Monday, Oct. 22, is the deadline to be sure you are registered to vote in the upcoming Nov. 6 California General Election, which includes city council contests, school board selections, local and state tax measures and voting for a new governor, U.S. senator and other state offices and U.S. congressional races.
That’s a lot of voter choices. We believe that when more people vote, our governments and our democratic society is best served. Apparently, there are forces and political interests in our midst who disagree with this “one person, one vote” ideal.
Instead of encouraging more citizens to vote and supporting voter education and registration programs, there are dozens of sneaky attacks here in California and across the country to block the right to vote. What could be more un-American?
No one should take their right to vote for granted. No one should assume their voter registration paperwork is all in place. Everyone can check their voter status at the county Registrar of Voters website or with the California Secretary of State. (www.voterstatus.sos.gov.) There is also a national voting database at vote.org.
Hundreds of thousands of eligible citizens are being blocked from registering or being accepted on voter lists across the nation. Desperate political powers seem to want to take America back to the days when only white men with property could vote. (That was the law as written in our original U.S. Constitution. Quakers, Jews and Catholics also were expressly banned from voting.)
The current voter suppression trend started in 2000 with the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision that disallowed thousands of Florida votes that could have named a different president. In 2013, the Supreme Court erased key voter protections from the 1963 Voter Rights Law. That change has allowed 34 states to bring back voter I.D. requirements and other once-outlawed restrictions. Indiana has removed 469,000 voters from eligible lists for failing to vote in a recent election. North Carolina requires a specific I.D. form that costs $10 but isn’t called a poll tax.
Elsewhere, Election Day voting hours are being cut and poll locations are being closed. Since 2013, a total of 868 polling places have been closed in mostly minority neighborhoods in southern states. Also upheld by recent court decisions is the practice of gerrymandering, where precinct boundaries are created to guarantee favorable outcomes for political parties now in power.
This is all a reversal of our democratic principle of encouraging citizen participation. No wonder the United States continues to show some of the lowest voter turnout numbers among all countries. In Canada, for instance, a person can register on Election Day and vote (13 U.S. states allow this as well).
In France, all citizens are automatically registered to vote on their 17th birthday. Some countries legally mandate all eligible citizens to vote, subject to penalty.
In the recent Primary Election in June, voter turnout in Sonoma County was just 49.7 percent. If voting was compulsory here, that would mean that 136,082 registered voters would have been fined or put in jail. We can’t condone mandatory voting, but we can’t help but wonder how much voter turnout would go up after spending a night in jail.
Democratic and free elections don’t work by threats, penalties or exclusions. The Nov. 6 General Election includes many crucial choices. Those voters still allowed to vote will elect a new governor and decide a key U.S. senate race between Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kevin deLeon.
Billions of state water, housing and hospital bonds will be decided. Prop. 6 asks voters to keep or repeal a 12-cent gas tax approved by the state legislature last year.
And, perhaps, our readers and others still think it matters who gets elected to our local school boards and city governments.
Although we’re among them, we don’t think these decisions should be left up to only white men with property. Everyone vote, please.
