Save Election Day: Column
The other day a young man claiming to represent the party I belong to came to my door. He asked me whether I had voted, and when I told him I had not, he offered to collect my ballot to save me the trouble of mailing it myself. When I told him I always cast my vote in person by going to my local polling place on Election Day, he told me this wouldn't be possible. Having voted at the polls on every Election Day since 1972, I knew he was lying. So I told him to get off my doorstep and not come back.
Then, I looked into the matter. To my shock, it turned out he was telling the truth. In Colorado, you can still drop off your mail-in ballot at a few places on Tuesday, but the traditional local polling places no longer exist. For all intents and purposes, Election Day has been abolished in my home state. Instead, we now have Election Month.
How could this have happened? My guess is that replacing Election Day with Election Month helps incumbents. They have years to make their names known to the voters; challengers have only the short time between the primary and the election. Less time for the general election makes it harder for challengers to get a hearing.
When nearly all the votes are cast on Election Day, a challenger only needs the resources to mobilize a one-day get out the vote effort. Under the new system, a 30-day vote collection effort is necessary. Because incumbents usually have greater resources and organizations built over several elections, that requirement favors them as well.
In a country where politicians get to pick the voters instead of the other way around, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're looking for more ways to boost their re-election chances. Such is human nature.
But there is so much more at stake here than political advantage. America is not just a piece of land ruled by a government; it is a people united by a faith. We have three great national masses. Two, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, commemorate our creation story. The third, Election Day, is our ritual of citizenship. It is not just a matter of voting but of exercising our civic duty together, united in a great endeavor. Voting alone in your house doesn't unite us, with people we disagree with and neighbors we never talk to, in the same way that rubbing shoulders at the polls pulls us together in a common experience.
So far only Colorado, Oregon and Washington have abolished Election Day, but quite a few other states have taken steps in that direction. I pray this dreadful trend can be reversed. Don't listen to those who tell you they are saving you money or time with Election Month. If we wish to preserve a government of the people and by the people, it is time and money well spent.
For over 200 years, Americans have gone to the polls together on Election Day. It's a grand tradition. We should not give it up.
Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Energy.
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