Nov. 27, 2006
Voters Get Poor Marks for Low Turnout
By Chris Heagarty
RALEIGH - Politicians love to talk about accountability, using it as a favorite buzzword. Parents with children in the public schools see this play out with the dramatic rise in end-of-grade testing which seems to matter more than the rest of the year ’s work. Don’t blame the teachers; blame politicians looking for accountability.
But what about calling for a little accountability of the politicians themselves? Can you imagine an end-of-term test for lawmakers? Testing how well they represented constituents, how they used our tax money, how they looked after the needs and welfare of our citizens?
“Aha,” you might say, “this is a trick question. Because we do have a test -- it’s called an election!”
Unfortunately, though that might be the theory, the practice of elections today is that they really are not much of a test. The rules are tilted in favor of the incumbents and against voters.
There’s nothing like a good scandal for cleaning house, and sometimes we see politicians swept out of office in the wake of well publicized trouble. But how often do we see equally culpable elected officials get re-elected and then declare that the public has spoken, vindicating them of any accusations of wrongdoing?
Why don’t our elections provide a good test for lawmakers? On one hand, there are problems with our elections that make them noncompetitive, and deny voters a real choice at the polls. More than half of our state legislators faced no opposition on Election Day. Our current system prevents many people from realistically holding or running for office.
On average, it costs almost a quarter million dollars to run for the state Senate, or almost $100,000 to run for the state House, if you campaign for a competitive seat.
Many legislative districts are drawn to be so tilted toward one party or another that incumbents are insulated from any challengers.
Legislative pay is very low, and legislative sessions are so long that there are few jobs that working people could hold while serving as “part-time” lawmakers.
Ugly, nasty, negative campaigns dissuade many people from voting, let alone putting their own name on the ballot and into the crosshairs of political character assassins.
These are real problems within our system that could be changed, if people would come together and seriously work for fair elections.
But on the other hand, the accountability process works both ways. Just as we can point an accusing finger toward politicians and the system of incumbent protection that has been built, we have to turn that same finger back at ourselves.
We claim that our elections provide us with government leaders who are accountable to the people. But how can we hold government leaders accountable if we don’t even know their names? Test yourself: how many members of North Carolina’s Supreme Court can you name? Now, how many of Snow White’s Seven Dwarves can you recall?
About 70 percent of eligible voters in North Carolina stayed away from the ballot box this fall, abandoning any role in the election of new majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, any role in selecting a majority of our state Supreme Court justices, and any role in determining who controls our state legislature.
The good news is that this is a problem we can solve if there is public will to reform politics. If we are unwilling to tolerate such a system, it doesn’t take too much hard work to press politicians for change. And North Carolina has adopted many important reforms that have helped improve our elections.
But the bad news is that many voters will simply do nothing and assume that somehow everything will work out in the end.
If democracy is something so important that we are willing to sacrifice the lives of young men and women to ensure people in other parts of the world can live in a representative government, isn’t it at least worth lifting a finger to demand better elections here?
It is a fundamental responsibility and duty of the people in a democracy to educate themselves about candidates and vote. We as voters need to take accountability for our own actions, to take the time to cast an informed vote, and to tell lawmakers we want a change.
There is an end-of-term test, but it is for voters, not lawmakers. And, so far, most North Carolinians are getting an “incomplete.”
Chris Heagarty is the executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, a Raleigh-based nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving elections in North Carolina.
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