The Red Brick Times

Looks like about 35% of registered voters in Lorain County turned out for the primary yesterday. This is an estimated 67,000 voters out of 187,639 registered voters. Some 44,094 Democrats and 22,478 Republicans voted. That leaves about 428 undeclared voters who were not allowed to choose candidates, but were limited to choices on issues only. Once again, I requested the right to choose candidates from both parties, where I saw potential merit. Once again, the poll workers looked at me blankly and reiterated their question about what party I declared. In fact, when I first stepped up to the precinct table to sign the book, I handed the lady my driver's license to avoid confusion and repetitive questions about who I was and where I lived. She looked at the plastic card for a while. She then looked up at me and said: "Is this your first name or your last name?" "Yes," I answered. I don't think she even looked at the picture to be sure I was really the person who was supposed to vote.

I declared for a party once, about 20 years ago, when a particularly worthy candidate for local office was in the primary. For the next decade, I was hounded with mailings and phone calls for that party. It was not worth the dunnage. The phone calls and "party machine" grinding during the 2000 presidential election forced me even farther back into the non-partisan underbrush. There is little of thought or meaning behind the harangues. It mostly feels like third-hand preaching and fallacious diatribe. The Latin diatriba means "a learned discussion". The earlier Greek has it right: diatribe is "a wearing away of time." The Greeks knew the difference between discourse and filibuster. The Romans built hypocausts and needed both legitimacy and hot air.
Posted 2:45 PM by Andy (1) comments

       Comments:

I have had this bug up my ass about primaries for years now. I don't understand why the government is involved in overseeing the inner workings of what are, essentially, private organizations. The average voter "declares" a party, but very few are actually members of either party. Wouldn't it be interesting if the poll workers demanded to see party membership cards (as in: you paid dues to the party) before allowing you to vote. It would also be interesting if the parties had to arrange their own polling places and workers with the added neccessity of informing their members where those places were.That would alter their approach.

The other oddity of the system is that it allows for a very painless process of affiliation. This makes it possible for impostors to switch parties any influence the nomination of the opposition candidate. (Try to conjour up an image of Karl Rove here).

Why only the two? There are actually a whole bunch of parties out there none of which get government funding or technical support for their internal elections.

So I say we take the considerable funding that is required to promote and execute these shams and put it into, oh . . I don't know . . . education, maybe . How about public transportation. Or methanol fuel cells. Or . . . . .

# posted by  A. O. : May 05, 2006 10:00 AM
 
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