Last Tuesday morning, I drove to the Polish Center at 68th and Rawson. As I walked in the front door I noticed a fairly large number of people. A woman stopped me shortly after I entered.
"Are you here to pick up an order?"
I paused very briefly before the light bulb went on......she thinks I'm here to pick up paczki's. It was the day before Ash Wednesday and the Polish Center was selling the donuts, some in large boxes ordered ahead of time.
"No, I'm here to vote."
"Oh. For that, you've got to go upstairs."
Sounded as though I had been banished to some dark, usually forbidden area of the Polish Center. So up the stairs I went to a room with tables, poll workers, and...............no one else. It literally took me seconds to vote.
On Thursday when I filled in for Jay Weber on Newstalk 1130 WISN, I devoted a segment to a legislative proposal to make Election Day a holiday in Wisconsin.
Then I wrote about the proposal
here.Now the Capital Times newspaper in Madison has issued the following editorial:
Editorial: Response needed to low turnout
Wisconsin has 4.2 million adults of voting age. On Tuesday, 287,000 of them bothered to cast ballots in the three-way primary for the state Supreme Court.
If officials actually took democracy seriously, they would recognize that something has gone horribly wrong with a process that can draw only 7 percent of eligible Wisconsinites to the polls for an election that will shape the character of the state's judiciary.
Do we need to give people Election Day off if they can prove that they have voted? Do we need elections on weekends? Do we need mail voting? Computer voting? Should votes for Supreme Court be held during higher turnout fall elections in even years?
We are not suggesting an answer here. We are suggesting that there is a need for a questioning, challenging, searching response to election turnout figures that should serve as nothing less than a red flag for those who believe that elections are only meaningful if citizens are actively engaged in the process.I disagree.
Would it be nice if more people voted? Of course. But I'm not all bent out of shape when voter turnout is low.
Last Tuesday, when very few people went to the polls, their votes actually had more clout, carrying more weight. Ideally, I'd much prefer a lower turnout of more educated, informed, concerned voters. That's more desirable than people voting a certain way because their spouse is, their teacher told them to, they just saw an ad on TV the day before, someone looks better or nicer, "let's give someone else a chance," "He's been in awhile so he must know what he's doing," and you get my point.
An election holiday is a bad idea. Low voter turnout is not the end of the world.
THE VOTE IS NO APRIL 3
