Pulse of the Peninsula: League of Women Voters still needed

Karen Rubin

As I sat listening to North Hempstead Supervisor Judi Bosworth deliver her “State of the Town” address, in which she itemized a formidable list of significant accomplishments in her first year in office and laid out the priorities for 2015, I was reminded how important the League of Women Voters is.

This is the 30th year that the League of Women Voters of Port Washington and Manhasset has sponsored the State of the Town message. I remember when it was held in the historic George Washington Manor in Roslyn, and now is held in the town’s own Harbor Links country club.

We depend upon our local leagues for candidates night – an imperfect forum to be sure, but still the only opportunity most voters have to see candidates side-by-side, face-to-face, answering their questions in public, where they can be held to account (citizens have to do a better job of asking questions, though, and also to turn out).

The league also holds important seminars and programs: The league will be hosting “Democracy for Sale: Money in Politics” (Thursday, March 19 at the Port Washington Public Library, at 7 p.m.), which will feature speakers from Demos, Common Cause, Capital New York, and Hofstra University.

But when the Supreme Court issued the McCutcheon decision, lifting aggregate limits on campaign contributions, which in conjunction with Citizen United, turns candidates into commodities for sale, it was Moveon.org, Public Citizen, CWA, Sierra Club, Common Cause, Food & Water Watch, Demos, Free Speech for People, People for the American Way that organized the protest, not the league.

The league has basically settled on a role as helping to inform the electorate – producing a guide for new voters in New York State (“First Vote”), “They Represent You,” a directory of public officials, and usually the invaluable Voters Guide (which they now have trouble finding funding to publish). 

The fact that only 37 percent of registered voters turned out for the 2014 midterms – effectively means that 20 percent of eligible voters dictated the Republican majority in Congress. That is not just an indictment of voter apathy, but also the strategies put into place to obstruct access to the polls, to turn off voters. 

It also suggests that voter enrollment and the rolls are as messed up as the immigration system: the fact that dead people are not removed, that people re-register when they relocate but are not removed from the former location. 

We also don’t know how many votes are discounted altogether – not counted for being over or under. And we don’t know how many are intimidated from going to the polls or mislead because of misinformation going out about penalties for voting with outstanding parking tickets, false date or time or place of voting,  destruction of voter registration forms – all of which should be prosecuted as felony crimes for “stealing” someone else’s sacred right to vote. 

The fact is, we don’t actually know the percentage turnout of eligible voters.

All of this cries out for the local Leagues to be more active in their communities, not hosting quiet luncheons and talks to “the choir.”

I wish the League of Women Voters would return to its roots: the great defender of the right to vote, protecting and expanding voting rights. 

I wish that wherever voting rights or access to the voting booth were threatened, men and women would come out in 1920s dress, waving placards, shaming those politicians who would use their power to undermine the rest of us, reminding all of us about how important our ability to cast a ballot is, how the one-person, one-vote is our only defense against a billionaire being able to exert political power equivalent to the amount of money spent.

I wish the leagues would recognize their power, as a truly grassroots organization in local communities. They can rally that power to support one another, using social media.

As it is, the Kochs and the Roves are counting on people not paying attention, being willfully ignorant, and apathetic, dominating the media to perpetrate lies about issues and candidates, so that people retreat to that meaningless old saw, “All politicians are the same,” “The candidates are alike” or even more absurdly, “There is no difference between the parties.” 

There is even a calculation to so disillusion voters – to make them so frustrated and disaffected – they will not turn out for elections. “What does my vote matter?”

But that is not the only way that our votes are suppressed. In fact, if you can buy the Senate seats in a low-population state like North Dakota, you can take over the Senate, or buy Representatives in low-cost media states like North Carolina and control the House, which nullifies our votes in New York.

The league reminds us that our vote is a right, and a responsibility. It is also a privilege as many of us whose families come from countries where we were oppressed and disenfranchised (which is just about everyone), should recognize. In fact, every woman should value how hard-fought the right to vote was. 

And if we don’t exercise it, we will in fact be consumed by oligarchs, who are able to insinuate themselves with the people who make the laws and set the policies that the rest of us must live by.

