3 Easy Ways to Make Our Elections More Equal
There is no other way to put this — the capitalist class is messing with our democracy.
When people use the term class warfare in this country, they are most often using it to describe negatively what they see as politicians or candidates inciting working people to revolt against the wealthy. And it comes from the flawed idea that the United States is a classless society, a lie that dates back centuries.
“Class warfare” is almost never used to describe the kind of cash grabs we see in buyouts, layoffs, and other efforts to redistribute wealth upward in corporate America. Nor is it used often enough in coverage of the Republican tax cuts earlier this year, which have all too predictably benefited the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
But the wealthy aren’t just stealing our money, they are also now stealing our elections. There is a systematic effort underway by the moneyed class in our society to wall off elections from their fellow citizens so that they can continue their unabated pilfering of America’s coffers.
Unfortunately, they have been quite successful to this point. And unless someone stops them, they will continue to limit our rights and lock in their gains.
Now is the time to build a movement to salvage our elections and regain our right as citizens to hold government — and private enterprise — to account.
The Right to Vote
The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to vote to all races. The 19th guarantees that right to all sexes. And the 26th guarantees that right to everyone 18 years or older.
Throughout history, the United States has worked toward more equal voting. By tireless efforts of the marginalized over decades, we have taken steps to make sure the voices of all citizens are heard in elections throughout the country.
The “right to vote” is mentioned five times throughout the Constitution. Representative democracy demands that everyone have a say, and voting is the way we do that.
And yet, throughout history there have been efforts by certain people and places to limit or block that right for many citizens, treating it as a privilege that can be revoked or else erecting hurdles too high for many to clear.
Who is Stealing Our Elections?
One cannot discuss the right to vote and undemocratic elections in this country without discussing race. That is because the history of elections in this country is one littered with racism.
For years after the 15th Amendment gave black men the right to vote, restrictions were imposed that limited that right. Indeed, to this day most states bar prisoners and former prisoners who have served their time and paid their debt to society from voting, a policy that disproportionately impacts blacks much more strongly than any other group.
However, the story of unfair elections is not one focused solely on race. Today, more than ever before, it is one with class at its center.
The very wealthy, the top one-tenth of one percent — the heirs to wealthy fortunes, the corporate executives, the hedge fund managers, and the bankers — are doing whatever they can to make sure the government works for them. And the government works for them when fewer of us can vote.
How are they Stealing Our Elections?
Before the passage of the 15th and 19th Amendments, before the Voting Rights Act and the many social movements of the mid-nineteenth century that led to great change in the politics of this country, and before the progressive programs established in the New Deal and the Great Society eras, ours was a government that worked mostly for the well-off. Rich, white men were in charge, and more often than not, they looked out for other rich, white men.
But after the Great Depression, things began to change for the better. Many politicians started to realize that the United States needed a government that could help ordinary people, that we needed institutions that could save us from corporate greed. And in the aftermath of World War II, we became a much more equal society.
While that’s good for the vast majority of folks, it’s not very good for those at the top, who were used to taking a bigger slice of the pie. And so, starting in the mid-70’s, they began to claw their way back. Over the last thirty years or so, through a variety of policies and practices, they have effectively pushed us to a level of inequality not seen since the Great Depression.
They can’t do this on their own, so they rely on friendly politicians. They contribute to campaigns and lobby state legislatures and the congress to pass laws that protect their investments and build moats around their business interests. They use dark money, PACs, and terrible Supreme Court decisions that allow them to spend untold billions to make sure their politicians keep power.
They build walls around elections by passing voter ID laws, advocating disenfranchisement, curbing legal immigration, gerrymandering congressional districts, closing polling places in minority communities, cutting back on early voting periods and poll station hours of operation, and refusing to endorse any policy that might make it easier for more of us to vote.
All of this is because they are smart enough to know that the fewer people who vote, the more likely it is that their preferred candidates will win.
What Can be Done to Stop Them?
A lot. There are many different policies and practices that we can adopt, on both a local and a national level, that can make our elections infinitely fairer. All of which will move us closer to that version of democracy this country has always claimed to aspire toward.
But for the purposes of this article, allow me to focus on three specific items that Democrats must absolutely put their efforts behind in 2018 and beyond.
1) Automatic Voter Registration
To register every citizen to vote on their 18th birthday, without them having to remember to do anything, is a no-brainer.12 states and the District of Columbia already do this in some way, and a number of other states have legislation they are actively considering that would implement or expand automatic voter registration. So this policy is gaining momentum, albeit mostly in blue states, for now.
From the Brennan Center for Justice:
“Automatic voter registration (AVR) is an innovative policy that streamlines the way Americans register to vote. AVR makes two simple, yet transformative, changes to the way our country has traditionally registered voters. First, AVR makes voter registration “opt-out” instead of “opt-in” — eligible citizens who interact with government agencies are registered to vote or have their existing registration information updated, unless they affirmatively decline. Again, the voter can opt-out; it is not compulsory registration. Second, those agencies transfer voter registration information electronically to election officials instead of using paper registration forms. These common-sense reforms increase registration rates, clean up the voter rolls, and save states money.”
Democrats should push for automatic voter registration throughout the country so that more people are registered and able to vote.
2) Re-Enfranchise Everyone
Voter disenfranchisement is a huge problem in the United States, where we have spent the last several decades locking more of our citizens up than any other country on the planet.
From the ACLU:
“Dating back to the Jim Crow era, a patchwork of state felony disfranchisement laws, which vary in severity from state to state, prevent approximately 5.85 million Americans with felony and, in several states, misdemeanor convictions from voting. Confusion about and misapplication of these laws also de facto disenfranchise countless other Americans.”
Belief in law and order is one thing, but the tides are turning on the criminal justice front. Most Americans, no matter their political affiliation, agree that we have gone too far in our efforts to criminalize everything from casual drug use to mental illness. One critical step in admitting our past mistakes is confronting the fact that just because someone has done time behind bars does not make them any less of a citizen, and disenfranchisement for any offense (at least the vast majority of them) is wrong.
Democrats must fight for the right to vote for everyone, and that means re-enfranchising people in prison, those on parole, and those who have already served their time and have rejoined society.
3) Make Election Day a National Holiday
Far too many people don’t vote because they are unable to. Voting requires your time. In many places, it requires a level of commitment that just isn’t possible — ignoring the needs of your children or your boss, waking up early, showing up late or leaving early from work, taking the day off, standing in line for hours, etc. And this disproportionately affects poorer and working class folks who can’t afford to, or aren’t allowed to, miss any time at work.
For a country that claims to be the model for democracy, holding elections on a Tuesday in early November is a ridiculous idea. Why not move it to a weekend? Why not move it to a time of year with less inclement weather?
Better yet, why not make Election Day a National Holiday, one in which we celebrate what it is that makes this country so great — free and fair elections? A simple act of Congress will make this so and will immediately allow many millions more of us to vote.
Bonus: Overturn Citizens United
The only reason this did not make the list of three is because of the difficulty involved. Because the Supreme Court has already weighed in, it would take a new, liberal court to overturn it, which we are not likely to see for the foreseeable future. Or it would take a Constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and then ratified by two-thirds of all State Legislatures.
But just because something is hard, does not make it not worth doing.
