It’s an all-too-familiar refrain that the American electorate doesn’t always hold up its end of the democratic bargain.
It’s more than susceptibility to pandering and disingenuous campaigning. It’s more than being under-informed about important stuff. It’s more than being “undecided” in elections that feature ideological and temperamental opposites.
It’s, frankly, not voting. Recall that fewer than one in five registered voters turned out for Hillsborough County primaries recently.
Now there’s this. The online news site Slate has announced that it plans to work with a group of entrepreneurs to project likely results of races for president and U.S. Senate in seven states–including Florida–starting early in the morning of Election Day, Nov. 8. It’s called VoteCastr.
In other words, winners would be projected before some people actually vote. In further words, yet another rationale for part of an already disillusioned or disengaged electorate not to vote. Call it VoteCastration.
And, no, a “projection” is not a synonym for official tabulation, but it’s impactful and typically on the money–unless it’s a “too close to call” situation. There’s a reason that Florida law requires election supervisors to wait until the polls close in their county to publish results. It can have undue influence. That’s why it’s a third-degree felony to release election results early.
Calling winners while voters drive to the polls or wait in line is not felonious. It’s merely a self-serving disservice to voters.
Voting should be about participatory democracy, not some entrepreneurial grasp at media publicity and faux relevance. For the record, Slate’s editor has described VoteCastr’s projection of winners before polls close as a service, one that ends a “news blackout” on voting day. This gives disingenuousness a bad name.
For pertinent insight, there is the take of Pasco County Supervisor of Elections Brian Corley. “I think of three words: “Dewey Defeats Truman,'” says Corley. “People will think, ‘Why should I vote when they’re already calling it?’ Nothing good can come of this.”
Somebody, inevitably, has to be first in the rush-to-inform business. But everybody has to be fair first. Calling winners before everyone has voted is unfair–to the candidates and the democratic process.