How to make voting great again in America | Plazas
opinion
Here is an important takeaway from the infamous July 16 Helsinki, Finland, press conference between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin:
After-the-fact affirmation that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 presidential election and that Putin’s regime may do so again in the 2018 midterm elections.
Put aside the president's clumsy "would"-"wouldn’t" flap for a moment. Republican and Democratic lawmakers loudly sided with intelligence assessments that the meddling happened and that it is unacceptable, and that Russia is no friend to the United States and our democratic principles.
American voters deserve to know that their votes count and that they will be counted fairly and securely. This is our system.
We have seen numerous instances where voting has been compromised or placed at risk. Russians targeted 21 states in the 2016 election, according to the U.S. Homeland Security Department. While Tennessee was not among them, in May, a cyberattack occurred on the Knox County election commission website.
Related: Join Civility Tennessee campaign
That is precisely why federal and state governments need to invest in making and keeping voting safe – and instilling confidence in citizens that our system works.
Another way to instill that confidence is to work hard – at the governmental, societal and individual levels – to ensure that voters actually come out to the polls to vote.
Take Tennessee, which ranked 50th in voter turnout and 40th in voter registration, according to the latest data from Pew Research Center. That’s unconscionable.
Moreover, voting in Tennessee midterm elections has been falling since 2006:
- 1998: 1,026,017
- 2002: 1,687,543
- 2006: 1,868,363
- 2010: 1,620,542
- 2014: 1,430,117
That is an 11 percent drop from 2006 to 2014. During that same period, Tennessee's population grew by 7.4 percent. Something's wrong.
Sure, it’s a failure of the citizen who chooses not to do his or her duty, but it is also a failure of government that could have made voting more accessible and less onerous.
While the voter ideally should be informed and knowledgeable coming to the polls, he or she should also have the opportunity to exercise a choice in the most accessible way.
And there are things that Tennessee can do to make voting great again in the state.
What's working in Tennessee
Despite accusations by the president and a short-lived commission on voting integrity that there was systemic voter fraud that involved millions of people, there were only 42 statewide cases of fraud found by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and his staff in the 2006 election.
That's a plus, and there are other positive things about the way voting works in the Volunteer State.
Consider:
- We have early voting.
- We finally have online voter registration (https://ovr.govote.tn.gov/).
- In 2017, the Tennessee General Assembly changed the “use it or lose it” law so that citizens’ names would not be purged from voter rolls if they had not voted after a few election cycles.
However, in light of the June 11 Supreme Court 5-4 decision to affirm a similar “use it or lose it” law in Ohio, Tennessee lawmakers might be tempted to change the law again.
They should resist that temptation.
What's not working in Tennessee
Voter registration deadline
Right now, Tennessee voters must register to vote no later than 30 days before an election.
That sounds like enough time, but it is a disincentive in our "just-in-time" 21st century world.
What would happen if that changed to same-day registration?
Fifteen states now allow for same-day registration, according to Demos, a public policy organization, and that has led to higher voter turnout.
Voter fraud system
Tennessee uses a system called CrossCheck, which was developed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who led Trump's short-lived voter fraud committee.
CrossCheck checks names of voters and recommends purges. But, in 2017, research from Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale, and Microsoft Research showed that the system was 99 percent inaccurate.
How can our state leaders have confidence in that? You get what you pay for, I guess.
Tennessee might consider using the Electronic Registration Information Center. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia are using it, as of July 9. The most recent state is South Carolina.
The average cost per state is about $32,000 annually.
That is small investment for a state with a $37 billion budget.
In addition, in a March guest column, Shanna Singh Hughey, president of the Nashville-based ThinkTennessee public policy organization, wrote that a report last year showed that Tennessee left $30 million unspent for elections upgrades.
In addition, a 2018 ThinkTennessee poll showed 68 percent of Tennesseans believe the state should be doing more to safeguard elections.
"We can do more to safeguard our elections, and we need to do it before it’s too late," she wrote.
Other ideas: Allowing for more types of IDs besides a driver's license or state IDs, to be used to vote; allowing automatic voter registration when someone gets his or her driver's license; and allowing for mail-in ballots or absentee ballots that don't require an excuse to use them.
According to the National Council of State Legislatures, 27 states and D.C. allow for an absentee ballot without an excuse and three states – Washington, Colorado, and Oregon – allow for all-mail voting.
Be a good citizen
I have written a lot about civility over these past few months for The Tennessean's Civility Tennessee campaign.
Civility, in my mind, is not about the suppression of dissent or fake niceness. It is about being an active citizen.
I am encouraged by efforts like Project Register, created by U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and state Sen. Steve Dickerson, to engage, first, high school students, and, now, employers to encourage active citizenship.
Our republic is depending on all of us.
David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee and opinion and engagement editor for The Tennessean. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.
Event on voting and election security
What: “Why aren’t Tennesseans voting like they should? A conversation about security, disenfranchisement and democratic renewal”
Who: Organized by The Tennessean and Lipscomb University's Nelson and Sue Andrew's Institute for Civic Leadership
When: Monday, Aug. 27, 6-8 p.m.
Where: AM Burton Health Sciences Center, Collins Alumni Auditorium, Lipscomb University, 1 University Park Dr, Nashville, TN 37204
Specifics: Exploring this issues in a panel discussion and Q&A with: U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper, D-Nashville; Secretary of State Tre Hargett (Republican); State Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-West Nashville; and Shanna Singh Hughey, president of ThinkTennessee
https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-plazas/2018/07/20/how-make-voting-great-again/802233002/
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