But, oh dear, mightn’t this lead to a lack of proper thought among electors about the people on the ballot? Well that’s what backers of the change claim, all innocent-faced, as they press for everyone to spend much longer actually voting for each individual candidate.
And the inevitable effect of banning the ‘straight ticket’? Queues. Queues which are already often long, would get longer still. Folk with pressing things to do, poorer people with two jobs, parents due to cook supper, would go home. And they’re generally Democrats. Texas is the biggest state the Republicans can count on in a presidential election: it’s their California, with 38 electoral votes and 7% of the electoral college in 2016. The Republican on the ticket has won every presidential contest since 1976. But as Hispanic voting grows there are reasons to think Texas might be in play in 2020.
Not if the queues are long, though. Suppression works.
The story so far is a familiar one. It fits into a tradition that dates back to Jim Crow. Civil rights were granted grudgingly and slowly and plenty of black Americans think the battle for proper democratic freedom is still to be properly won. It’s reach is wider than the presidential race, too: comfortable America is none too keen on low-life America getting real power.
It is part of American life. As is the grisly fact that turnout in American presidential elections is low in any case – around 45% of voters don’t make it to the polling station. Lots of Americans don’t need to be suppressed: they’re just lazy or, more often, busy and tired and disillusioned. And Coronavirus will keep even more from the polls — won’t it?
Well in recent days, rather gloriously, the story has changed and changed in a way that cheers those who are confident in the ability of the USA to rise to challenges. You don’t have to be a Democratic party supporter (though it probably helps) to notice and salute what has just happened in still-chilly Wisconsin.
The Democrats tried to get their primary election – and the other polls due at the same time – postponed because of the Coronavirus. Republicans refused. The result was some measure of chaos.
As The New York Times put it, people were forced to choose between their health and their civic duty:
“In Milwaukee, just five of 180 planned polling places are open, leading to hours-long lines of masked and socially distanced voters. This comes as Milwaukee voters — an electorate that includes nearly all of the state’s black population — have lagged well behind suburban counterparts in returning absentee ballots.”
The chairman of the Democratic National Committee Tom Perez called it “voter suppression on steroids, because it was putting people’s lives in danger”.
But here is the thing. Americans can be meretricious and fickle and frankly barmy. They can be unthinking about bigger pictures. They can be ignorant about the world. But they are also deeply serious. America has a spine of purpose. People who misunderstand the place concentrate on the froth and the nonsense, the eating competitions and the trashy TV.
But in Wisconsin, faced with what many people saw as a deliberate effort to deprive them of their rights, they queued, in masks, to protect those rights. More than a million votes were cast in person or in postal ballots. Not as many as usual but still a decent number. And enough to make a difference. A judge Mr Trump backed on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was thrown out. It felt to many like a victory for democracy in a state that will be a key battleground in 2020.
Of course, it may well be the case that Donald Trump wins in November because in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states more voters are enthusiastic about him than about the challenger Joe Biden. He managed, in 2016, to bring people to the polls who had not voted often before, if at all. He is not just about suppression; he has given voice to people who felt themselves to be voiceless.
And Mr Biden, while he is regarded with affection by many Democrats, makes few spines tingle. When the Fox News host Tucker Carlson asks of Mr Biden, “could he find his car in a three tiered parking garage?” many Democrats shift uneasily in their seats.
So there is still a chance it could be a conventional election. But if the Coronavirus calamity carries on, 2020 could turn out to be an election about what American democracy really is. Will people do their duty in spite of the dangers, as large numbers did in Wisconsin?
In their revolution, in their civil war, in their travails of the 20th century, plenty of Americans died for the ideal of America.
Will they do so again this November?
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SubscribeIs the author aware that he completely undermines his own argument. Whilst waxing lyrical that changes made to how votes are cast will create queues, and this is voter suppression, as people won’t queue to vote, he then goes on to praise people queuing to vote in Wisconsin.
Also no impartially or balance as mention of how Democrats try and fix the voting in their favour by, for example, allow illegals to vote
Yes, I follow these things closely and it is largely the Democrats who do all they can to fix the votes, because in most places it is the only way they have any chance of winning.
Webb is wickedly biased against Trump and in favour of the Democrats. But what else would you expect from a BBC ‘journalist’.
