Too tired, too busy, too disinterested and for a myriad of other reasons we just watched low numbers of voters coming to the polls for the primary election in March. It wasn’t because there wasn’t a lot of polling locations, and in many counties registered voters can vote at any of the polling locations in their home county.
Let’s look at the past. Apparently colonial voters boozed it up to, through and after the polling.George Washington is reported to have plied his potential voters with 47 gallons of beer, 35 gallons of wine, 2 gallons of cider, 3.5 pints of brandy and a total of 70 gallons of rum punch. The in-person election went in his favor. Now those were the “good ole days,” even before paper ballots and hand counts. Elections were audible with headcounts.Who were the voters?Wealthy, white, landholding, Protestant men. Private visits from candidates were common. On election day (whenever that was), supporters would rent out taverns for the pre-vote partying, then masses of men would parade to the polls. Then there was the after-party–booze and food no matter how they voted.Certainly, an election day with an asterisk!
So just how did we end up with an official day for federal elections? Congress was concerned with how the undue influence of diverse elections across the country had on votes cast for federal positions and issues. Why November, why Tuesday? Why not weekend days like most of Europe, Canada and other countries when most people are not working?
Go back to 1845.America was primarily an agrarian nation. Crops were planted during spring or early summer, then harvested all the way into late fall.Polling sites were county seats and transportation was a horse and buggy. Some of those counties could require two days to reach the county seat and that much time to return home. Church was on Sunday (for most), market day was Wednesday, and that horse and buggy were needed to go shopping in town. They decided to declare the Tuesday after the first Monday of November to be our national day of voting for federal positions.So, thank the farm culture for our national day of voting. Now trying to change that could really cause substantial discord in Congress.
Why, then, has Texas been traditionally near the bottom of the barrel in the percentage of registered voters casting those votes? Snow and ice are not our typical weather patterns in November. Regina Lawrence, a former director of the University of Texas' Annette Strauss Institute of Civic Life, spoke at a 2015 Deputy Voter Registrars renewal training rally on campus. She had analyzed the 2014 turnout and Texas voting in general.
The Texas voter turnout for the 2014 election had been a dismal 28.5% of registered voters, missing the bottom only because Indiana bested us at staying home in the absence of any top-level races there. Although the turnout could have been worse. In 2010, only 1 in 3 eligible voters turned out to elect the Texas governor. Lawrence then walked us through her findings. There were many places to place blame.
Disenfranchised voters: It won’t matter if I vote. If you don’t vote you’ll get shortchanged in policies and budgets. Ethnic groups are especially vulnerable if concentrated geographically (gerrymandering — although much has been done to stymie that action).When you don’t or can’t vote for your candidate of choice, you are easily forgotten. Texas was renowned for making sure votes didn’t matter by isolating or breaking up areas of minority voting blocs.
Voter ID laws: Limiting IDs that could be used at the polls. Those lacking approved IDs are disproportionately African-American, Latino, young and elderly. For four of the allowed voter IDs, you have to visit a DPS office. Have you tried that lately? Depending on your age and type of ID, costs can run from free for disabled veterans to $33 and three of them cannot be expired more than four years. People from most countries must pass exams. IDs require appointments and handgun licenses require applications and higher fees. For more details, please visit Vote Texas ID and DPS License Fees. What about college students? In 2008, the college population helped deliver North Carolina to Barack Obama. Shortly thereafter, the Republicans in their Legislature voted to exclude student IDs as acceptable voter IDs. Other states followed and included removing poll sites from campuses so now any accessibility and convenience is gone for those voters. Students will just have to spend money on transportation that can get them close to an available polling site if they want to participate in the process. Hmmm, that sounds very familiar to actions taken in Texas.
No power in the single vote: True in the Presidential race due to the Electoral College and less impactful in very large races. But down-ballot, your vote is very powerful. An Austin City Council member lost by 95 votes, a Cedar Park council member lost re-election by two votes, a Williamson County commissioner won by 166 votes, an incumbent justice of the peace lost by 89 votes. Each voter has so much power in their choices if they’d just vote in the down-ballot races and smaller elections such as municipal races. Those positions have so much influence on our lives, yet many voters stop voting after county-wide positions.
Too hard to register to vote: In this day of banking on a smart phone, why can’t we register to vote on them? Not only that but Texas restricts registration times to vote in an election, you must be registered 30 days prior to election day, the longest time restriction allowed by federal law. Is the goal to limit the number of voters? Many don’t think about voting until it’s right in front of them, but oops, too late. Unless you’re new to Texas and register as you obtain your first Texas driver’s license, you must go somewhere ( but where?) or find a deputy voter registrar. They are credentialed to their county and may have other counties’ credentials, but despite the requirements across Texas being identical in each county, those deputy registrars are not free to register voters just anywhere in Texas.
Too hard to vote: Where, when, long lines, by mail for some and the envelope inside an envelope and signing (how and where with what information?) is too much for many of those who qualify to use mail-in ballots. Williamson County’s elections administration team has done much to alleviate these issues although constrained by legislative mandates. You can look online by cell, tablet or computer, or call the elections office for information. If voting in person and the line is substantial, you’d better bring your own water. The Legislature removed the option of some do-gooder handing you a bottle of cold water on a 95-degree day; don’t want those voters hydrated! Our award-winning elections website has all the information available assuming the internet is available for you, including wait times at each polling site. For those of you voting by mail, please read that small print over and over until you’re sure you understand all those steps in casting your ballot through the mail. The website even lets you track your mailed ballot up to its receipt at the Elections Department. For information, visit Williamson County Elections or call 512-943-1630.
In closing, all is not gloom and doom. Vote out those who are bothersome and cast their votes to restrict our choices for student loan forgiveness or reductions, health insurance options, bodily autonomy, vote with indifference about global warming and pollution, voting laws, expansion of Medicaid, abolition of abortion rights no matter what, in-vitro fertilization, and our Medicare and Social Security benefits (Congress has their own medical and retirement system and get it for life after only one term). Vote out self-interests and vote in thoughtful deliberation in the interests of us all! Let’s commit to shaking things up: doing the research, planning, showing up with a list if you need it (just no political literature) and change our world!
Terry Cook is county commissioner of Precinct 1, which includes most of Round Rock, most of Austin in Williamson County and part ofsouthern Cedar Park.
