From the editor: 10 thoughts on elections and voting

By Cynthia Prairie
©2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Most of you may have already voted by mail or in early voting, but I wait til Election Day.  Going to the polls is an experience I have cherished since I turned 18. In all the years since, in all the cities I have lived in and for all the party affiliations I have claimed — mostly for convenience not of ideology — I missed just one vote.

When my daughter turned 18, I was thrilled to accompany her to Town Hall to get her registered. We took pictures.

I don’t claim to be an elections expert. But in the 40 years of covering local and state elections, here’s 10 casual observations I’d like to share with you.

1. Yard signs don’t vote.  There may be lots of yard signs out for one candidate or another — and holy cow — there certainly are this year. But that doesn’t mean beans when it comes to voter turnout for those candidates.

2. As a corollary: Some sizes matter, but crowd size isn’t one of them. Rallies are mostly entertainment, sometimes news. If the same people go to multiple rallies of a single candidate, that candidate hasn’t gained any votes. (And just because they go to the rally doesn’t mean they’ll vote for the candidate either.)

3. Every state and, in many cases, county and city, have their own voting systems chosen by their financials and their needs. Paper ballots with electronic tally machines, paper ballots that are counted by hand,  clunky machines where you pull down the lever in front of your choice’s name, punch card systems etc.

4. There is no nationwide voting system, where state systems are connected to each other.

5. The men and women — mostly women from my experience — who populate the elections boards are skilled professionals who take their jobs with seriousness to the point of reverence. They believe that keeping your vote safe is their duty.

6. I have never had any doubt about the integrity of our elections, thanks to Nos. 3 through 5 above. Yes, some people cheat, vote twice, vote on behalf of a dead relative. But they are few and far between and are individuals, not major cabals. They also span all parties. And there are so few they don’t make a difference to the outcome. And people are caught. The system works.

7. Mistakes and delays happen. When I was in Chicago in the early 1980s a guy carried punch card ballots out to his car in a rainstorm. A bunch got wet. He thought he’d dry them off with a blow dryer. They crinkled and wouldn’t fit through the counter, delaying the results by a day. Dumb.

8. Illegal immigrants don’t vote, even when they can legally. Take Takoma Park, Md., home to U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the liberal constitutional scholar who sat on the Jan. 6th committee.  Takoma Park (also known as “The Peoples Republic of Takoma Park”) has 17,000 residents and is known as a liberal bastion. It’s been a sanctuary city since the 1980s and, since 1993, has allowed noncitizens — including lawful U.S. residents and illegal immigrants — to vote in local elections (it’s illegal for them to vote in federal elections and the number that try are minuscule). The numbers of all noncitizens voting is low compared to the rest of the voting population.  If they don’t do it in Takoma Park, they likely don’t do it much elsewhere. You can learn more about Takoma Park’s situation here.

9. Pollsters — especially national ones — continue to learn how to deal with changes in communication technology to get a clear picture of the hearts, minds and voting of the American electorate.

10. Don’t expect national results right away. We’re a huge country with six times zones, including Alaska and Hawaii. We’ll get local and state results in a reasonable time frame. And while we may get indications of a winner by midnight, ballots still have to counted and accounted for.  Be patient. Let the elections officials do their work.

OK. I can’t ignore No. 11. It’s the one situation that is controlled by state legislatures that has gotten us into the divisive mess we are in now. It doesn’t affect Vermont for our congressional choices. And it only affects us minimally in state legislative choices. But in reverberates throughout the country. So, I give you No. 11:

11. Gerrymandering is the “enemy within.” It is the cause of much of the division that currently is destroying the United States, and both Republicans and Democrats must bear the responsibility to fix it in their states. Vermont is relatively safe from the problem for now. Gerrymandering occurs when state legislators cut up their districts so that they choose their constituents instead of their constituents choosing their representatives. Get rid of gerrymandering and we will find our candidates moderating themselves to meet the needs of their politically diverse constituencies.  To learn more about gerrymandering methods such as cracking and packing, click here.

So, now if you haven’t already, get ready to exercise your franchise and vote. Be proud that as Americans we were either given that right originally in the Constitution or our forebears fought to their right to vote to be added to the Constitution. So many of us now have that right no matter our financial and land-owning status, no matter the color of our skin or if we were born someplace else and no matter our gender.  So, go vote, like your life depends on it.