S
hining through the smoking ruins of this election comes one harsh, inescapable insight.
It is not that Republicans continued their gains locally, or that Wendy Davis failed to rise sufficient numbers of her partisans to the barricades, though both are inarguably true.
The most important result from the election is its glaring proof that the process is broken.
Let us count the ways:
1. Across the U.S., voter turnout was lower this year than any national election since 1942. You remember 1942. Voters were preoccupied, what with millions mobilized in the armed services for WW II. During election month that year the U.S. invaded Nazi-controlled North Africa, while Marines fought the battle of Guadacanal.
2. This year’s national turnout of 36.3 percent of eligible voters can be considered the worst in modern American history. Except for WW II, the only comparisons are the years leading up to the Great Depression, with the Lost Generation disenchanted over WW I, a time when the Klan openly terrorized many voters and we struggled with a new-fangled thing called letting women vote.
3. The terrible registration and turnout corresponds with two other peaks: all-time records in campaign spending, much of it “dark money,” with contributors hidden from public disclosure by the Citizens United ruling; and polls that tell us Texans and Americans are strikingly disillusioned about politics.
4. Texas ranked among the worst of the worst, with turnout of eligible persons calculated by the Constitution Center and the United States Election Project at just 28.5 percent, ranking ahead of only Indiana (28%).
5. Even that dismal ranking makes voter participation seem higher than it is, since young people, non-citizens, and felons are already discounted.
Set in this light, a few things become clear. Mainly, as if people weren’t already cynical enough, state and local policies are further discouraging voting in Texas and Hays County.
This record low turnout also corresponds with the first major election after passage of the fussy, arrogant requirements of the Texas voter ID law. Fraudulent voting should be taken seriously. This silly law should not – except to the extent that it can now be proved that it helps depress legitimate turnout and discriminates against, among others, aged voters.
States are making it harder to vote, and harder to vote early at precisely the time that technologies should be making that easier, and more secure. Turnout in states with more modern, less paranoid voting laws, were generally higher.
At the local county level, where no one can seriously accuse the leadership of efforts to discriminate (the Commissioners Court has worked mostly in bi-partisan cooperation on voting issues), we nevertheless lag far behind what should be considered reasonable accommodations to allow citizens to vote:
• Despite unusually low turnout, long lines plagued polling places, notably in Buda, where hundreds waited in lines that averaged more than two hours much of election day. Many left.
• Voters are still directed to distant and ever-changing precinct polling stations when technologies now exist to allow any voter to vote at any polling place on election day, with more than adequate fraud controls. This is being done in many Texas counties, including next door – and even in Hays during early voting.
• Early voting locations have not kept pace with the county’s growth. Early voting is available every day in San Marcos, at several locations, but is rotated through other cities – even sizeable cities – only sparingly, only after those areas plead for attention. This contributes to problems in early voting – and to lines on election day.
• Voter registration rolls need cleaning and purging, and better management to assure voters don’t wait through lines only to be told they are in the wrong location – even though that’s where their registration card directed them. City annexations are inaccurately tracked, contributing to expensive recounts.
• Web maps and interactive information about elections need to be dramatically improved. Compare what smaller Bastrop County offers its citizens.
In defense of those in charge, this is tough work in a fast-growing county. The county elections department earns high marks for integrity.
Still, modernizing and improving operations needs to be prioritized, especially at the county, but ultimately, also in the towns that are growing into full-fledged cities and will have to become more knowledgeable themselves.
About 38 percent of registered voters turned out in Hays County. Adjust that for those eligible but unregistered, and we’re below the national average, probably near the state average.
Who knows whether higher turnout would have changed results election night. We doubt it would have changed many races.
But it’s hardly an endorsement of democracy, or this ugly place we find ourselves.
