Young Gun
I was twenty-one years old, but a seasoned campaign veteran in the spring 1978. I’d started campaigning when I was fourteen, and seven years later, I’d organized several counties and run the Cincinnati sign operation for the successful Jimmy Carter Campaign. I’d also run a winning Congressional Get Out the Vote effort. So I was pretty confident that a State Representative Campaign wouldn’t be too difficult.
We had beautiful literature, wonderful sign locations, and highly visible signs and bumper stickers. I was proud of what we were doing, and even prouder of my candidate. She was a great speaker, great with people, and had a true desire to make things better.
Our one concern: the core of our “base” in the State Representative District was in a traditionally Republican area. And while that was good news for the general election, it was a problem in the primary, where only Democrats were allowed to vote for us. But there wasn’t much of interest on the Republican side of the ballot, and many of our supporters were going to“cross-over” and declare themselves Democrats for the purpose of voting for “us”.
Closed Primary
Seven years as a campaigner, and I thought I knew all about the “polling places”. Back then, long computer lists were posted on the doors, updated by hand every couple of hours to show who voted and who hadn’t. And as a campaign staffer, I could enter the polling place and measure how things were going.
Ohio is a “closed primary” state. That means that you have to be a “registered” Democrat to vote with a Democratic ballot. But you could change you registration upon request at the polling place. You simply asked for the Democratic instead of the Republican ballot, and generally that’s all it took. Next time the voting rolls were updated, there would be a “D” beside you name. It happened all the time: over six years of voting listed beside a name, you might see R-D-R or R-D-D (or mine – a D-D-D).
And we also knew about the technicality. If you asked to change party affiliation, a “poll-watcher” could challenge that change. That would require the voter to fill out a form, saying they supported the other party, and wanted to change. They simply said yes – and signed the form. There was a penalty for lying – it was fifth degree felony.
Of course there was absolutely no way to know if anyone was lying. The one thing almost every American knows is that the ballot is “secret”, and has been since the late 1800’s. So no one would ever know how you voted before or on that ballot. It wasn’t attainable information. And wanting to vote for a particular candidate was in fact “supporting the other party”. So it wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t a big deal.
Poll Bullies
But our wily primary opponent knew that fear was “9/10’s of the law”. So he sent big, burly watchers to the polling places in our base. Their job: to verbally challenge every R to D change, and force them to sign the affidavit. The watchers made sure to emphasize the penalties, and many voters began to wonder, “Am I doing something wrong?” Instead of thousands of votes in our base, we got a couple hundred. Many of our supporters didn’t even vote at all, but left the polling place concerned and confused. We lost the election, and I learned another valuable lesson in politics – intimidation works.
That was forty-three years ago – and I can assure you things haven’t gotten better. Here in Ohio we still have those laws, though absentee voting makes it less intimidating to change parties.
Enabling Intimidation
Poll “watchers” can challenge any voter’s legal right to vote. And while they aren’t supposed to challenge “without cause”, the sheer presence of someone willing to make that challenge, is enough to keep many from voting.
One of the major demands of the Republican voter law “retrenchments” throughout the country is to grant even easier access to poll watchers. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, the 2020 Trump campaign was looking for off-duty police officers to volunteer to “watch” in largely Democratic and minority precincts. And now in Texas, Georgia, and Arizona – the watchers can take an even bigger role in the polls.
So when a voter goes into the wrong precinct, has a change of address, or has some other glitch in their registration: the poll watcher can challenge their right to vote. Now in most states the voter has the right to ask for a provisional ballot, one that can be “cured” of defect after the election. But with intimidating poll watchers, how many will walk out of the polling place, confused and concerned and afraid that somehow, they “broke the law”? And how many of those watchers will it take to change the outcome of an election? Ask the Trump Georgia campaign of 2020 – it wouldn’t take much.
Election law is arcane. It’s easy to make a mistake. Ask my very-well educated friend who missed signing a ballot petition in two places. When he asked the Board of Elections personnel if everything was OK, they said they thought so. He turned in the application – then they disqualified him from the ballot, and even from running as a write-in candidate. And if a candidate can make that kind of mistake, what can happen to the casual voter?
Land of the Free
Is that what we want American elections to be about – intimidation and threat rather than an open and welcoming voting system? Tripping folks up on technicalities easily “cured”, rather than protecting their vote? Don’t we want it to be easy for every legal voter to cast their ballot, not harder? In an era when I can buy a car, sell my house, and even go to my doctor without leaving my home – why force folks to “go” vote? Is making it harder really “American”?
Making it harder to vote does give a political advantage to one side. The ever-shrinking Republican Party is staring into the face of changing demographics. Those changes are leaving their Party behind. Republicans are struggling to stay in power. Their chosen solution is NOT to make their Party more widely appealing. Instead, it’s to make it more difficult to vote, for everyone – and hope that their own fewer voters still show up.
To misquote John Mellencamp – “That ain’t American, for you and me”.
