America’s democratic experiment

Before the 2000 election, Americans believed that the right to vote was a cardinal principle across the political spectrum. Even after the 2000 election, many still assumed that the vote suppression and botched voter counts in Florida were an aberration. Election 2004’s enduring significance may well lie less in the choice of a president than in the belated recognition of how far short of this principle our democracy falls.

Maine may or may not be a model of the way life should be, but its electoral mechanics, including especially same day registration and ready access to absentee ballots, sets an example many states should follow. The contested history of voting throughout much of our nation has involved deeply intertwined narratives of class, race and morality. Those who want to make U.S. democracy a model would do well to attend to these narratives.

Standard U.S. history texts portray a past governed by steady political progress. Long before working-class movements prodded European nations to broaden the suffrage, the United States had already extended voting rights to all white males. African Americans, Native Americans and women did have to fight for these rights, but they were eventually folded into a roaring democracy that fully accepted the principle of universal voting.

Duke University historian Alexander Keyssar has effectively challenged this perspective. His book, “The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States,” makes it hard to believe that the tortuous voting technology and registration procedures faced by poor and minority communities in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere are entirely accidental. Nor can one view these hurdles as based merely on a misguided concept of fairness.

From its inception, American democracy has been torn by competing conceptions of political rights. One school holds voting to be a privilege accorded only to those whose education and/or wealth renders them sufficiently fit and independent to make sound political judgments. The opposing view holds that voting is a universal human right and that any sentient person can understand his or her interests well enough to vote.

The latter perspective is more salient in our celebratory histories and media self-portrayals. But part of the genius of Keyssar is to show the many sub-rosa incursions of the aristocratic concept of democracy.

From the perspective of our recent election, no story is more telling than Keyssar’s account of Reconstruction. An original and broader version of the Fifteenth Amendment specified that political rights could not be denied by reason of race or color or even because of “property, education, or creed.” This last, more sweeping phrase failed because it was packaged with a proposal to abolish the Electoral College.

Even in the l930s, the United States saw a sizable movement to disenfranchise welfare recipients on the grounds they would be puppets of the purported dictator, Franklin Roosevelt. Throughout our history, concerns about the “quality” of voters – often coupled with efforts by various parties to gain temporary advantage – have led to subtle means of limiting the vote in various locales.

Following the 2000 election, Congress set up a bipartisan 12-member commission to examine such topics as the advisability of proportional voting systems, instant runoff voting, and other election-related issues – including the Electoral College; voter registration options like same-day registration and universal registration. Its accomplishments fell far short of its mandate.

I am personally skeptical about claims that Bush partisans may have stolen this election, but the media and the courts should scrutinize systematic election irregularities. In addition, there is no justification not to make a fair count of “spoiled” and provisional ballots. More broadly, cynicism about our elections is widespread and likely to grow absent election procedures that are not more transparent and user friendly.

As has often been the case in our history, some partisans tacitly if not overtly hostile to universal voting have been active in many states. Their stated goal is to prevent fraud. Yet requiring only selected voters to prove themselves honest while most are trusted invites suspicions of discrimination.

If concern with fraud is the real motivation rather than a desire to slow the voting process and discourage the poor and working class, then it is incumbent on us to streamline investigations and increase voting options. Difficult registration procedures and long voting lines disproportionately disadvantage poor and working-class citizens, who have long working hours and move frequently. At the very least, voting should be by mail, as in Oregon, or should extend over several days with Election Day as a national holiday.

One fortuitous result of the last two presidential elections is that it is hard to deny not only inequities in current practices but also voting’s checkered history. Advocates of democracy must rethink a host of procedural questions in the light of history of democracy’s contested history. As during the ’60s, political mobilization outside formal electoral channels may be required to win necessary reforms.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net