It's two months before the election in the not-to-distant future. She had three more days to take the voting test. She'd looked on line and studied all the questions and the answers. She was excited.
It had taken years, but when people realized what Alaska was ike after four years of Dunleavy, the reform movement began. People realized that knowing something about a candidate's past, and knowing something about how things worked, made you a better voter. Things like how a trust fund works, or how much an income tax would cost most people compared to a Permanent Fund check. Like knowing what the budget was before they said it was too much and needed to be cut. Like understanding what services government provides people BEFORE they get cut. And understanding the link between potholes and the cost of car repairs, between crime and insurance rates. Like understanding the costs of a good school system compared to the cost of any prison system and how those costs are related. Just knowing the size of the population and understanding how to figure out costs per capita.
So finally, Alaskans passed new voter registration rules. Everyone could still register to vote. But you also had the option of taking a bi-partisan approved factual exam. The more answers you got right, the more your vote counted. It could count one time if you didn't do very well, two times if you got half the questions right, and three times if you 90% of the questions right.
No, Alaskans hadn't gotten rid of the one person one vote rule. The extra votes didn't change the election. But along with the actual one vote per person results, Alaskans got to see what the results would have been if informed people got two votes and very well informed people got three votes.
So she took the test and instantly learned that she was rated "informed." She was looking forward to the results of this experiment. Would it make a difference? Would the people of Kivalina, (who are in a lawsuit over the loss of their village due to climate change) vote for a climate change denier instead of a a strong advocate of slowing down climate change if they knew the facts? Would knowing the facts change people's voting? (Kivalina example from a FB message from Elstun Lausen.)
Saturday, November 10, 2018
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A wonderful story and this could fight the cynicism that "my one vote doesn't mean much". Today, the internet is helping expose facts about candidates, but is double-edged in its lying capability. Price of free speech...
ReplyDeleteRead this article this morning:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/3/1809655/-There-is-something-more-important-than-democracy?detail=emaildkre
Free will. What tyrannies will try to corrode by voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc. When 15 million more Democrats vote for congressional lawmakers and still lose the Senate...and hundreds of people protest against a recount, we get minorities ruling majorities, the opposite of democracy.
The arc of my life as been the 75 years between fighting German Fascism (and defeating it) and the rise of Fascism in my America (!) and the real possibility of being defeated by it. I cannot look away, however dismaying, for we are watching it unfold in real time and must bear witness.
But, I am not alone in resisting and buoyed by the resistance and daily good news that previously unpolitical Americans are realizing Democracy is a fragile & precious idea in the history of human governing experiments and cannot be let die.
But, Socrates said without an educated citizenry, democracy cannot stand.
Thank you.
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