Why Hoosiers Don’t Vote

Yesterday, I took part in a “Pancakes and Politics” discussion hosted by the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. There were three of us on the panel–yours truly, Beth White (former Marion County Clerk) and Abdul Shabazz (local radio personality and commentator/provocateur).

Abdul has actually posted the whole thing, so if you like beating your head against the wall, you can click here.

The panel was focused on civic engagement–especially voting–and as one might expect, there were a number of explanations offered for Indiana’s continaully abysmal turnout. (A pathetic 7% turned out for yesterday’s Indianapolis primary.) I’ll leave most of those for another day, but today I want to talk about a comment made by Beth White, because it really struck me.

Beth ticked off the numerous barriers that Indiana erects and noted that voting here is thus more difficult than it is elsewhere. Abdul disagreed. (Any election law expert will tell you Beth was right. Sorry, Abdul.) Her response was perfect: she pointed out that Indiana makes it easy to pay taxes, to get your auto license, and to do other things that policymakers want to encourage. It’s pretty clear– given the fact that our Voter ID law is the nation’s strictest, our polls are the first to close, we refuse to establish convenient voting centers or to allow vote-by-mail–that state government is not interested in encouraging people to vote.

Especially egregious is the refusal to allow the use of government-issued picture IDs to verify identity if those IDs don’t have an expiration date.

As Beth noted, it’s perfectly appropriate to ensure that voters are who they say they are–but that interest in preventing (virtually non-existent) voter fraud doesn’t require disallowing identification issued by government agencies that is widely accepted elsewhere. (According to the Secretary of State’s webpage, “noncompliant” identifications  include “An ID issued by the US Department of Defense, a branch of the uniformed services, the Merchant Marine, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (or Veterans Administration), or the Indiana National Guard.”)

It’s just another petty annoyance for those of us with drivers licenses (like Abdul), but a hassle–and a message–for the elderly or disabled or others who don’t drive.

The message? Stay home. (Thanks to the safe districts created by gerrymandering, there’s no contest in most parts of the state anyway.)

After all, if God had intended us to vote, She’d have given us candidates.

40 Comments

  1. I support requiring a photo ID to vote and believe it should be required for check signing and use of credit cards; this can be drivers license or a legal state ID card which should be easily accessed for anyone over 18 years of age…if it isn’t easily accessed – this needs to change. This is the age of identity theft on many levels and in many ways. My attack and robbery last year left me with no identification and refusal by Social Security Administration and some businesses to accept my temporary, BMV provided temporary license. Because 8 businesses did NOT require photo ID to use my two credit cards, I was left with months of financial problems to resolve. I researched on line and learned that only your signature to use a credit card is the sole requirement, anyone can sign your name. My vote COULD also have been stolen; thieves are rarely voters but remember Charlie White and what he got away with because his face was recognizable but he had no legal ID. So; that is my view on this issue.

    The low voter turnout was no surprise to anyone paying attention. Who is Chuck Brewer? This was a question I asked myself this morning so I turned to Google – surprise, I found the same question listed there. He owns two restaurants downtown; per the article in the Star this morning, last night he paid tribute to Ballard and “spoke of the importance of quality-of-life amenities , such as bike trails” then moved on to crime, jobs and education. That reminded me of 8 years ago when people were asking who is Greg Ballard, he is a former Marine – and look what happened. People sat at home or in offices – or on their butts elsewhere – and left it up to others to go to the polls to vote. We are all paying for their laziness and negligence and will continue paying if people do not support Joe Hogsett on November 3rd. Many people maintain their drivers license for identifiction purposes; some have no cars, some are disabled or elderly and no longer drive. If it takes a legal photo ID to be allowed to vote – then get a legal photo ID. I have no idea what I will face next year when I go to renew my drivers license at age 79; hopefully I will be relicened, if not I will get a state ID card…are they photo ID cards? I said before and will keep saying – it wasn’t Republicans who elected all those Republicans last November – it was the Democrats who did NOT vote who elected them. Will we allow this to happen again this year and, more importantly, in 2016.

  2. I guess Indiana politicians don’t value those in the military as much as I thought. It’s a travesty that those willing to put their lives on the line for the rest of us can’t use their military ID to vote.

    When I voted yesterday, the poll book holder carefully matched my driver’s license signature to the signature on the poll book. (Since there’s no picture on the poll book, he couldn’t match that either to my driver’s license or to me.) The poll worker was trying to do his job well, but he easily could have matched my current signature at sign-in to my signature already recorded in the poll book. Interestingly he was so distracted by the driver’s license that he didn’t make any attempt to compare old and new signatures on the poll book – arguably the most important comparison. That’s the way poll workers used to do it, and voter fraud was very low then as it is now.

