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Voting Is Easy, Showing Up Is Hard
by Mad Dog


It was so bad in Jessup, Iowa recently that no one who lives in the Black Hawk County part of the town — yes, the town is split between two counties — bothered to vote on a local sales tax referendum. Not even the mayor.

Voting is a privilege. It can also be a big pain in the butt. Elections are held on a work day, you have to go to an assigned polling place which is by your house and not where you work, and if the last presidential election is any indication, you could wind up standing in line for a long time if you want to cast a ballot. No wonder the turnout is worse than opening night for Fat Albert - The Opera.

   It doesn’t help that there are too many elections. Every year we have an Election Day, and most years there isn’t anything to draw voters. The big one, of course, is the presidential election, which is nonstop. Just kidding. It’s actually held every four years, it just feels like it never ends. In between those are state and local elections that our civic duty tells us we should participate in but our hearts and minds scream with agony at the thought. Then there are the oxymoronic special elections, which are becoming more and more common. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger liked being elected in a special election so much he’s threatening to call one in November, this time so the people of the state can vote on — yawn — merit pay for public-school teachers and — yawn — curbing state spending. Excuse me, but we have more than enough elections as it is, we don’t need to vote on these things. That’s why we elect State Senators and a Governor. If I wanted to vote for every little thing that came up I’d run for office. Of course then I’d be involved in an election and I wouldn’t want to inflict that on my fellow citizens.


That’s why it’s encouraging to find out that confused voters in London can now get decision-making help from a web site. You rate how much you agree or disagree with each statement, push a button, and it tells you which party you’re most closely aligned with.
   Is it any wonder then that voter apathy runs rampant? It was so bad in Jessup, Iowa recently that no one who lives in the Black Hawk County part of the town — yes, the town is split between two counties — bothered to vote on a local sales tax referendum. Not even the mayor who said he got busy at work and forgot. Whoops! It’s true there are only 27 people living in that part of Jessup, but still, that’s a 0% turnout. Hey, that’s even worse than the turnout TV Land got for Chasing Farrah, yet another “reality” show that is doing a public service by employing unemployable celebrities. If this trend keeps up there’s going to be a shortage of unemployable celebrities, which means they’ll have to start employing unemployable non-celebrities. This would result in a huge drop in unemployment and the government saving enough money to clear up the federal deficit and keep Social Security afloat. I smell a Nobel Prize in economics nomination in the making.

   Part of the problem with voter apathy is that it takes effort to decide who to vote for. The candidates dish out four-word slogans that sound good as long as you don’t parse them. There are so many political commercials from organizations that have nothing to do with the candidates — wink, wink — that it makes it hard to know who stands for what and why you should even bother getting out of the car to vote. Is it any wonder 40% of the under-30 crowd gets their political news from late night talk show monologues? That’s why it’s encouraging to find out that confused voters in London can now get decision-making help from a web site, www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com. The site lists 23 political and social issues ranging from “The UK was right to go to Iraq” to “Prince Charles should be made illegal.” Just kidding about the second one, actually it does say “Foxhunting should be made legal again.” You rate how much you agree or disagree with each statement, push a button, and it tells you which party you’re most closely aligned with.


I picture a day when everyone sits at home and hits a button at the same time, watching the polling numbers on a graph on the TV screen, much like the audience lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
   This is a great idea except they didn’t take it to the next logical step. It should store your preferences and, when election time rolls around, you wouldn’t have to bother going to the polls — it would automatically cast your vote. Of course you could return to the site anytime you wish and change your preferences, like if you change political affiliation, come out of the closet, or decide you were wrong about sending a country to war because you could have sworn there were weapons of mass destruction hidden all over the place.

   This really isn’t far from what many people do anyway. A few years ago my parents moved to Florida and when I was visiting I noticed there was a local election coming up. I asked who they were voting for and they said they didn’t know who any of the candidates were but, “We’ll vote Democrat, of course.” Wouldn’t it have been easier if they didn’t even have to get out of their La-Z-Boys to cast a ballot? Imagine the turnout we’d get.

   If online voting by proxy is a little radical, we can always start the E-Z-Voter Reform with smaller steps. Move election day to the weekend so we don’t have to take off work, lose our lunch hour, or worry about how we’ll be able to pick up the kids on time. Let us vote by postcard, online, telephone, or SMS. Just look at the voting turnout American Idol gets by phone and they’re choosing someone to get a record contract, not run our country. I picture a day when everyone sits at home and hits a button at the same time, watching the polling numbers on a graph on the TV screen, much like the audience lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The winner could come onstage, the loser would get a recording contract, and Simon Cowell would say something nasty and be arrested for threatening the President. Yes, I have seen the future and the ratings will be huge.

©2005 Mad Dog Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Read them while standing in line at the polls.

 

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