Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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‘Democracy is dead’ — What? Not with this turnout!

It’s not only the Biden voters or the Trump voters. It’s not just the presidential race. It’s not just the Senate and Congressional races. From state to state, from region to region, up and down the ballot, the turnout in the 2020 election is the best in over a century.

We’ve heard a lot about the process of voting in the 2020 campaign. Allegations of fraud from the Trump camp and allegations of voter suppression from the Biden camp. True or not on either side, the overwhelming reality is neither. The overwhelming reality is that the apathy that regrettably accompanies so many elections was nowhere to be seen in 2020. People cared. People took the time. People made it happen, whether it was easy to vote in any given locale or whether it was not easy to vote.

Early voting has its downside. An early voter cannot take into consideration any last-minute developments. But on the whole, early voting has proven to be a boon for democracy, not just because it is more convenient. Early voting has a ripple effect. When reports of record-breaking numbers of early voters were released some two weeks before election day, these reports had the effect of stimulating others to vote. What? I’m going to be left out? No way! And so, they thronged to the polls on election day, too.

One could argue that the high turnout reflected the ill will that so many on both sides of the political divide harbor toward the other side. We’ll take that, too, if it means greater citizen participation, since an electorate that is passionate about who should, and should not, lead the country on all levels is an electorate that:

• will demand that politicians’ promises be kept;

• will generate more people to seek public office;

• will elicit closer scrutiny of policy proposals;

• will show first-time voters they they matter, and thus will spur stronger, future voter turnout;

• will typically generate more close races and thus compel winners to pay more attention to the other side than they might otherwise do.

In America, is democracy dead? Not in 2020 — not if voting counts!

Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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