Is the voting booth no place for ignorant riff-raff even though the U.S. Constitution does not ban them?
Could it be that get-out-the-vote campaigns are the scourge of democracy?
One reader seems to think so. He chastised the Star-Telegram for encouraging people to vote on Nov. 2.
“It’s the scariest thing in the world to turn out a bunch of folks who don’t have a clue to anything, voting en masse because some idiot told them to,” the reader said.
“One of the most fortunate things in recent years is that these idiots have stayed at home and the older, more informed people do the voting. We’re better off without big numbers voting. Is that beyond you people to understand?”
The thought comes to mind: Maybe what the United States needs is a national voter-certification/licensing system to eliminate dim bulbs. Voters have the power to make decisions that could carry life-or-death consequences in the future, depending on the candidate they select.
They don’t decide every issue in this republic, but when they do, their vote represents an immense responsibility, so why not require them to prove they’re capable of casting an intelligent vote and to show their laminated voter’s license to gain access to the polling place?
The exam would need to be tough, but it could begin with a two-part essay answering, “Why do you want to vote? What qualifies you to vote? Compare and contrast.”
But all that’s probably flawed.
Licensed voters would need to buy malpractice insurance in case they elected a goofball and got sued by the opponent for bad thinking, and no one could afford the insurance, so America wouldn’t have any licensed voters, and decision-making would have to be forfeited to a higher power — perhaps a United Nations team.
The reader’s concern is understandable, however, when considering another point he raised. He doesn’t believe that the Star-Telegram, or any other news outlet, is doing enough to help nurture an informed electorate.
To an extent, he’s right.
Even though the Star-Telegram does an admirable job of researching and summarizing the issues and candidates’ positions and publishing fact-checked assessments of political advertising and other various claims, there are limits to what we can find out because of everything from state secrets to candidates’ “ain’t-gonna-tell” stonewalling.
That’s partially why the knowledge vacuum pulls in coverage of campaigns as though they were games.
Peripheral developments demand attention. There are polls to follow, bounces and spins to talk about, strategies to discuss along with gaffes, internal partisan strife and fundraising, and, of course, shocking sins of youth.
None of that contributes to strengthening the electorate’s command of candidates and issues, but it’s interesting grist. The trick is to treat it as grist.
Here we arrive at an old problem in covering politics and campaigns: How much truth must we do without?
Because of brilliant spin, transparent lies and unobtainable documents, we’re given a view that’s typically distorted and limited. We may know a lot about a little, but never enough to create a deeply informed electorate.
Consider the complaints of members of the press corps that’s following the presidential candidates. They resent being reduced to wallflower stenographers, because the candidates ignore their requests for news conferences and interviews in order to stay “on message” with brief statements.
Voter education pales as a priority in the face of such political arrogance. Why isn’t the electorate as outraged about that as the press corps and demanding that the candidates answer “off-message” questions?
Campaigns disregard such questions and press ahead with attempts to manipulate the media. Consider what happens constantly to Star-Telegram Managing Editor Rex Seline and Assistant Managing Editor John Gravois, who oversees coverage of politics and government, when they launch their e-mail programs at the start of their day.
They’re barraged with partisan messages from campaign workers dutifully shelling the media with “on-message” tidbits that carry all the impact of Nerf balls. The e-mails are deleted, along with other spam, in a time- and opportunity-wasting exercise.
Basically, the reader above who would apply an elitist solution to achieving voter excellence deserves commendation for advocating an informed electorate. At some point, even he will encounter a fog of unknowing, forcing a blind, if calculated, leap of faith as surely as illiterate voters who vote like “some idiot” tells them to.
Neither side has the advantage that would emerge if candidates stepped into the court of public opinion and told the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth.
But we’re not there yet. Until we are, the scourge of democracy and the republic won’t be uneducated voters or imperfect news media. It’ll continue to be what it always has been: distortion instead of truth.
