Published: October 25, 2006 10:35 am            

Making sure every vote counts

In recent days, operatives from both major political parties have contacted my household by telephone and direct mail to tell me how to go about voting via absentee ballot.

As I’m sure many of you know by now, the pitches are persistent and political. They tell me either how good one party or candidate is or how bad the opposition comes across. Then they give me several reasons to request the absentee ballot. One mailing went so far as to provide me the form to contact County Auditor Charlie Sheridan’s office myself.

Thanks but no thanks.

I just don’t care for absentee voting. Not that there isn’t a good place for it in the system, but it really goes against my personal political approach. I prefer to wait until election day to cast my ballot for a variety of reasons.

For starters, I don’t make my mind up that quickly. In Iowa, absentee ballots have been rolling in for almost a month now. If you made up your mind that early, that’s fine by me. And while I’m leaning fairly strongly in almost every race, I don’t think I’ll know for sure until I go to the Graphic Arts and Technology Center on Nov. 7.

A lot could happen between now and then. Scandals could come to light. A slip in a debate or newspaper interview may reveal more about a person than we know today. Heck, someone could die, and a vote cast on Oct. 6 for a person who dies on Nov. 6 is pretty much wasted.

We don’t have to go back too far in history to see the last time that actually took place. Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash while on the campaign trail in 2002. He was flying to a debate on Oct. 25 of that year when his plane went down, and thousands of absentee ballots cast in his name couldn’t be transferred to his replacement, former Vice President Walter Mondale. Needless to say, the Republican candidate won the election.

A similar incident happened in Missouri in 2000. Gov. Mel Carnahan died on Oct. 17, 2000, and still won the election by about 48,000 votes. His widow was appointed to the Senate and served until she was defeated in a 2002 special election.

Thousands of elections have been carried out in the absence of such odd circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. A vote is a very precious thing, and if there’s any steps to take to keep that vote as powerful as possible, I choose to take such steps.

Beyond the possibility of an untimely death or late-breaking news, poll watchers use absentee ballots as a way to predict election trends. To me, that’s un-American. There’s a reason the framers of our current system called for consolidated national elections and why we don’t know the score until after all the votes are in. It allows us all to enter the polling booth with as open a mind as possible. In an increasingly dirty game, one spot of purity is worth keeping clean.

The Associated Press transmitted a story on Monday about how Iowa Democrats have requested almost twice as many absentee ballots as Republicans for this year’s election. As AP Political Writer Mike Glover wrote, “State election officials said that as of the weekly count on Oct. 18, 136,796 absentee ballots had been sent to voters, including 77,611 to Democrats and 38,192 to Republicans. Another 20,993 have gone to voters who haven’t declared a party preference.”

GOP officials say it’s not a big deal because of what happened in 2004, when the Democrats had a similar lead and Republicans responded on Election Day, handing the state to President Bush (albeit by a very narrow margin). My question is what would happen if we didn’t know these figures? Would Republicans work so hard to get voters to the polls on Nov. 7? Would Democrats work harder?

Ultimately, anything that gets people to vote is a good thing. Absentee ballots work wonders for people who live out of state or will be away on election day, as well as people who deal with mobility issues and can’t get to a polling place. Some people fill out absentee ballots because they find it fits better with their personal schedules. All things considered, I’d rather cast an absentee ballot than no ballot at all.

But still, whenever possible, I hold on to my vote as long as I can. I enjoy driving past the polling sites and seeing how many cars are in the parking lots, chatting up the poll workers to see how busy they’ve been and casting my vote the same day as a majority of other Americans.

Perhaps that’s an antiquated notion, and it’s certainly unusual for someone on the fringe of the iPod generation. But it’s what I feel is right for me, so I’ll keep at it as long as it remains viable.

Scott T. Holland’s column appears every Wednesday in the Clinton Herald. His e-mail address is scottholland@clintonherald.com.

        

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