Election Bureaucrats Would Cancel Elections to Save Money if They Could!

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

The San Mateo Elections Clerk is bemoaning the cost of running the special election required by law to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos.

If Clerks had their way, you would have to pay them to vote.

For years they have demanded the right to run partisan elections with “all mail” ballots because of the cost savings. The undisputed fact that such a move would disenfranchise many people who only pay attention close to an election when the hoopla gets their attention is considered unimportant.

Clerks think you should pay attention earlier. Clerks think you should vote by mail and save them money. Clerks think that election precincts should be so large that everyone must have a car to drive to the polls. Clerks think voters should have to pay the postage to vote-by-mail.

Clerks act as though voting was a privilege, not a right. And voters sure do make it inconvenient for themselves.

Every academic study relates low rates of participation with hurdles placed in the way of the voter. A registration system – costly and cumbersome – which is designed to eliminate non-existent “voter fraud”. The “motor voter” federal law, designed to automatically register everyone who applied for a drivers license unless they ‘opted out’, has been ignored in California (because the technology of transmitting signatures digitally isn’t sufficient to offset GOP concerns about “fraud”).

Between Clerks who make voting difficult to save money and Republicans who make voting difficult to suppress turnout it is a wonder anyone votes at all.

In fairness, it must be said that those who do vote are aware they are a self-selected aristocracy. I’ve tested notions of incentives and or penalties to increase turnout (as attorneys require in ‘jury’ duty) with focus groups of voters. Such notions are always rejected: Voters don’t want people with different attitudes diluting their power at the polls.

17,595 people went to their polling place in San Mateo on Tuesday. True, a lot more voted by mail. But would those 17,595 have voted by mail it they had no other choice as the Clerk desires? Not likely. Instead we would have 17,595 fewer voters making the decision – and a turnout under 19%.

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