Justin Webb’s piece was interesting though it did get close to a conspiracy theory, but what I cannot understand is why the Democrats cannot produce a candidate of class and quality to stand against Trump
BBC journalist does not like trump, (orange man bad, trump derangement syndrome) what a surprise, who would have known it from their very balanced and fair coverage over the last few years.
It’s not our country, it’s theirs , so not our concern.
Thank god that the BBC is no longer relevant in most people’s lives that I know, most have ditched the TV licence and have never looked back, scrap the BBC, sell it off and make over paid journalist like this try to survive in the real world like the rest of us.
No more free rides from the poor so you can look down your noses at us
You forgot to mention rampant voter fraud perpetrated by the DNC. You also connect Republicans and Libertarians (People who back Trump) to “Jim Crow” laws.
Jim Crow laws are the product of DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP!! Historical fact. These laws were from a faction called the “Dixiecrats”.
But back to DNC voter fraud. Buses of repeat voters, people who go to vunerable people homes to “HELP” with filling out the mail in vote. This is Nancy and Chuck’s wet dream.
The Republican policy is simple. Voting is not done in the dark. It is an open and transperent process where people turn up at a polling station that can be observed by impartial people to make sure it is run properly. People WITH IDENTIFICATION (Because the DNC don’t want that, why??) tick their name off the roll, are given their ballot and that is cast and counted. This is not only reasonable and fair, it is the tradition of democracy for 1000 years.
What you suggested was secret easy to manipulate Stalin voting from 1930’s Soviet Union. Well that speaks volumes doesn’t it.
The Democratic party is the the party of “Super Delegates” people who get more than 1 vote, voter fraud and corruption.
I am not a supporter of President Trump but I do support the American Constitution and it stands for one person and one vote.
I lived in the Dixiecrat South, and know exactly of what you speak. If my own comment is actually posted you can read my take on the article as well.
Good to see this irresponsible article getting trashed by sensible commenters. Democrats always scream about voter suppression as a way to cover for their preference for stuffing the ballot box.
Democrats completely control California, and they introduced ballot harvesting in the last election. In that election, Orange County, historically a bastion of conservatism, flipped all of its House seats to Democrat. Seats that were +30% Republican on Election Day flipped to +30% Dem after all the harvested ballots were counted. Purely coincidental, I’m sure. I lived in the adjacent county for 20 years and visited OC often. The idea that all these districts had pent-up legitimate Democrat support to that degree that just wasn’t voting because voting is too hard is laughable.
Historically, in addition to being the party of Jim Crow and segregation (it’s amazing how Hollywood and the media have managed to downplay that shameful history for their allies), the Democrats were also notorious for the smoke-filled rooms and the backroom deal. Even today, look at both parties and see which one has a more open and fair nomination process. No ” and I mean zero ” establishment Republicans wanted Trump as the nominee, but he won anyway, because the people decided. Meanwhile, over on the Democrat side, they have “super delegates” and other shenanigans to sway the vote. Just to be sure, they change the rules of their debates on the fly to make sure their less preferred candidates are shut out.
No reasonable person can look at these two parties and conclude that the Democrats are more committed to fair and honest elections than the Republicans. The idea that Democrat voters can’t produce ID to vote or get to the polls infantilizes them and serves as a smokescreen for voter fraud.
Actually it is the Democrats who are forever trying to fix the vote – and sometimes succeeding – with absentee voting and ballot harvesting etc.
Honestly, total disconnect with this. What’s baffling for me is, how ANY Democrat could dislike Trump. Personally, sure.
But he’s singing all your spending, all your prison “get out of jail free” bills, he was NEVER serious about a wall and even had it gotten built you all know he expanded and exploded the VISA / Amnesty funnel so all your illegals are simply legal now!
He’s not a republican, he’s still a Democrat! His daughter and her snake husband are working on a socialist paid family leave joke!
He never really pulled out of the Paris Accord. He used a slick politician trick and set a far off date no one will remember and it will be forgotten. Just like the other day with the WHO. He said he will defund it…. “After a review.”. Right!
