Voting

Cody Hoesly

Elections and voting are in the news lately, with Iraqis voting on a constitution, and Estonians conducting the world's first nationwide Internet voting.  The talk in Oregon has been about ballot initatives, and we've got some talking to do about our election system, too.  The Bus Project's next panel discussion is even focused on the issue (Tuesday night at the Rogue Public House - tasty beer!).

In recent times, Oregonians and Americans have debated the best methods of conducting elections in the modern era.  Oregon adopted vote by mail in the late nineties and I remember in 2000 Nader and his folks were pushing instant runoff voting.  Three years ago, initiative petitoners were banned from paying people to collect signatures on a per-signature basis.  After the 2004 elections, the great issue was electronic voting:  its perils and promise.  Then this last session, the legislature passed a major election reform bill that mandates all sorts of new requirements for electronic reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures.   Now there's talk of more reform.

Former Secretary of State Phil Keisling is pushing an '06 measure that would eliminate partisan primaries, allowing everyone to run against each other in a May free-for-all, followed by a November election featuring only the top vote-getters.  The Portland Business Alliance is sponsoring an initiative to overturn Portland's new Voter-Owned Elections law.  Then there's the push for fusion voting, which gives third-parties more room in which to exist.  Who knows, Harry Lonsdale is, I believe, still trying to put caps back on campaign expenditures (which courts have ruled is unconstitutional).

What's interesting to me is how all of this is coming from many different angles:  changing technology, changing lifestyles, third parties, corruption, people wanting to decrease the value of money in politics, people fed up with partisan gridlock in the legislature, people fed up with ballot measure abuse, everything.  And this is the big issue that affects all other issues.

You can even look at it from another, partisan angle.  In California, you have recall-installed Governor Arnie pushing ballot measures as a way to attack Democrats.  One of his measures would create a nonpartisan commission to redraw legislative districts.  In Texas, Tom Delay redistricted Democrats right out of office directly.  Of course, then there was the issue of Bush's first election.  Those Texas Democrats eventually adopted the cry: Recount, Recall, Redistrict! to describe the GOP agenda for political dominance.

Anyway, this is definitely one of the questions of our time.  Voting is today more important than it has been since the Progressive Era, when we adopted direct primaries, direct election of senators, women's suffrage, the initiative system, etc.  Wonder how we'll fare when history judges us.

By Cody Hoesly Oct. 15, 2005