Voter Turn-Out
“I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together.”
-- John Lennon; I am the Walrus
One of the things that I find interesting in elections -- from primaries to general elections, and from the local level to presidential contests -- is “voter turn-out.” And that includes both the in-the-flesh human beings I see in person or on a screen, as well as the statistics that result.
When I was young, I was pretty good at math. And I remember that my father tried to encourage me, by pointing out that President Lyndon Johnson was known for “counting numbers.” So, it’s something I began to do, on a local level. I write things down, and save various newspaper articles. So, in the fifty-plus years that I’ve been influenced by LBJ’s numbers, I’ve got pretty good at local village, town, and county elections.
But both state and national elections involve numbers that some people are fully aware of. Obviously, a computer can now provide information much faster than any previous technology allowed for. Yet there are still people that are able to carry that information in their head. And the presidential elections are, of course, comprised of fifty state elections.
Now, one of the things I believe is that a knowledge of, and appreciation for, both the human beings and the numbers are important. There are times, in my opinion, that even good public servants, as they reach certain levels of public office, begin to concentrate more on statistics, than in meeting with a wide range of people, representative of the population they serve.
A public official may interact with a large number of people in a given week. However, those people will include family, friends, staff, co-workers, other non-elected officials, business “leaders”, and a sampling of the people of their own socio-economic class, and perhaps one level lower.
Thus, from the state to federal levels, even the most sincere public servant has to make a big effort, in order to be in real contact with “the people.” And some of them do. Most don’t; they pay four others to say they do, but they don’t. For our state and federal capitals are “gated communities,” even if it’s made of invisible fencing. (Guess who pays for these “fences”? You do.)
Voting booths are becoming “gated,” too. While there is no problem with “voter fraud,” there is a problem with voter disenfranchisement in this country. At the state level, of course. And this has been going on, in an increasing manner, since the 2000 election. More, these voter-suppression efforts appear, at least to me, to be based more upon socio-economic issues, than party identification. It appears that the primary victims are black people, with youth also being denied their rights in an unjust manner.
We know that traditionally, in presidential elections, a larger turn-out favors the Democrats, and a smaller turn-out favors republicans. Yet we have seen “irregularities” in several states -- and numerous reports of clear voter suppression -- in the Democratic primary. (The biggest fuss in the republican primaries was back when Marco Rubio & friends told Ben Carson’s supporters that Gentle Ben had quit, and they should thus vote for Marco.)
That got me thinking …..there are five candidates left (if you round up, and count Ted Cruz as fully human). If Bernie Sanders is our nominee, we all benefit from a huge turn-out in the general election. In fact, that is the number one way that other Democrats running for office, at any level, can win. “A rising tide sinks republican boats.”
Does the same hold true for Hillary Clinton? That’s an interesting question. Definitely, against Ted Cruz, a large vote favors Clinton. Only a finite number of people throughout human history could be accurately described as willing to support Ted Cruz in any manner. (Always remember that George W. Bush considered Cruz to be “an arrogant asshole,” and George set the bar pretty darned high, himself.)
I think a large turn-out would benefit Hillary against Kasich. A low, or even “medium” turn-out could very well present potential problems that wouldn’t be an issue with the high turn-out. In the 50-state race, I think Kasich does best with the medium turn-out.
The wild card is, of course, the potential Hillary vs. Donald contest. In my opinion, Hillary Clinton does best against Trump, with a small turn-out. As that turn-out grows -- assuming that growth is relatively wide-spread, rather than limited to a few individual large states -- it would likely favor Trump.
What do you think?
H2O Man