What the hell are you democrats bitching and moaning about!? It’s just total derangement syndrome unless you are just admitting, socialism isn’t enough. Communism is the real end game.
this is very close to a conspiracy theory. There are good reasons why postal voting attracts scrutiny and opposition. Voter fraud being one of them but also why does this pandemic, as opposed to any other public health issue, justify it? People will still queue and vote if they are motivated to do so. Steps can be taken to protect health but altering the voting system for a special pleading?
“Will people do their duty in spite of the dangers”…..let me supply the ellipsis here, Justin- “and vote Democrat”.
Mr Webb is a stratospherically highly- remunerated employee of the most influential broadcasting organisation in the world, one whose gargantuan financial turnover is funded by a poll-tax which carries imprisonment as a possible sanction, and which frequently seeks to justify its comfortable existence by loudly and self-righteously proclaiming its dedication to reporting truthfully and with utter impartiality.
If this dedication ever existed- and study of the BBC’s role in breaking the 1926 General Strike is interesting in this regard- it has certainly been more or less explicitly abandoned of late.
A more pertinent subject for Mr. Webb’s pen might be why the Democratic Party is so riven by Stalinist intersectionalism and identity-hatred that it’s currently deciding whether to offer as a Presidential candidate a geriatric or a dotard.
I notice many pure as the driven snow republicans are worried a few crumbs from their cake they have & eat too may fall to us swarthy smarmy smelly uneducated poor persecuted marginal living taxpayer (yeah…if I buy anything I’m a taxpayer) fellow human (too bad I’m not a stinking puppy/duck/kitten) citizens…I know this because in addition to the BBC, I follow AP, CNN, FOX, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, C-SPAN (fox lite), local & international news.
The article has no real facts; they are just talking points of Leftist propaganda. I grew up in the Democrat south. The party of slave owners and the KKK produced the Jim Crow laws to test the “colored” if they were “literate enough” to vote. Also, there was NEVER a southern party flip that made it Republican. Republicans overwhelmingly voted both times to give both non whites and women the vote. My own grandmother remembered the day well, when she voted the first time allowed. She voted Republican because of it, and for the rest of her life.
If you need a driver’s license or other state issued photo ID to buy beer, cigarettes, marijuana, a car, boat, home, walk into a bar, apply for a credit card, adopt a baby or a puppy, why are Leftists screaming racism when asked to show one when you vote? Why are they so hot to allow illegals to vote? Seriously? What other country in the world allows non-citizens to vote in even their local elections. Please, I really want to know, I’ve lived my entire life loving my non white friends and family members and suddenly I Am called RACIST? There have been enough studies to show that many inner city minorities don’t show up to vote NOT because they are held back, but because of disinterest. Sad but true.
To get to the long lines of showing up to the polls, I’m all in for making voting day a national holiday for people to show up and vote. For those truly unable to get out and vote, I think mail in ballots are great. If you can fill out your name, social security number, as well as your driver’s license number on a form to get your ballot mailed to your home, then great. It also doesn’t allow for extra votes because of these essential numbers. I’ve had to do this in my own state of Left Leaning Washington state, because my county and many counties like mine do not have polling stations. Literally over a 100,000 of us are living “remotely” enough to find a polling station. This can be for those in dangerous, densely populated inner cities.
The Leftists don’t want to ask if you’re even qualified to vote as a citizen, (citing racism) anymore, and to that I say, no way. I want to know if the author believes that letting non-citizens vote, or anyone else vote multiple times, then I would like to have him start it in his own country. The Extreme Left has seen a great exodus of minority members to Republican or Libertarian parties since Trump. That’s not me speaking, those voices are the ones leaving. The only ones screaming are the Democratic Socialists who need to infuse more votes into the ranks. The only way is to harvest the illegal votes, who unknowingly stumble into rhetoric of “Bad Trump, Good Democrat.” If you really want to understand American politics, I would suggest you do more digging into our history. Otherwise, you’re only sounding profoundly ignorant of a very complex process. This is not to insult the author, but to be taken seriously as a political journalist you need to be more educated and not indoctrinated.
Of course we arrive at that point that is the key issue. Why does the party that benefits most from voter fraud want to make it easier for fraud to happen? Let’s face it the UK’s experience with postal voting has not been good. It is not improving participation, it is making it worse with community leaders taking ballots and filling them in for people.
We need engagement with politics, we need voters to be interested in politics. Not just a gimmick to trying and increase a percentage.