Even before we started marking time in the daily drumbeat of grim virus news, voting in our nation has been fraught with the red-blue partisan divide that has infected everything from politics to football.
Republicans worry about fraud. Democrats worry about suppression. Truth be told, both parties have engaged in election manipulation for years: It’s like stealing signs in baseball.
In New England, Protestant Republicans used every trick they could muster to keep Roman Catholic immigrants from voting. There were restrictions on the foreign born, even if they were naturalized citizens. And real estate property qualifications to vote.
In the Jim Crow south, Democrats did the suppressing, enacting poll taxes and literacy tests to ensure that blacks would never have political power. Women couldn’t vote until a century ago.
Politicians have always sought an edge. The media may focus on process issues but the pols care about results. The best way to rig an election is to control who votes.
President Donald Trump recently said as much when he opposed a national mail-in vote, asserting it would hurt Republican chances. Yet he and the first lady both voted by mail in the recent Florida Presidential primary.
Amid this pandemic, we must establish a principle: That no one should have to choose between their health and democracy. Perhaps not for all time, but for now, states must move to early-voting and mail ballots.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea has a plan that’s a good start: Conducting the June presidential primary by mail. This is the perfect trial run to determine how to run such a system. It’s not much of a contest — Trump will obviously win on the Republican side. Joe Biden will carry the Democrats; all of his serious challengers for the nomination have dropped out and endorsed him.
All 780,000 citizens on the voter rolls will get mail ballot applications. The virtue in this is that for the first time since 2004, the state can cull the voter lists beginning with returned mail from those who no longer live at voting addresses.
In-person voting isn’t going to work during a public health crisis. Most of the poll workers are deep into their social security years and are vulnerable to infection. Social distancing is hard to enforce. Mail systems have worked well in states with divergent political cultures. Red Utah votes by mail, as does blue Oregon and purple Colorado.
American politics is rife with tales of both voter fraud and suppression. From the Daley Chicago machine to Lyndon Johnon’s Texas, stuffing ballot boxes is part of political lore. Closer to home, Boston Mayor James Michael Curley and Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci both patented the dark art of cheating.
Yet, as John Marion, director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, says dwelling on past antics by dead politicians doesn’t help. He and his counterparts at Common Cause in Massachusetts are focused on steering changes to ensure that early-voting and mail voting get done honestly.
Mail ballots provide a paper trail and can be easily audited. In 2016, about 25 percent of all votes nationwide were cast by mail. It now seems the only way to stop the widespread disenfranchisement of voters.
In this era of inequality, a system of accessible voting is crucial. The voting booth may be the last place where everyone in our society is equal, from one-percent hedge-funder to hospital floor cleaner. Let’s keep it that way.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday at 6:45 and 8:45 and at 5:44 in the afternoon.
