Undoubtedly, the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society. Especially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.
-- Reynolds v. Sims
The choices made by those enjoying this fundamental right is my concern, this year depressing me on that front. If you are upset at how things are going, which is totally rational, the solution is not to vote for "tea party" (seriously?) candidates or even in most cases Republicans over the Democrats available. Glenn Greenwald et. al. might "vote for the individual," which in a party system likes ours is a bit naive in various cases, but even individual choices show generally show us that.
Take Delaware. Palin's favorite has a shot in winning the Republican primary for the "Biden seat," even though the party itself seems not to want any part of her (see, e.g., Rachel Maddow recently). This shows the Tea Party is at times not the same as the Republicans -- it is a certain conservative strand of them. The Republican mainstream candidate is Rep. Mike Castle and various people say he is a decent enough person. But, even on that front, he still rarely votes for the Democrats (the senator from Alaska, however, saw the problem with even that) and is likely just to join with the usual Republican obstructionism, even if he isn't a total tool about it. And, I don't know of any reason to vote against the Democrat either. The guy keeping the seat warm seems to be a pretty decent senator too.
Periodic glances at TPM etc. that make it look like there is a reasonable chance to think Sharon Angle types will win in November on that front is really depressing. Seriously? Things are less stressful locally, since -- putting aside some random House seat -- the Democrats are pretty safe up here in N.Y. I'm not totally happy. Not too enthused about Andrew Cuomo, who is in no way as philosophically pleasing or anything like his dad. Probably a safe mainstream Democrat overall, though at times I get sort of an "asshole" vibe. Not that he has any credible opposition.
This is the general theme today, primary day. The primary issue for Sen. Gillibrand's opponent (Keer-stin Gillibrand, Clinton's replacement, has turned out to be a hard working sort who's heart is at least outwardly in the right place on things like gay rights and health reform) seems to be the need for a primary at all. After all, Chuck "I'm a bit of an ass" Schumer has no opponent. I am sympathetic and voted for Gail Goode as a type of message. As helpful as voting for John Edwards, perhaps, but so be it. My only real choice was for attorney general; picked one of four longshots, a "people's choice" (to cite one article) supported by my local assemblywoman (who I voted for, since she did nothing I know of to warrant otherwise) and Pete Seeger (not Singer!).
There are some real disputed races other than attorney general in the city, including some city council battles. I also had to pick six members for a Democratic convention of some sort out of seven (six names and an alternate). This is about as much of a joke as voting for a lower court judge -- I have no idea who these people are other than one or two officials (one my state senator) or what they basically do. I did a bit of research on the election and did not know of them. The League of Women Voters told me:
Offices on the Ballot for 2010: The 2 New York Senators and all members of the House of Representatives; Governor and Lieutenant Governor; Attorney General; Comptroller; all State Senators and Assembly members.
Only three (Gillibrand seat, attorney general and assembly) of these ran opposed for my district and only one (attorney general -- with so many candidates, there is a chance -- somewhat ridiculously -- of a run-off; the waste of time/money underlines the value of instant run-off voting) really contested in anything but name. The primary is not a waste of time, however, for two reasons. One, it opens up the possibility of a challenge, if the person deserves one. Two, it provides a low voltage first look at our new machines.
New York has been late to the party on this front though federal legislation passed a few years back has made it a matter of necessity to end our throwback lever machines. The League of Women Voters page has a YouTube demonstration of the new system. The voter signs in as usual (our "voting id" system) and is given a paper ballot. Mini cubicles are set up with pens to fill in the proper ovals (appropriately, my polling place is a school). Then, you go to the machine in which you feed the sheet for scanning. A folder is given so while you walk, the ballot isn't open to view. The demonstration suggests that "overvotes" will be flagged by the machine, which would have helped in 2000. There is no receipt.
It was pretty painless and I guess it's quicker (and cheaper -- there seemed to be two machines to feed ballots into but I might have missed something) than some machines which are more like ATMs -- you don't feed in a ballot (surely this will give rise to some cases where ovals aren't filled in properly or something?) but select your choices on the screen. Filling in six ovals for the convention nominees, for instance, was a bit tedious. If there were more races, it might have taken longer. People are fairly comfortable with ATMs by now. This is more akin to a standardized test, which many haven't taken for quite some time. Time will tell.
[Before I posted this, I checked the Election Law blog and it did flag some problems, the second a substantive one for third party candidates. I'm not surprised there were some problems on the first day out, which again makes it helpful that a low output primary day is when it occurred. This might be a problem as a matter of selecting candidates, surely, but better in this context.]
A final word about going out to vote. I might be a bit traditional and sentimental on the point, but do feel that it a good idea to have voters actually go out and vote. Physically going to the polling place, with options for absentee as needed surely, is to me a helpful way to remember your separate role as a citizen, a voter. There seems to be -- I use that word advisedly -- a symbolic value at least to have a voter go in person, instead of absentee. For those so worried about "voter fraud," it also is (to the degree it matters, which it really does not in real terms) less likely to be problematic if someone is physically present.
And, though it is not in place here, various tools and so forth can be present to help and encourage the voter. Either way, today's an important part of being a citizen. Bad choices or not, I hope many take it to heart.
[Update: I thought there might be a run-off for attorney general, but the person I thought would win (though less of a shoo-in than I thought) did so with a narrow plurality -- not even 40%. Other state races went generally as expected though the tea party candidate for governor won the Republican primary, sharing the honors with Mike Castle's opponent. A nailbiter in NH. NY state senator troublemaker and overall tool, Pedro Espada, also lost.]