Dayton
Daily News...
Editorials: Extra
elections do nothing to help voters
Monday, May 16, 2011
The bipolar course of American politics during the last few years has
shown even the most thickheaded denier that elections matter. A lot.
If Barack Obama hadn’t been elected in 2008 — along with big Democratic
congressional majorities — universal health care coverage would not
have happened, period.
If John Kasich had not been elected in 2010 with a general Republican
tide, collective-bargaining changes and more wouldn’t have happened,
period. This list goes on.
The changes being made are in the structure of things — if not the most
basic structure, then the next level down. Walls are being torn down,
new rooms built, old ones eliminated. In the new structure, people who
haven’t been around for a while could easily get lost. And the
construction and reconstruction never seem to end.
It was not always so, when the political parties were more like each
other.
Whether the new situation will cause more people to vote isn’t clear.
What is clear is that the elections that matter most have bigger
turnout than the others. When multiple high offices and big issues are
being hotly contested, more people turn out than, say, when there’s
only one matter on the ballot.
Ohio has long had the practice of allowing local entities to call
special elections for February and August. Most typically, the votes
are about school levies, but municipal levies and other issues come up,
too.
The schools often say they need this option, in part because, if they
lose on the first attempt, they can try again after addressing concerns
of critics, possibly by lowering the levy proposal.
In truth, though, other political considerations are often at play,
including the calculation that low turnout might improve the odds of
passage, given that many teachers and many parents of students are
likely to vote, even if overall turnout is only 20 percent.
Superintendents and school boards are trying to do right by the
organizations they serve, which are made dependent on levies by Ohio
law. But something feels wrong about taking advantage of low turnout.
One result of special elections is that people can be called to the
polls several times a year, given that every year has either
federal/state/county elections or municipal elections.
If there’s any way to consolidate some of these elections, that should
be done, in the name of efficiency, consideration for voters and higher
turnout.
It’s not easy, because most elections are built into some constitution
or other. But the state Senate is now looking at eliminating February
and August elections, as part of a large bill about election law.
Sponsored by Sen. Keith Faber, R-Celina, chair of the government
oversight committee, the special-elections provision ought to find
bipartisan support.
Election reform has moved in recent times toward including more people
in elections: early voting, no-fault absentee voting, massive
get-out-the-vote campaigns, easier registration.
There has also been backsliding, including efforts to narrow what kinds
of identification may be used at the polling place.
Eliminating special elections needs to be seen as part of the effort to
increase participation, by having more people vote on the issues in
question and by loading up the major elections so as to draw attention
and more people to them.
If the case that elections matter is overwhelming, the case that
special elections matter is obviously not. It’s a tough sell. Given
that there’s a good alternative, they should be eliminated.
Read it at the Dayton Daily News
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