  3. I live in Hamilton County where there is, essentially, no opposition to the Republican Party. The Democratic Party is rarely on the ballot and the Republican candidates for many offices go unchallenged. In 2012 there were 9 Democrats slated in the whole county and two of them were Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That’s not to say that those Republicans weren’t good and credible candidates for office but that’s not representative government. It is also not true democracy as we are taught, starting as grade school children, that it should be by any stretch of the imagination.

  4. JoAnn – Some license branches charge for voter ID, even though they are not supposed to do so. You may want to take along this sheet http://www.in.gov/bmv/2339.htm from the state BMV to show that Voter IDs are free (it’s in the last paragraph on the sheet).

  5. The disqualification of a photo ID because it has no expiration date is BS. Any photo ID issued by some authority—government and universities come to mind—should suffice, expired or not. It’s not as if my identity changes at the stroke of midnight on the expiration date.

    Low voter turnout is caused by any number of things, including lack of contested races. The lack of candidates shouldn’t surprise anyone. Being an elected official isn’t easy. It takes up a lot of time, someone is always mad at you, the pay is nominal in many cases, and you have to deal with the politics. I have friends who have held and now hold elective office, and I don’t know how or why they do it. The entire thing is completely unattractive to most sane people.

    Then there’s gerrymandering, uninformative campaign advertisements, the influence of money on decision making. It’s all very discouraging to the average voter. Or would-be voter.

  6. It’s funny in a very cynical way that while we read, watch, or hear stories regarding voter suppression tactics being carried out in states across the country, normally where one party has a supermajority in the legislature, those tactics have been in force here in Indiana all along. They were in force by law long before there was a supermajority here. Thud.

  7. Most sane countries also have election days as holidays or do them on weekends. Hell, Egypt held their Presidential election over three days. Surely the birthplace of modern democracy could move it to a Saturday.

    We had 9% turnout up here in Fort Wayne, so I’ve been polling people to find out why. So far I’ve heard from two people that they didn’t even know it was election day… Even the people running for office didn’t make that clear. I know I received a call from our Mayor’s campaign about 3 or 4 in the afternoon telling me to get out and vote, which isn’t a lot of time for most people. (Luckily I voted first thing in the morning at an empty voting precinct.)

  8. Nancy Papas; thanks so much for this information, I have printed it out. When I lived in Florida (1994 – 2001), drivers licenses were renewed by mail; just return the form with your check. With so many seniors and this form of renewal, vehicle insurance was costly. My friend Dorothy hadn’t driven for years but maintained her drivers licese till her death a few months from age 105. Standing behind her at a checkout one day, the young cashier pointed out to her that her drivers license was incorrect, that it listed her birth date as 1997. She puffed up and said, “Look again, young man, it says 1897.”

  9. You last line say it all for me and that is the reason I didn’t vote.

    After all, if God had intended us to vote, She’d have given us candidates.

    I have no faith in our politicians who listen to lobbyists and ignore their constituents. I went to a town hall meeting and walked away thinking the fix is in. Pence dictates and our politicians following their orders from the top. I am disgusted, feel betrayed and not represented.

  10. I used my V-A ID and had no problem at all. It has a 2024 expiration date. 🙂 I’m 86 years old.

  11. The driving reason voter turnout is so low is the lack of competition. Districts are gerrymandered to ensure the election of one party or the other. The two parties slate candidates to run in primaries and do everything they can to discourage anyone from competing against them, including threats to get them or their family members fired from their jobs or do harm to their business if they are self-employed. People don’t show up to vote because they believe they lack real choices, not the red herrings you identify. The convenience of early voting for weeks prior to election day has not increased voter participation one iota; it’s only made election day more boring for poll workers who sit and twiddle their thumbs waiting for voters to show up on election day. Democrats detest Voter ID because it makes the old practice of busing a group of paid serial voters from precinct to precinct to cast votes for people on the voting rolls they know won’t be showing up to vote.

  12. Don’t be so hard on yourselves in Indiana. There are places that are worse. At least you admit how bad it is. Take heart in the fact that you’re not blind.

    It’s a lot worse here in North Florida: “The Land of the Blind.” Here the “one eyed voters ” come out in droves.

  13. Students of political science, answer me this:

    Do other countries hold primary elections?

    In general elections, do other countries put the names of the party on the ballot?

  14. Sheila its great that you are initiating a conversation about the difficulty in voting in Indiana, and I love to see the comments. I would suggest that anyone who does not think it is difficult, follow a parent of young children, or a person who has to work multiple jobs, someone who works split shifts or at night or even an elderly family member or neighbor. These people are the disenfranchised voters because nothing is done to help them vote, and we are experiencing the effects of that now. And it is exactly what the GOP wants.

