Trust but Verify
Conducting elections in the United States is a “curious” process. I guess if we were to create a new procedure, we would develop a “professional” class of vote counters. They would be neutral, not aligned with any party, a kind of electoral “priesthood”. They would be dedicated to preserving the integrity of the electoral process, our democracy. But that’s not how America works.
From the beginning of Constitutional government, the United States was divided into partisan camps. While George Washington tried to rise above the fray, directly below him in his Cabinet and Congressional leaders, the fight was “on”. Treasury Secretary Hamilton and Vice President Adams became the Federalists; Secretary of State Jefferson and Speaker of the House Madison the anti-Federalists, later called Democratic-Republicans. We were political partisans from the beginning.
Americans are nothing if not practical. In a democracy, counting the votes determines political power, and is too important to leave to chance, or to some “neutral” parties. So instead, we aligned our election vote counters, now called Boards of Elections, to the political parties. Here in Ohio there are an equal number of “card-carrying” Democrats and Republicans on each county Board of Elections. And the department charged with supervising elections statewide, the Secretary of State for Ohio, is partisan, chosen by statewide election (and currently Republican).
On the county level, the United States uses transparency to count votes. Sitting in the room, making the decisions, are representatives of both political parties. To quote a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, in elections we “…trust, but verify”.
Keeping it Fair
And yet those Boards of Elections generally get the job done. They recognize that while they are absolutely partisan, they are also entrusted with the basic “power” of democracy. If the public doesn’t trust that the votes are accurate, then nothing else that happens in our government matters. That’s what we see today: millions of Americans don’t trust the election results, so they don’t trust the government.
The partisan overview continues all the way to the precinct level, where voters cast their actual votes. The poll workers themselves are neutral; they are hired based on a willingness to do the job. Think of them like “voluntary” jurors. But in the polling places the political parties can place “watchers”, absolute partisans who make sure that their party is treated “fairly”. Those observers often have legal rights to intervene if they feel the voting process is being unfairly applied.
We balance the neutral workers with the partisan observers. And that goes all the way to counting the votes at the Board of Elections, where both parties carefully watch the process. We’ve seen it: remember the 2000 election in Florida and the famous “bug-eyed” images of determining whether there was a “hanging chad” or not.
Subverting the Workers
We trust that the elections will be fair, but we verify from the lowest level. Everyone in the polling place has a role in insuring a fair election process. But what if one political party determined it was in their interest to completely disrupt the process, with the intent of creating delay and distrust in the actual vote?
That’s the goal of the Michigan Republican Party today. Michigan is a polarized state, with a large geographic portion of the state Republican. But geography doesn’t cast votes, people do, and almost half of all Michiganders live in the highly Democratic Detroit metro-area.
Republican poll “watchers” in the Detroit precincts are nothing new, but the GOP is now trying a new tactic. They are recruiting partisan poll WORKERS, to serve as a Republican block to voting in the Democratic precincts. They can slow the process, creating long lines, so that folks give up trying to vote. Or they can challenge every step in the voter identification process, frustrating voters from casting their legal votes. The effect will be fewer votes. Fewer votes in the Detroit area precincts means fewer Democrats, and the Republicans can claim electoral victory.
Our Democracy
How do we know this is happening? Thanks to Zoom-like technology, the meetings where the Republican strategy was outlined were recorded, and someone leaked the tape. So we all now know that, in Michigan and in other states, the national Republican Party has taken the next step to disrupting the voting process. They are now recruiting poll workers to do the job.
Is that illegal? Not necessarily, but like a lot of other actions in the past several years, if violates the long-standing “norms” of the American electoral process. It fits with the “Stop the Steal” plan to undermine confidence in the electoral process. And it’s part of what evidently is the long-term plan of the Republican Party. If they can’t win the majority of votes, then they can make sure that the majority of votes aren’t counted.
That’s not what a democracy is. But it is where our democracy may be going.
