Democracy of the people, by the people, for the people, but without the people?

As America tries to figure out how in the world we got ourselves into this mess, all the experts who assured us that it could never happen are now turning their razor-sharp intellects to explain why it did. In the coming days, we will hear lots of analyses of the vote and why it split the way it did where it did. All of those, however will all be focused on the small percentage of eligible voters who actually bothered to vote.

What about the 104,836,859 (or so) eligible voters who chose not to vote. Did they not vote because they didn’t care? Because they didn’t think their vote would count? Because it was too difficult? Seems to me it matters immensely that we understand why 45 out of every 100 eligible voters chose not to vote. After all, we just declared Trump the winner when barely 1 out of every 4 eligible voters voted for him. That’s right, 3 out of 4 eligible voters chose “someone else” or “no one else”. It seems immensely important that we understand which it was before the 1 in 4 rush off and declare a mandate.

But much more importantly, it seems immensely important that we understand why so many citizens choose not to vote. Sure, we will hear that this year’s turnout was depressed because both candidates were so unpopular. That is likely true, but irrelevant. In the scope of where we should be, our highest turnout elections this century would at best earn us a C minus in the school of democracy. It is irrelevant that this year we sank to a D+.

Our democratic form of government is founded on one man one vote and majority rule. How can it continue to be legitimate when so many people don’t, won’t or can’t vote. How can we have a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people when the people don’t show up?

Now, before someone calls “sore loser”, let me be clear. This is not about Donald Trump. (My doubts about the legitimacy of his election are far fewer than my doubts about his legitimacy as a human being. ) This is about whether our democracy can survive. We blame our political gridlock on a “polarized electorate” when actually we have little voting data to support that excuse. Results of this last election only say that two relatively small slices of our eligible voters were split pretty evenly on the question of who should be our next President.. We have no data to support how almost half of the electorate feels about the matter.

What if we did? What if we decided that for our democracy to work really well we needed the wisdom of all eligible voters not just a few. What if we decided that we wanted our elections determined by the will of the majority and not the whims of a few? What if we decided that our goal was to have elections where more than 90% of all eligible voters actually voted?

What if we chose to reinvent the electoral process making it so easy, so interesting and so relevant that everyone eligible wanted to, could and would vote. In effect, what if we made voting consumer centric.

Each state’s objective in administering voting would be redefined.

— It would no longer be good enough to give eligible citizens who want to vote a chance to vote and avoid legal irregularities.

— The new objective would be that more than 90% of eligible citizens actually do vote and vote without legal irregularities.

Voting would be easy

— You could vote on line from your phone, home or work (or Starbucks)

— You could change your mind anytime before the deadline.

— You could vote at in person polling sites sized, staffed and located so that no one had to wait more than 15 minutes to vote

— Polls would come to voters with mobile polling vans visiting hospitals, elder care facilities, shopping malls, sporting events and other large gatherings.

— Voting would be allowed 24/7 for 7 days giving shift workers, weekend workers, students, teachers and travelers ample opportunity to participate without missing work.

— Election day would be the last day to vote, not the day to vote.

Registering to be able to vote would be easy and convenient.

— Kiosks in every high school and every college every September to register students turning 18 or to re-register ones who have relocated.

— On line registration would be allowed.

— One stop shopping would exist with registration allowed at the same time as citizens engage in other state government activity — drivers licenses, gun permits, hunting licenses, fishing license, EZ Pass.

— States would adopt the marketing techniques of credit card companies and E-tailers like Amazon to identify, seek our and register all eligible citizens.

Voting would be more relevant to more people because candidates would have to court the entire electorate not just their base plus a few swing voters.

— Policy positions would have to speak to all of us, not just the partisan few.

— Candidates would create better listening tools to hear what the entire electorate is thinking before they build their platforms.

My vote would be treated as if it meant something.

— When I cast it, I would get some acknowledgement that you “heard” me.

— The state would celebrate that I voted by giving me some reward, a coupon for a cup of coffee, a cookie, a discount of my next payment to the state. Something. (No, they are not buying my “vote’. They are rewarding me for “voting”.)

— And, my vote would mean something because it would be much more difficult for either party to disenfranchise me with gerrymandering.

Dream on. There is no energy (yet) to create a consumer-centric voting process. The incumbent system reserves power to the few who actually vote (and their party bosses). A reinvented system would give that power to the people, all the people.

Also, the incumbent system is not “a” system; it is dozens and dozens of systems administered uniquely under “local control”.

Maybe Trump is right and today’s “system really is rigged” to sustain the status quo.

But, wouldn’t it be something if some patriotic entrepreneur or some patriotic Governor decided to launch a bi-partisan, public-private sector project to create a consumer-centric reinvention of our voting process? With a working prototype in hand, maybe — just maybe — we could create a groundswell of energy to make our government truly of the people, by the people and for the people and in doing so save our democracy.

Note: If you’re interested, I have lots of sweat equity to invest and will gladly represent the liberal democrat contingent on your bi-partisan team. Just let me know where to register.