So far, it is said that no matter how much the Kochs spend (they are on record as saying they will spend $889 million in the 2016 elections), there is still the rest of us. A billionaire’s vote is still only one vote.

But that isn’t actually accurate, either – not when the money goes to destroying opponents, distorting positions, lobbying legislators to put obstacles in front of voters (like moving polling places to be hard to reach for “certain” populations and allocating too few voting machines in “certain” neighborhoods).

Because of gerrymandering, Democrats who win do so by much greater margins than Republicans – an indication of how districts are packed or cracked in order to get the desired result. 

And of course, because of the electoral college, where in all but two states, all the electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote, there really isn’t a “one person, one vote” power. Now, there is a move in some Republican-controlled states to take away popular voting for Senator and return that vote to the state legislatures, where the party will control.

Founded by the suffragettes to win and expand women’s right to vote, the League has been one of those central entities underpinning communities, like the volunteer fire department, the Rotary, the chamber of commerce.

We take what the Leagues do for granted, but we feel its absence when there is no Candidates Night, or no Voters Guide for an upcoming election. 

We take the League of Women Voters for granted to such extent that the Great Neck league has dissolved altogether, as so many of the members who were the life and blood of our local league have passed on. 

Many Great Neck people – along with people from Roslyn and other communities – have now gravitated to the League of Women Voters of Port Washington-Manhasset, which should change its name to more accurately reflect (and attract) membership.

The league, which notes that its membership is open to men, has diminished clout, overshadowed by the scores of special interest groups and think-tanks funded by some billionaire, with paid staff. The league is still a membership organization operated by volunteers. Bless each and every one.

And the league seems to have lost its clout because people seem to take voting rights for granted – certainly the woeful levels of turnout demonstrate an engrained apathy.

But I would suggest low turnout reflects how our voting rights – indeed the entire election process – are under siege, and the leagues are needed more than ever.

This is due to a perfect and purposeful storm of campaign finance system that has put elected office up for sale; the decline of mainstream media; and literal assault on voting rights.

The Supreme Court’s Citizen United and McCutcheon decisions opened floodgates to dark and dirty money; the mainstream media landscape has become increasingly subject to political partisanship (for the same reason of who buys ads, and who, therefore not only dominates the conversation but  holds  sway over editorial content), the rise of so-called “independent” media (internet and social media) resulting in people self-selecting their sources that serve to reconfirm their own prejudices and beliefs, resulting in an astonishingly ill-informed (willfully ignorant) electorate. 

We are seeing a direct assault on voting rights, ranging from bullying local Leagues from registering new voters, especially high school students; photo ID laws that disenfranchise women, minorities, the young and the old, and urban voters; the lack of standards for where polling places are located and the number of voting machines they provide; constraints on early voting and absentee voting, and the complete absence of “truth in advertising” as well as a totally impotent Federal Elections Commission.

(When you think about it, New York State has the most abominable election practices of all, with voting limited to a single day and constraints on absentee voting, coupled with the now notorious opportunities for public corruption.) 

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, yet our voting rights have never been more under attack, the obstacles to voting more sophisticated – in Texas, 600,000 were disenfranchised for the lack of “acceptable” photo ID (gun permit, okay; college or government ID, no good, and if heaven forbid your married or divorced name differed from your drivers’ license, you are out of luck. 

As for voting registration? in Texas, getting proper ID is almost as hard as getting an abortion – they deliberately locate centers where they are hard to reach for urban residents without a car. 

The shenanigans go on and on: in North Carolina, they closed a campus polling place and placed it where it could not be safely reached by college students, who would have to walk a mile along a highway; in Ohio and Florida, they put too few voting machines in a site, forcing people, even centenarians, to stand on line for hours. 

In Florida, they threatened the League of Women Voters with prosecution for registering high school students. And there seem to be no penalties (it is just a political game), for tearing up voter registration cards, or sending false information about where and when to vote, or intimidating voters with criminal prosecution for unpaid tickets or even deportation if they dare vote. 

In New York State, Bard college students were taken to court and challenged for voting at their campus, because they received Christmas cards and had clothes stored at their parents’ home.

With Big Data, the political strategists who now pull the strings to gerrymander districts can draw boundaries around individual houses based on how people are likely to vote (as happened carving a district around Nassau County Legislator Dave Denenberg’s house).

