Who Knew That Doing Elections Right Is Hurting Democracy?
This column was edited and co-published by Zocalo Public Square. Lead image by Joe Mathews using Google Gemini.
1… 2… 3… 4… 5…
6… 7… 8… 9… um, what’s next?
Oh, that’s right…. 10.
Thank you for waiting, America, while it took this Californian a little longer to count. I know that you get impatient when we Californians count too slowly for you, especially when we are counting votes.
Just think: With the time you wasted waiting for me just now, you could have slapped more tariffs on an ally. Or launched another thoughtless war.
But I just had to get to 10. Because I didn’t want this column to sound angry or defensive.
Because my fellow Californians and I want to take full responsibility for how long it takes us to count all our ballots.
So, on our behalf, let me say, from the very bottom of my heart: We’re sorry, America.
We’re sorry that that we can’t give you final results on election night, and that we make you wait weeks after Election Day for California to certify vote tallies.
We’re sorry that this leaves you not knowing which politicians will serve in Congress right away. We know we make you wait extra weeks before you can slur new officeholders on social media—or threaten them with death.
We’re doubly sorry that we let our voters wait until Election Day to mail in their ballots, giving them as much time as possible to consider their decisions and incorporate last-minute revelations. We are sorry that we fail to understand the virtues of just going with our guts on ballot choices—because careful deliberation is for sissies and Scandinavians.
Also, sorry that we have to give those ballots seven days after Election Day to arrive, because of the mess your government has made of the U.S. Post Office. (And sorry that your mails are so bad that seven days isn’t always enough.)
That might sound like enough apologies, but it isn’t. Sorry for limiting our sorries to contemporary processes. Real accountability means saying sorry for our history of expanding the franchise!
The New York Times, in an unbelievable editorial, called out Californians for this grievous sin of letting too many people vote. In past centuries, the Times scolded, “Americans quickly learned the results of major elections. By the late 1800s, telegraphs made it possible for people to read results in the next day’s newspapers.”
Great point. We must apologize to the Times and to America for advancing beyond late-19th -century elections.
Among our grievous errors was granting voting rights to California women in 1911, which produced many more ballots to count. Apologies also for the California Voting Rights Act, which sought to boost minority voting power and, tragically, created more voters and ballots to count.
Apologies, too, for putting so many questions on each ballot, which means even more to count. Why do we let everyday people decide so many things here? Because of the excesses of our Progressive Era, when we introduced direct democracy, which to this day pollutes our ballots with state and local measures. A similar democratic instinct, which we never stop regretting, leaves us voting on judges and special district board members. Add it up, and there are sometimes 50 or more choices on our ballot.
Sorry for overdoing democracy!
We’re also sorry for California’s reckless population growth since the 19th century, from 1.5 million to nearly 40 million. Sorry for being so sunny and attractive and rich and welcoming to migrants. If we hadn’t grown into the world’s fourth largest economy, we could run tiny, discriminatory elections like we did a century ago, and keep you and the Times happy.
Our bad!
But our apologies to America must go beyond history. We should say sorry as well for our recent campaigns to convince more Californians to register to vote.
I am sorry to report that California has increased its number of registered voters from 15.7 million in 2006 to over 23 million now. That more-than-7-million-voter increase is extraordinary because the state population only increased by 3 million in the same period.
Shame on us.
And sorry that all those new voters have created so many concerns about voter fraud among good-faith democracy advocates like President Trump, whose commitment to free and fair elections is so clear.
Sorry that U.S. Supreme Court justices, when they aren’t expressing anti-California bias, see all this voting as fraud. It’s heartbreaking that a man as scrupulously fair as Justice Samuel Alito has lost faith in our vote counts. Sorry that, in recent oral arguments around mail ballots, Alito felt he had to tell a tale about “a big stash of ballots” that were counted late and “radically flipped” an election.
And sorry that we can’t find evidence of such late flips or fraud here. Indeed, we are profoundly sorry that it’s easier to find proof that Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas secretly accepted luxury travel and money from billionaires than it is to find any real problems with our counts.
Here we must add another expression of remorse for our own extensive checks against fraud. Because those extra checks really slow down the count. We are sorry that California counties have such a detailed process for confirming signatures on mail ballots.
We are sorry that the painstaking nature of this process undermines the nation’s faith in democracy, according to the editorial board of the Times.
“When elections are quickly decided, it builds confidence in the democratic process,” wrote the Times, boldly embracing speed over accuracy, a stance sure to boost confidence in that newspaper. “When uncertainty lingers for days, Americans wonder why government today can often seem less competent than it once was.”
As a final note of contrition, we must express our sorrow at all the focus on the Golden State’s elections. California, sorry to say, has all kinds of governance problems—in taxes, spending, pensions, regulation, constitutional structure, and democratic participation. All could benefit from more scrutiny.
Which is why we’re sorry, America, that you’re focused on our election management—a real California strength.
And we’re sorry that you can’t see it that way.
