It wasn’t surprising that few people voted Tuesday, because there were few competitive races. Still, it’s discouraging and embarrassing that only 9 percent of registered voters in Sedgwick County cast ballots, given all the important issues and challenges facing this community.
Former Clinton strategist Mark Penn approves of John McCain’s Paris Hilton “celebrity” ad and negative ads in general, writing on Politico.com that “Clever negative advertising works. That is reality.”
He adds, “Done fairly, (negative ads) serve a legitimate role” by exposing an opponent’s weaknesses.
He’s right, of course, on one level — negative ads often do “work.” But at what cost?
Note that in the primary, Penn recommended an all-out negative strategy that would have attacked Barack Obama for not being “fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.”
How would that have helped the party?
Clinton didn’t take the advice — to her credit. Penn’s piece is revealing about the warped mindset of winning at all costs that drives modern campaigns.
It’s difficult to remember another election year with so many revelations about local candidates’ serious personal and professional issues. A stalking protection order, bad personal debts, bad business debts, a personal bankruptcy, a Kansas Supreme Court censure – and it’s just the primary season. Some explanations may inspire empathy in potential voters also going through tough stuff in this economy. But you have to wonder what makes people overlook their failings to file for elective office, then expect voters to overlook them as well.
Some Kansans are just realizing they won’t get a real say in the presidential nominating process, because the Legislature canceled the costly primary in favor of low-key party caucuses (see last letter). But as frustrating as it is to see Kansas sit out, it’s also a relief to escape the scheduling mayhem. Iowa Republicans have set their caucuses for Jan. 3, before the New Year’s Eve champagne will have had a chance to go flat. Iowa Democrats may vote separately on Jan. 5. All eyes now turn to New Hampshire, which by state law holds the nation’s first primary but has South Carolina, Michigan and Florida breathing down its neck. Meanwhile, so many other states have set Feb. 5 as their primary date that by Feb. 6 the suspense could be over. And — this is the worst part — Americans could face nine months of one-on-one campaigning for the general election.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Here is another reason why many Americans don’t trust electronic voting machines: Hackers hired by the state of California were able to break into electronic voting systems used in California and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, the New York Times reported. The U.S. House has been working on a bill that would require every state to have a paper trail that so that voters could verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that could be used during recounts, as is already the case in Sedgwick County. But critics contend that paper backups aren’t enough to address all the security concerns.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Like many Kansans, many Americans apparently think there ought to be a law against "robocalls," those automated and sometimes deceptive political phone calls that were received last fall by nearly two-thirds of registered voters nationally. The calls currently are exempt from laws establishing no-call lists. Kansas’ legislators opted only to mandate that the messages identify the calls’ sponsor. And any attempt to limit campaign messages risks trampling the First Amendment, but Nebraska and Missouri are among the states ready to go further. “People said they didn’t want calls in the middle of the night,” said Christy Abraham, legal counsel for a committee in the Nebraska Legislature. “They said we don’t want 17 calls in a row. And they said we want to know who’s calling.” She added: “The courts seem to be upholding these as far as permissible restrictions. We’re going to try it and see what happens.”
Posted by Rhonda Holma
Those annoying political “robocalls” will have to say who is paying for the call. But that needed change is where state lawmakers left campaign reform when they left Topeka last week. And in passing the robocall bill, legislators also eased restrictions on political fundraising during the legislative session — something both Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and former Attorney General Phill Kline had been fined for doing but hardly the worst problem with Kansas’ outdated campaign finance law. So unless there’s a rethinking during the wrap-up session later this month, the Legislature plans to do nothing about the shadowy groups that sponsor “issue advocacy” attack ads, the black hole of nondisclosure of campaign contributions in the final 11 days before an election, and other areas in need of improvement. What a disappointment. Again.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch,” Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the New York University School of Law wrote in the Washington Post. They were referring to the Washington state U.S. attorney who was sacked after failing to prosecute voter fraud.
Individual voter fraud is nearly nonexistent, Waldman and Levitt wrote, because it’s not worth it; a person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. As a result, “proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike,” they wrote.
Yet the fraud myth fuels attempts in Kansas and elsewhere to place ID restrictions on voting, which studies have shown keep eligible voters from voting. Waldman and Levitt argue that if lawmakers really want to protect against voter fraud, they should do more to ensure that electronic voting machines are hack-proof.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A bill in the Kansas Legislature that would make it harder to vote is a disservice to democracy, we argued in Thursday’s editorial.
The measure would require a passport or birth certificate from people registering to vote, as well as photo ID from people actually voting.
This is a solution in search of a problem. There’s no evidence of any significant level of voter fraud.
What is clear is that the measure would discourage thousands of Kansas citizens from voting at a time of already abysmally low turnout rates.