And now, Republican strategists, concerned about the rise of minority voters who are repelled by the Republicans’ anti-minority, anti-immigrant, anti-poor stance, are moving to manipulate the electoral college in order to eradicate that inconvenience to taking over the White House (the last obstacle to being able to buy the White House is the number of people who come out to vote).

What is their plan? 

In states that are dominated by Republicans but have voted for Democrats for President (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin), they plan to change from all the electoral votes going to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote, to a proportionate allocation of electoral votes.

Now if all the states do it (and New York State has passed legislation to go to proportionate electoral votes once 33 states do the same), it would be a much fairer system (Gore would have won the 2000 presidential without manipulating Florida’s electoral votes since he won the popular vote by a considerable margin, and actually won Florida, also, if the Supreme Court would have allowed the recount which was required under Florida’s constitution, and the recount would not have been necessary except for the pregnant chads and purged voter lists). 

But the Republicans’ plan is to do it only for those states, in Republican control, that would otherwise give all their electoral votes to the Democratic candidate.

But even without manipulating the electoral college to take the White House, the more immediate and do-able strategy is to buy enough seats in the House and Senate to make an veto-proof Congress, in effect making the p[resident irrelevant as they are doing to Obama now with lawsuits challenging his executive action (no such lawsuits during the “Unitary Executive” era of Republican presidents who used hundreds of signing statements to negate Congressional actions). 

The billionaires are well underway, realizing (as I predicted two years ago), that they only had to buy small states and states where the media is cheap, like the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, Maine, Rhode Island, Minnesota – and they know how to do that because they have already managed to out-spend and oust popular Senators such as Russ Feingold in Wisconsin.

These are the issues where the League of Women Voters should be focusing its attention. And what I am advocating – using social media, protesting – is not expensive or even require that much time. It only requires vigilance.

The league, which is completely nonpartisan, has become bogged down with other issues – and has the most ridiculous system for coming to “consensus” before it comes to any position whatsoever, largely because it is so careful to be completely nonpartisan. It took years for the League to come up with a position on Climate Change, and it hasn’t had a smidgeon of impact.

But the league, being a truly grassroots organization in communities across the country (as opposed to the “astroturf” activist groups that are actually funded by special interests), is in the best position to fight for voting rights, fair elections and campaign finance reform. 

They are in the best position to rally around a state or local League – let’s say in Michigan where the change to the electoral college is being proposed in time for the 2016 election – use their social media networks, and organize protests and rallies that should at the very least bring shame onto legislators who so unabashedly and nakedly try to undermine the democratic process.

They should be lobbying for standards concerning voting machines (including requiring audits to disclose whether the machines or tabulations are hacked), voting hours, polling places, and new legal penalties that would really punish anyone who rips up voter registration cards, sends out notices with erroneous election time, date or places, or tries to intimidate voters, such as threatening arrest for voting with outstanding parking tickets, or intimidating voters who have moved but not reregistered in their new neighborhood.

The league can be most effective in informing people, particularly young voters who are mobile, move around a lot and don’t necessarily re-register at their new location, and their rights to register and to vote.

I am told, for example, that young people have the right to vote where they registered in their childhood neighborhood, or if they register where they attend college – yet the Republican operative John Ciampoli, who became Nassau County attorney and manipulated the county’s redistricting, challenged Bard students from voting at their campus based on the fact they received Christmas cards and had clothes stored at their parents’ house and for moving dorm rooms without re-registering; he also intimidated them from voting if they did not change their drivers’ license address or pay in-state taxes. 

In North Carolina, students were threatened that their parents would lose eligibility for state aid if they voted.

The League of Women Voters needs to step up and be the ones to clarify the rules for registration, especially for young voters who relocate every few years. It is also important for renters (another reason why Republicans have eliminated “home ownership” from their concept of the “American Dream”), who tend not to feel so engaged to a community.

That’s one reason why voting turnout in the U.S. is so abysmally low – it’s that the voting rolls are not purged of people who die (giving rise to the myth of dead people voting), or who move away and register somewhere else. 

They should also take on the issue of “truth in advertising,” exposing ads that are patently false.

The league does not even know their power. I wish they would.

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