2014 Midterm Elections

Today is Election Day in America and if you ingest any form of media you know it’s the only thing anyone cares about….except that is not true at all.  About 75% of American citizens are registered to vote and in 2012 only 59% of those people filled out a ballot.  As seen below, the turnout for elections like today’s midterms are even more pitiful looking.

In fact, midterm voting turnout has dropped steadily since the 1840’s – the problem isn’t new but it’s more pressing than ever.  No matter how you want this election to turn out (basically who you want to be in charge of making sure nothing happens), the fact so few people turn out to vote should be troubling to citizens of a democracy because a democracy is only as strong as the amount of people who vote and help steer decisions.  Interestingly, the American government is very hands off when it comes to getting people to vote.  Perhaps it’s due to government skepticism but when compared to other countries America should be doing more.

How the World Votes:

In Sweden more than 95% of their population votes.  This is achieved through automatic enrollment for all citizens in a national database (somewhere someone in a bunker shouted, ‘I knew it!!”) which is linked to tax records.  When it’s time for elections, Swedes can easily pop in and out of their local polling stations.

Going a step further is Australia which made voting mandatory.  There’s even a $20 fine for those who didn’t vote. America would never be able to pull off anything that strict but the current hands off approach is simply not working.

There are those that say voting doesn’t matter, one vote won’t make a difference, and nothing’s going to change anyways.  This apathy with the system may have some value, but this self defeating mentality is cancerous to the preservation and growth of the nation.

A million reasons can be given as to why a particular person doesn’t vote.  They are too busy, don’t care, or can’t find time around their jobs.  This can easily be solved.  Make Election Day a federal holiday.

You can picture it now – a day of patriotic fervor that extols the message that America truly is the world’s greatest democracy.  Having an entire day devoted to voting will give the message to those disillusioned with the process that the government and the people it represents take this system very seriously.  If you need to bribe them a bit with the chance to sleep in, is that a bad thing?

Every single citizen should be proud to vote.  America is so proud of being proud of itself that this holiday should easily become a reality.  During the 109th Congress John Kerry and Hillary Clinton introduced legislation to this end but it did not pass.  How un-American.

Fine.  In this business obsessed society we live in, the ability to have one extra day off every two years might be asking a bit much. Alternatively, America could do what over 50 other nations do: hold elections on the weekend.  Ever wonder why America votes on Tuesdays?  Travel back to 1845 for the answer.  The preferred day, Monday, was not viable since travel by horse took so long you could not make the trip to vote in the same day – of course there was no traveling on the Sabbath.  So Tuesday became the day.

This antiquated reason for Tuesday voting should be a sign that the process needs to evolve.  Holding elections on a holiday or the weekend would increase turnout.  Or a truly novel idea comes from a recent New York Times opinion piece by David Schanzer and Jay Sullivan which calls for a constitutional amendment to increase House terms to 4 years thus eliminating midterm elections.  This idea is compelling but unlikely to occur anytime soon.  Maybe someday sooner America will adopt online voting – you wouldn’t even have to leave bed to elect the people that run the world.  Now that sounds like a good deal.

The 2014 Healthcare Proxy War

Some implications for the Affordable Care Act’s recent successfull enrollment period, and the 2014 midterm elections have already been discussed here,  but there is another angle for this coming November:  Who will find the most sympathetic person to either support Obamacare, or show its horrors?  It’s going to be America’s Next Top Anecdote. Who could forget the paragon of 2008: A man who came to define the times and dictated how all future elections were conducted.  This man is of course Joe the Plumber.  Joe, who’s real name is Samuel, is perhaps the most famous political anecdote outside of Ronald Reagan’s inaccurate, racist, and fictitious ‘Welfare Queen’. Yet, there was no face to the “Welfare Queen,” whereas Joe the Plumber was able to talk about his experiences as a small business owner in Obama’s future socialist society.  Since the ACA is once again the biggest issue in another midterm election, who will be the face of demagoguery?  When will we meet Ken the Diabetic, Nancy the Nurse or Syphilis Steve.

Anecdotes over Facts:

There are many ads for and against the ACA already in circulation but, as November gets closer, the floodgates will open.  According to a Washington Examiner story, the Republican National Committee is already amassing those who lost insurance from Obamacare.  Technically, they did lose their plans but in exchange for newer,  and better ones.  Regardless, the president did say no one would lose their plan.  The ads will be a bit duplicitous in that regard, but that’s nothing new.  So far, every single anti-Obamacare ad has been debunked as either completely untrue, or bending the truth.  Such is the way of politics in America. Not to be outdone, Democrats have begun their initiative to create election worthy anecdotes.  The website Faces of Repeal was paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and depicts countless personal stories about people who were saved by Obamacare.  It’s pretty clear Republicans need to find people who lost their insurance (the number is relatively small) and those who are now paying more for their insurance (those who were unwise enough to not have insurance at all beforehand).  For Democrats, they need to search out those who obtained insurance even with disqualifiable, pre-existing conditions and signed up through the exchanges to obtain health insurance.

A Human Face to a Problem:

Anecdotes have become a major part of American politics and are especially fruitful in elections. As Reuter’s Neal Gabler points out, America leads the world in anecdote appreciation.  The nightly news always has human-interest stories, and you’d be hard pressed to find a politician who makes a speech without referring to someone somewhere who did something great.  Also, there hasn’t been a State of the Union address in recent memory without a myriad of guests that were all emblematic of larger issues.  In a way, this is a good thing since the government is for the people by the people, but taking a more cynical look reveals exploitation. Anecdotes are widely used because, simply put, they work.  Gabler explains that the problem with these personal stories is that “many Americans internalize these fictions…which is why so many politicians wield anecdotes instead of facts”. It’s odd that so many Americans remain skeptical of the media and politician’s slick talk, but when they are presented with an anecdote it’s easily accepted.  Even if the ad has been discredited by nonpartisan fact checkers, it fits their view so it becomes part of the psyche.  This is a bipartisan issue that affects all Americans and severely hurts the truth of the matters at hand. For the 2014 election, the Democrats will most likely suffer many defeats.  Even with the positive ACA enrollment numbers, the minds of the people are mostly made up with little room left for facts.  Since most Democrats are running in reddish and purple states, the constituents there have already heard about the untrue calamities caused by Obamacare.  Their minds are set and were probably solidified when Obama was elected.  It will be interesting to see who becomes the face of the midterm elections, hopefully it will be the facts.