State officials should be making it easier to vote, not raising more barriers.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Several Wichita area candidates complained to The Eagle about having their yard signs stolen during the recent election season, and pointed fingers at their opponents — who were likely to return the finger-pointing.
There are always a few overzealous partisans who flout the rules. But the problem seemed pretty bad this election season.
Moreover, some major candidates, whose organizers should have known better (including Jim Barnett, Phill Kline and Todd Tiahrt), had rows of signs stuck illegally in medians and on corners.
Both parties were guilty of signage infractions.
A thought: Why can’t the Sedgwick County Election Office hire a few people, especially on the weekend before the election, to aggressively police signs and respond to infractions and dirty tricks?
What do bloggers think? Should election officials take sign scofflaws more seriously?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Tuesday was also a victory of sorts for Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Bill Gale, whose credibility had been on the line after reducing the county’s polling places from 208 to 64. There were anecdotes about problems with machines and poll workers, but the election came off with a 49 percent turnout in the county — in the ballpark with the 2002 and 1998 nonpresidential elections. Maybe Gale knew what he was doing after all — though even the person who hired him, Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, had said Gale’s cutbacks “went deeper” than he would have recommended. Tuesday’s experience bodes well for the spring municipal and school board elections. And the nonpartisan Sedgwick County Voter Coalition plans to review the election and make recommendations, as necessary. But what about 2008? If county turnout is anything like 2004’s 74 percent of registered voters, the disaster might still be coming.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Automated campaign phone calls aren’t new. But this past election, the national Republican Party flooded residents in several dozen districts with repeated phone calls, the New York Times reported. Some residents received five calls a day, every day, for a week — all with the same automated, negative message about the Democratic candidate in that district. A few calls were made in the early morning or middle of the night, and some voters received several calls minutes apart, the Times reported. Democratic officials have protested, saying that the calls were tantamount to harassment and were aimed at discouraging people from voting.
One solution: New Hampshire has a law that prohibits automated campaign calls to people on the no-call list (though the GOP still called them but agreed to stop after being contacted by the state’s attorney general).
The GOP also employed a new automated telemarketing ploy that is akin to a push poll. The call asks a question, such as whether you believe that judges who “push homosexual marriage and create new rights like abortion and sodomy” should be controlled, the Times reported. If your answer is “yes,” the automated message then says that you shouldn’t vote for the Democratic candidate.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Social conservatives have had better days at the ballot box than they did Tuesday, losing the abortion ban in South Dakota, the stem-cell research protection measure in Missouri and, for the first time in any state, a constitutional gay marriage ban in Arizona.
Of course, 20 other states already had passed marriage amendments before voters approved them Tuesday in Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Michigan voters showed their disapproval of affirmative action in college admission and public employment. Arizona saw two anti-immigration measures pass. Nevada, Colorado and South Dakota chose not to decriminalize some marijuana use.
But minimum-wage hikes passed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Nevada. And on other social issues, voters seemed to be placing the same order for more moderation that they issued Tuesday to the GOP-led Congress.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
If you needed any more evidence that every vote counts, just ask Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Ben Sciortino: He’s trailing District 5 challenger Gwen Welshimer by 36 votes and has to wait until provisional ballots are counted Monday to find out if he still has a job.
In the District 96 Kansas House race, Republican incumbent Willa DeCastro (in photo) appears to have lost to Democrat Terry L. McLachlan by an even narrower margin: 26 votes. I’m guessing both Sciortino and DeCastro personally know enough people who didn’t vote who might have made the difference.
Then there were the Senate races in Virginia and Montana, both of which Democrats won with razor thin margins. Think of that: You could say that Democratic control of the U.S. Senate was decided by fewer Montanans than it takes to fill a high-school gym.
Posted by Dave Knadler
The Sedgwick County Voters’ Coalition, concerned that 65 percent of the county’s polling places are churches, has recommended to Election Commissioner Bill Gale that all sites be public facilities. As our editorial argues today, that view seems extreme, "because it assumes there is something about a place of worship that is incompatible with the practice of democracy." But churches increasingly are politically active, and "if a church’s pastor has been out front on a defining election issue, is it appropriate to require citizens, including many who disagree with him, to enter that church in order to cast their votes?" We conclude: "When it comes to making more voters want to vote, the more public and neutral the site, the better."
Another point to ponder: When Stanford University Graduate School of Business researchers recently analyzed polling locations and the outcome of several Arizona ballot initiatives, they found "that environmental cues present in different polling locations can influence voting outcomes." Those who vote at schools are more likely to support higher school spending, those who vote in churches are less likely to vote for stem cell initiatives, etc. "What our research suggests is that it might be useful to further investigate influences such as polling location to better understand how such factors affect different types of voting situations. From a policy perspective, the hope is that a voting location assignment could be less arbitrary and more determined in order to avoid undue biases in the future," said researcher S. Christian Wheeler.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