  15. We can lament the fact that some people may not be able to vote because they did not have a proper ID. The fact is the overwhelming number of eligible voters do have a proper ID yet fail to participate in voting.

    I do agree with Gary, the system is rigged before you start. It will not happen but serious Campaign Finance Reform would be a start. Campaign Contributions should be limited in amounts per person and legal only when a eligible voter ( a human being) is the contributor. No PACS, etc., should be allowed to contribute to a political campaign.

  16. I think we need to distinguish primaries from general elections. Primaries are political party functions — the forum where the political parties select their candidates. Can’t that function be carried out by the political parties without holding expensive elections? As for the general election, Beth White is spot on. Indiana makes it incredibly difficult for people to vote and the solutions — as evidenced by this blog and subsequent comments — are not difficult to implement.

  17. i didn’t even know it was election day until i drove past a polling place. the media has not been paying much attention, and i didn’t get a single piece of mail reminding me about it. in november elections, i usually get stacks of mailers over the course of many weeks.

  18. As far as I’m concerned, if the Republicans and Democrats want to choose who they want to represent them, let them rent the Convention Center and pay for their own business.

    I don’t like the primaries of the Democrats and Republicans being passed off as the government-approved candidates for the general election.

  19. I didn’t vote yesterday because I don’t believe in the two big parties anymore. They’re terrible and voting for them just keeps this system going. Of course I’ll vote on the actual election day, but I’m not going to participate in the primaries of two parties that are insane.

  20. The county I live in reduced the number of voting locations last year. The location that I have voted at my entire adult life was one of the eliminated locations. I am now forced to drive 9 miles to vote in person. When I asked why several locations were eliminated I was told that the County Council made the decision – no reason. You may have already guessed that I live in an extremely RED territory.

  21. You buried the lede. Though some of your other points are valid, the real problem is gerrymandering. Not only does it give us non-competitive races – and therefore races of little interest or consequence – but it advantages the most politically extreme candidates. Photo IDs don’t bother me, though I admit there is little fraud at the voting place on election day. Mail in voting is thick with fraud possibilities.

  22. To someone’s earlier comment, I’ve never missed an election and am an elected PC so I should be a high priority voter to receive campaign literature. I did not receive one single mailer from the slated Republican mayoral candidate or the party. The party mailed three negative campaign flyers to all of the voters in District 3 full of distortions and outright lies in an effort to defeat Christine Scales, in addition to a personal letter mailed by the Republican minority leader, Mike McQuillen, asking Republican voters not to vote for Christine because she allegedly votes in lockstep with the Democrats. Ballot access for candidates is easy in Indiana compared to when I lived in Illinois where you are required to circulate petitions containing valid signatures of a certain percentage of the registered voters in the district you seek to represent just to get your name on the ballot. In Indiana, you can just walk into the election board office and fill out a statement of candidacy and you’re on the ballot.

  23. “In Indiana, you can just walk into the election board office and fill out a statement of candidacy and you’re on the ballot.”

    I didn’t know this. So there could be 30 people for the Governor’s race on the general election ballot? All they have to do is walk in and file?

  24. Why, thank you, Dina, but I rarely ask a question to which I do not already know the answer.

    I see you’re still using the superseded Code from a more accessible site, because the new Code site commissioned by Daniels and foisted upon us by the incompetent LSA is a disaster designed to make the law secret and unknowable.

    From good, ole’, and often incorrect FindLaw:

    A candidate may be nominated for an elected office by petition of voters who are registered to vote at the time of signing the petition and qualified to vote for the candidate.
    As added by P.L.5-1986, SEC.4. – See more at: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/incode/3/8/6/3-8-6-2#sthash.YJ44KAGU.dpuf

    And

    (a) A petition of nomination must be signed by the number of voters equal to two percent (2%) of the total vote cast at the last election for secretary of state in the election district that the candidate seeks to represent. – See more at: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/incode/3/8/6/3-8-6-3#sthash.5QlUP8Dw.dpuf

    2% of 762,223 = 15,245

    You don’t just “walk in and get your name on the ballot,” unless you have 15,245 voter petitions with you.

    When that law is repealed and all candidates have exactly the same requirements for ballot access, then we might come closer to having open elections in Indiana. There should not be automatic ballot access for any party.

  25. Why, thank you, Dina, but I rarely ask a question to which I do not already know the answer.

    I see you’re still using the superseded Code from a more accessible site, because the new Code site commissioned by Daniels and foisted upon us by the incompetent LSA is a disaster designed to make the law secret and unknowable.

