Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 3:01 AM
By Jonathan Zimmerman
Are you going to vote today? I'm not.That's because I voted several weeks ago. So have millions of other Americans, via absentee ballot and early voting. They're turning a formerly public act into a private one, which should worry all of us, no matter where we vote.
Across the United States, absentee ballots now account for almost 20 percent of votes. Two states, Oregon and Washington, conduct their elections entirely by mail. And in seven others, more than half the votes in the last presidential election were cast before Election Day.
Why is that a problem? One reason is the potential for fraud. Despite the recent spate of voter-ID laws in Pennsylvania and other states, a recent Carnegie-Knight study found just 10 purported cases of voter impersonation at the polls nationwide since 2000; by contrast, there were nearly 500 allegations of absentee-ballot fraud. Here in Philadelphia, a federal judge overturned the results of a 1993 state Senate election because of forged absentee ballots.
Absentee ballots are also more likely to be incorrectly cast, which creates headaches for election officials and controversies over the results. In the last race for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, which Al Franken won by 312 votes, officials rejected 12,000 absentee ballots. Not surprisingly, people in states with high rates of absentee voting express the least confidence that their votes are properly counted.
As states develop more sophisticated signature-recognition systems and other safeguards, we can expect absentee-ballot fraud to decline. But the greater threat is to our sense of ourselves as a collective democratic body, which is diminished when people vote in their kitchens and dining rooms instead of trekking to the polls.
Carnival atmosphereConsider how Philadelphians voted when the republic was founded. Everyone casting a ballot had to appear at the old State House (now Independence Hall), where independence had been proclaimed in July 1776. Its bell tolled every three to five minutes throughout the day, calling an "assemblage of various nations, ranks, degrees, ages, sizes, and complexions," as one newspaper put it, to perform their civic duty.
And they had fun doing it. Young men in makeshift uniforms pushed wooden ships through the streets, proclaiming loyalty to their candidates. Oystermen and brewers hawked their wares to the voters. People often bet on the outcome; the next morning, the losers might have to shave their whiskers or, in the case of one notorious wager, give up their front teeth.
At the time, of course, women couldn't vote. And although blacks weren't legally barred from the polls, they stayed away out of fear for their safety, as one Philadelphian told Alexis de Toqueville in 1831. Seven years after that, a state constitutional convention officially restricted the ballot to white males.
In 1852, the city established voting districts, with polling places in different neighborhoods. Voter intimidation continued, often along ethnic and racial lines. Gangs of "toughs" stopped immigrants, demanding to see their papers. In the most infamous episode, after blacks had won the franchise, Octavius Catto, a teacher and the first African American elected to the Franklin Institute, was gunned down amid Election Day race rioting in 1871.
Living-room elections
By the early 20th century, new regulations and stronger policing had made voting safer. But its carnivalesque character remained, spurred by new technology. In 1912, for example, thousands gathered in front of The Inquirer's offices to watch election returns on a huge movie screen. They were also treated to a large photograph of themselves, taken an hour earlier and then beamed up before their eyes.
After World War II, a new kind of screen would change Election Day forever. Television brought elections into our homes, replacing shared, public rituals with private ones. In 1952, on the eve of the second national election to be televised, The Inquirer published special recipe and decoration ideas for election-night house parties.
Yet Americans still had to appear at the polls to vote. States did offer absentee ballots to soldiers, business travelers, and the sick and disabled. But everyone else had to show up.
By 2004, however, 26 states offered "no-excuse" ballots to any citizen who wanted to vote by mail. And 27 million Americans chose that option, up from just four million in 1980.
I'm among the absentees: I teach in New York on Tuesdays, making it impossible for me to vote at my local precinct. But I worry that the rising use of absentee ballots will make democracy impossible, or at least improbable. Showing up to vote affirms our faith in each other and in America. Anyone who can get to the polls without much difficulty should be required to go.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).
By Jonathan Zimmerman
Are you going to vote today? I'm not.That's because I voted several weeks ago. So have millions of other Americans, via absentee ballot and early voting. They're turning a formerly public act into a private one, which should worry all of us, no matter where we vote.
Across the United States, absentee ballots now account for almost 20 percent of votes. Two states, Oregon and Washington, conduct their elections entirely by mail. And in seven others, more than half the votes in the last presidential election were cast before Election Day.
Why is that a problem? One reason is the potential for fraud. Despite the recent spate of voter-ID laws in Pennsylvania and other states, a recent Carnegie-Knight study found just 10 purported cases of voter impersonation at the polls nationwide since 2000; by contrast, there were nearly 500 allegations of absentee-ballot fraud. Here in Philadelphia, a federal judge overturned the results of a 1993 state Senate election because of forged absentee ballots.
Absentee ballots are also more likely to be incorrectly cast, which creates headaches for election officials and controversies over the results. In the last race for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, which Al Franken won by 312 votes, officials rejected 12,000 absentee ballots. Not surprisingly, people in states with high rates of absentee voting express the least confidence that their votes are properly counted.
As states develop more sophisticated signature-recognition systems and other safeguards, we can expect absentee-ballot fraud to decline. But the greater threat is to our sense of ourselves as a collective democratic body, which is diminished when people vote in their kitchens and dining rooms instead of trekking to the polls.
Carnival atmosphereConsider how Philadelphians voted when the republic was founded. Everyone casting a ballot had to appear at the old State House (now Independence Hall), where independence had been proclaimed in July 1776. Its bell tolled every three to five minutes throughout the day, calling an "assemblage of various nations, ranks, degrees, ages, sizes, and complexions," as one newspaper put it, to perform their civic duty.
And they had fun doing it. Young men in makeshift uniforms pushed wooden ships through the streets, proclaiming loyalty to their candidates. Oystermen and brewers hawked their wares to the voters. People often bet on the outcome; the next morning, the losers might have to shave their whiskers or, in the case of one notorious wager, give up their front teeth.
At the time, of course, women couldn't vote. And although blacks weren't legally barred from the polls, they stayed away out of fear for their safety, as one Philadelphian told Alexis de Toqueville in 1831. Seven years after that, a state constitutional convention officially restricted the ballot to white males.
In 1852, the city established voting districts, with polling places in different neighborhoods. Voter intimidation continued, often along ethnic and racial lines. Gangs of "toughs" stopped immigrants, demanding to see their papers. In the most infamous episode, after blacks had won the franchise, Octavius Catto, a teacher and the first African American elected to the Franklin Institute, was gunned down amid Election Day race rioting in 1871.
Living-room elections
By the early 20th century, new regulations and stronger policing had made voting safer. But its carnivalesque character remained, spurred by new technology. In 1912, for example, thousands gathered in front of The Inquirer's offices to watch election returns on a huge movie screen. They were also treated to a large photograph of themselves, taken an hour earlier and then beamed up before their eyes.
After World War II, a new kind of screen would change Election Day forever. Television brought elections into our homes, replacing shared, public rituals with private ones. In 1952, on the eve of the second national election to be televised, The Inquirer published special recipe and decoration ideas for election-night house parties.
Yet Americans still had to appear at the polls to vote. States did offer absentee ballots to soldiers, business travelers, and the sick and disabled. But everyone else had to show up.
By 2004, however, 26 states offered "no-excuse" ballots to any citizen who wanted to vote by mail. And 27 million Americans chose that option, up from just four million in 1980.
I'm among the absentees: I teach in New York on Tuesdays, making it impossible for me to vote at my local precinct. But I worry that the rising use of absentee ballots will make democracy impossible, or at least improbable. Showing up to vote affirms our faith in each other and in America. Anyone who can get to the polls without much difficulty should be required to go.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).