America needs to make voting easier and ensure all the ballots are counted
Could we take voting lessons from Down Under, asks Joe Goldblatt
Are you the son of Max Goldblatt?” Before I could answer with a proud “Aye!” the reporter from the New York Times said that in
1985 he had covered my father’s campaign to become mayor of the City of Dallas, Texas and wished to ask me some questions.
His call came in 2000 when the US Supreme Cour t would be hearing arguments about the outcome of the disputed election bet ween Al Gore and George W. Bush. That election experienced computer voting irregularities in Florida and
532 ballots were ultimately determined by the US Supreme Cour t to be the winning margin required for Bush to be elected President.
The Times repor ter explained that in my father’s mayoral election 15 years earlier, computer ballots were also used for the first time in a local election and my father’s ver y narrow loss could have been the result of the malfunctioning machines used to tally the final votes.
My father’s campaign for mayor had been considered a long shot as he had only raised $20,000 and his opponent, the incumbent mayor, had over $400,000.
Despite this disadvantage, Papa had captured the imagination of the electorate and had come within a few hundred votes of winning. Upon the announce - ment of Papa’s loss, he immediately invited his suppor ters to join him in front of the Cit y Hall where he ascended a small platform and announced loudly: “This election was not won. It was sto - len!”
As we have once again experienced an election that has experienced wide - spread controversy regarding the way we vote and also recorded the largest ever voter par ticipation in a US federal election, it occurs to me and prob - ably many others that we need to find new methods of ensuring our votes are indeed counted.
In my 50 years of voting, I have never before experienced so much difficult y in casting my ballot as this year. I have the privilege and responsibilit y of voting in S cotland, the UK and the USA.
In S cotland, I have ser ved as a scrutineer for local and national elections and personally obser ved the counting of the ballots. This process, whilst never perfect, is quite straightfor ward with welltrained voting officials being closely super vised as they ensure that ever y eligible vote is counted.
By contrast, when I contacted the Cit y of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to ask them why I had not received my application to vote in the 2020 presidential election, they said: “We were closed for a few days due to a protest in front of Cit y Hall so the postman could not deliver the mail. Your request may not have been received.” Therefore, once again, I made my application and this time I finally received my official ballot. However, when I tried to reach the Cit y Hall officials by ringing them morning, noon and night to confirm my ballot had been received, I consistently received a line that was engaged and never was able to confirm that my vote, in perhaps the most impor tant presidential election in my lifetime, would in fact be counted.
In a countr y the size of the USA, it would probably not be possible to use the same simple system we use in S cotland and the UK. In fact, the USA is so vast that each of the 50 states has their own individual voting systems and they var y widely.
These systems range from having extremely limited locations for drop - off ballots to simple vote -by-post systems. S ome systems require personal identification to vote in person and others do not.
One would suspect that with this wide range of different systems that voting fraud, as some in the US claim, would be rampant. Actually, during the past 20 years, out of millions of local, state and national election votes cast, there have only been 140 recorded instances of fraudulent activit y.
I wonder if a voting system, similar to the one in Australia, would be more effective in both the USA and S cotland. Down under, voting is mandator y and if you fail to vote you are fined. As a result, over 90 per cent of eligible Australian citizens vote in ever y election. Australia also makes it easy to vote with early postal, mobile, telephone and in-person voting on election day. Perhaps there are lessons we may learn from this system and others to help increase voter par ticipation and accuracy in our own future elections.
When the repor ter from the New York Times breathlessly asked me for a comment about my father’s election campaign, I told him I preferred to remember what another repor ter had recently written about Papa following his death. The repor ter said that many pundits and opponents had described my father as a political gadfly who annoyed others and disrupted the system. However, this same repor ter obser ved that in fact my father was a firefly, an erratic blinking source of light who evoked curiosit y, interest and inspired people to follow him.
After I read these words, I tried ver y quickly to forget about my frustration with Papa’s lost election. Then one summer evening I drove through our cit y park and noticed that hundreds of fire - flies star ted to appear among the trees. I suddenly was overcome with emo - tion and pulled my car over to the side of the road where I silently gave thanks for having a father whose bright light was still shining and inspiring others to stand up for what they believe in, to speak up and, absolutely, to vote. Professor Joe Goldblatt is emeritus professor of planned events at Queen Margaret University and regularly votes in Scottish, UK and USA elections. He held elected office as an advisory neighbourhood commissioner in Washington, DC for one term. To learn more about his views visit www.joegoldblatt.scot