    From good, ole’, and often incorrect FindLaw:

    A candidate may be nominated for an elected office by petition of voters who are registered to vote at the time of signing the petition and qualified to vote for the candidate.
    As added by P.L.5-1986, SEC.4.

    And

    (a) A petition of nomination must be signed by the number of voters equal to two percent (2%) of the total vote cast at the last election for secretary of state in the election district that the candidate seeks to represent.

    2% of 762,223 = 15,245

    You don’t just “walk in and get your name on the ballot,” unless you have 15,245 voter petitions with you.

    When that law is repealed and all candidates have exactly the same requirements for ballot access, then we might come closer to having open elections in Indiana. There should not be automatic ballot access for any party.

  26. The written signiture has been the gold standard for authentication for hundreds of years. Virtual fortunes have been transferred based on signatures. Are there better ways today? Yes. My phone recognizes my fingerprint. Is the signiture less reliable today than it ever was? No. Was there any reason to move away from it for voter ID? No evidence that I’m aware of.

    So why do it? Only one explanation that I can think of. It lowers the bar to exchange democracy and oligarchy.

    Part of the harvesting of America.

  27. It doesn’t matter which party a candidate represents, the views and platforms of both major parties are obsolete and unimaginative and seem to be created for the sole purpose of keeping everything just as it is. The state is getting poorer, more rundown and more boring with every election cycle.

  28. Gopper – party identification is actually more important in many foreign democracies, especially ones with a parliamentary system. It has been a while, so things may have changed, but I remember learning that many countries have party vote only, with the percentage of votes received determining the number of people seated from the party’s list. The list was under complete control of the party leaders.

    Yvonne – when I ran for council four years ago, I discussed how my opponent, whose day job was as a lobbyist, was acting as if you was doing the same job on the council supporting give-aways to big campaign donors. I pledged to ignore both Democratic and Republican donors and work for the voters. I was greeted (by some, not all) with a “I don’t believe you; I’ll stick with who we have”.

    For those of you who thing the two parties control everything, two women known for NOT blindly following their respective parties were challenging their party’s slated candidates. Voters in those districts (1 & 3) had a chance to tell the party leadership something. Angela Mansfield came painfully close to winning; Christine Scales beat the Republican Party’s slated candidate. Still, the problem of non-competitive races is real and wide-spread.

  29. And too many polls are located in churches instead of government buildings like schools. Wish they’d take that to court. Certainly mixing religon and politics.

  30. Pete; are you familiar with the terms “forgery” and “fraud”? How can you ask if a signature is less reliable today? It is a major part of identity theft, anyone can look at your signature on the back of your credit card and copy it…this is what the 27 year old woman did to use my two credit cards eight times after her 47 year old uncle/boyfriend mugged and robbed me. SHE had to sign all eight charge purchases, he would never pass for a JoAnn. If you know the person, accepting a signature is a different matter…there was a time when a handshake sealed a deal, signatures were not needed.

    Maybe photos should be on our charge cards; that would stop billions of dollars in charge card thefts and fraudulent use of them. All of which raises interest we pay to cover their losses. My son’s ex-wife applied for a department store charge card he knew nothing about; she filled out the application, requested one card in her name and one card in my son’s name. She gave the card with my son’s name to her 17 year old son who ran up over $1,000 before being caught – he spelled my son’s last name wrong on most charges but they still accepted it. You have to factor in the number of idiots accepting these signatures in many places today. What about photos on voter registration cards?

  31. JoAnn. Anybody you ever wrote a check to has your signature. Access to it is much less prevalent today, but not zero. Apple Pay et al promise to reduce even that small risk.

    As far as I know the real data on voter fraud shows almost none with the current system.

  32. Len, that’s really not what I asked. I asked if other countries hold primaries.

    Do other countries, Europe, Australia, hold bicameral primaries in the way the U.S. does?

  33. The assertion that Indiana makes it easy to get a driver’s license is laughable.

    We have 3 BMV branches for the entire city of Indianapolis, and I feel terrible for anyone that doesn’t live in a city because good luck with that.

  34. Gopper – I actually was responding to the second question or second part. However, wherever the political parties control the lists, the primary system doesn’t exist, so this system, if not unique to the US, is probably fairly rare.

    I am remembering the “bedsheet ballots” of the primaries in Detroit with hundreds of names. Some people just put their name on the ballot to see if their last name attracted votes (often it did). These were all “non-partisan” municipal primary elections. More fun than these slated ones (we did have endorsement slates from various labor unions – the best way to win at that time).

  35. Len,

    The great problem with bicameral primaries being run as state events is that these primaries give the pastiche of officiality to two selected parties. Imaginations become closed, and two select parties dominate the political scene.

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