Extended Voting

OK – a few posts from today's (April 3) Board meeting. I'll start with the only non-Manor topic.

Today the Board approved a resolution opposing a bill, currently making its way through the NYS legislature, which would establish early voting options in New York State. I was the only 'nay' vote.

You can look up the details, but the nickel version is that the bill would provide the option for voters to vote up to two weeks before the official 'election day.' Most states do early voting of some sort. In the last election, New York had the third lowest voter turnout of all the states, measured by the proportion of registered voters who actually cast a ballot.

Opponents of this bill contend that it would cost an enormous number of taxpayer dollars to implement, and they are right. Holding an election is an expensive proposition, whether it be primary, special or general. Many opponents also feel strongly that changing the absentee ballot laws to allow anyone to vote absentee for any reason (right now, you have to have a good reason) would achieve the same thing for a small fraction of the cost. Again, I agree, although if we abandon this bill, I believe that the chances of our seeing an absentee ballot bill anytime soon are slim. We've all observed the “Well, we tried it and noone wanted it” approach before.

However, that's not the point. For as long as Americans have had the vote, many of us have struggled to extend that vote to everyone. It was a struggle because there were other Americans struggling to restrict it. The Constitution's original limitation on voting rights to a small minority; the Jim Crow laws; womens' suffrage; current voter suppression efforts in states like Ohio and Florida – it has been in someone's interests to deny the right to vote to someone else from the very beginning.

Does extended voting increase voter turnout? It turns out that it's hard to say – factors from who's running for what to the weather on election day make every vote in every municipality unique, and very difficult to compare. However, we do know that extended voting extends the right to vote to those who have been most disenfranchised in the past.

Sure it's cheaper to resist the change. But if this is true, then we've been saving money for years by restricting access to the poor and disadvantaged. It's time to pay the true cost of a free election in a state that claims to offer universal suffrage.