.
I suggested an easy way to solve your problem. I’m also a proponent of same day registration, which would also solve your problem.
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p>Now, of the two, which do you think is more within your control — filling out the dang census (which is important for fire safety, drawing local districts, and all that jazz), or finally getting same day registration?
Not sure if Bob was being serious about paying people to vote but there are other ideas.
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p>The freedom of choice part of me doesn’t like requiring anyone to vote. Not voting should be a choice. But, perhaps, a $50 voucher that could be used to pay fines, fees, registrations, income or real estate taxes with? Maybe get “Voting is the backbone of Democracy” license plates for free?
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p>My gut tells me that I would prefer who the masses might vote in with 90 percent voting rates than the 15% who vote now who have a direct interest in the outcome or like myself and many BMG’ers vote every election on principle. I grant that I could be wrong about this.
although I don’t really like the idea of a voucher being usable to pay a fine. Sure, money is fungible, but if I go vote and I’ve got this $50 voucher and no immediate gov’t bill, I keep it in my glove box and keep double parking until I get nailed because I’ve got myself a get-out-of-jail free card. Fines are used to discourage mildly bad behavior; providing vouchers undos that disincentive.
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p>Taxes, fees, or even accepted as a gift card in local restaurants or shops is a fascinating idea. I don’t know who pays for it, but it is interesting.
I don’t like term limits at all. It just says that you don’t trust the voters. Furthermore, it seems it is always the party or politician that is out of power that wants term limits, only to drop the idea once they actually attain power.
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p>Don’t lower the bar for signature gathering. I am sorry, but if you are not capable of organizing volunteers to get enough signatures for you, then you do not deserve to be considered for office, and you definitely don’t deserve to be handed free air time and other free media attention.
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p>I like same-day registration, or at least easier registration, but I am skeptical of unrestricted mail-in ballots, since it seems that there is a large potential for abuse where one person could end up voting for everyone in their household. I think in-person voting is highly preferable. Instead, spread out voting over several days so that more people will have a chance to get to the polls.
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p>One point you did not mention is more campaign finance and lobbying reform. I think that people will be more enthusiastic about participating if they feel that the process is not corrupted by money and influence.
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p>It is possible, but I don’t think it would be common, for a variety of reasons:
1. Most people respect their own family members more than that
2. It would in fact be a felony. Hard to catch, sure, but up to 5 years and/or a $10,000 fine is often enough to dissuade most election shenanigans.