How to Rig an Election

 Sujata Massey

This is a post about voting in 2020 . . . but it begins at the time I was trying to become a citizen.

 

In 1998, I was a longtime green card holder who had finally made a citizenship application. Friends had told me not to be nervous at my US citizenship exam. They said it would be ridiculously easy. I was 34 years old, a newspaper reporter with a British passport and an American accent. I was used to talking to every kind of person.

 

But when I went into the little room at the Baltimore Immigration and Naturalization Service and met my examining officer, I knew it wasn’t going to be simple. The questioner was an unsmiling American man with a curt manner. After running through the basics on my name, age and address, he casually led off with this question: 

 

“What’s the last year you voted in a US election?”

 

He made it sound innocuous, and of course, it wasn’t. This was a trap question to weed out those who had committed a deportable offense. I answered truthfully that I had not voted, but that question made me realize how powerful voting might be for me in the future. 

 

I got enough questions right that I passed and got both a certificate of naturalization and a U.S. passport. That fall I cast my first vote in a presidential election and have been voting ever since. As years passed, I found myself going to meet-and-greets for candidates at people’s homes, phoning potential voters, going door to door, and even driving voters to their polling stations. 

 

So much of that activity cannot happen this year, because many campaign organizations are moving to remote strategies to keep from spreading COVID-19 infection. I get my politics by watching TV, reading the paper, listening to the radio and meeting candidates and activists on zoom. There’s a letter-writing campaign, Vote Forward, that I hope to participate in. A writer should be able to write a few letters encouraging people to find a way that works for them to safely vote.

 

Here in Maryland, our Republican governor, Larry Hogan, has declared a state of emergency which means he can decide how we vote. He’s decided to keep in-person voting. At the same time, he’s acknowledged that thousands of election judges are unable to staff the polls. His solution is closing Maryland's 1600 polling places. Instead, there will be 360 voting centers to serve the state. I'm waiting to hear if there are enough people willing to work at these places to make it possible to cast votes in a timely fashion and if the voting centers might also have boxes where absentee ballots can be dropped off. That’s a strategy I'm hoping to participate in, having read the thoughts of New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

 

And while Marylanders are asking for the whole state to receive mailed absentee ballots, what’s happening instead is he’s requiring every voter to send in an application requesting a ballot. When I went online to request a Maryland absentee voter ballot today, I dutifully filled out every bit to find out I’d created a “system error.” Fortunately, I had more internet links to try, and at a different site, I was successfully registered to get an absentee voter application. But there you have it: Maryland has a terrible online system, and that’s if you have the energy to try.

 

Beyond Maryland, absentee voting is hard. Will the ballots come to us, and will they be received by the vote-counters in time? In May, Trump appointed a campaign supporter, Louis DeJoy, as the new postmaster general. Since DeJoy’s taken over, he’s fired many experienced officers in the system and made changes that have led to infrequent mail delivery for our household and almost everyone I know. In Minneapolis, the post office simply stopped delivering mail to a public housing complex. Imagine that kind of effort, applied by the post office to public housing addresses in cities all over the country.

 

I wave when I see Tom, our wonderful neighborhood postal carrier, faithfully walking his route with a mask during these hot months. Occasionally, he has nothing but advertising circulars to dispense to the block, because the delivery truck containing letters and packages never showed up that day. And imagine having a neighborhood post office with zero stamps in its inventory!

When we all know the post office needs to sell stamps to generate income to support itself--there are no tax dollars supporting mail.

 

“When the post office is closed during business hours, you know you’re in a banana republic,” an irritated woman muttered as we waited in a distanced line outside the post office one morning. 

 

Yes. And if we cannot have our votes counted, it will only get worse. 

. 

The Race is Done!

Sujata Massey

Disclaimer: This column is about politics. It does not reflect the opinion of Murder Is Everywhere in general...just this writer.

Two years ago, it was my rotation for blog duty the day after the US presidential election. I planned to write something about it that night--because nothing else seemed relevant. I spent the day buzzing around, feeling anxious yet certain the stress would soon end, and I'd be celebrating my first woman president.

I turned out to be wrong. And as the shock at Donald Trump's surprise victory turned into a dull pain, wore off, people like me began thinking, how can we come back from this? The hope was for midterm elections in 2018. Many people who would not have considered a career in politics before decided to run for office, and there are record numbers of women and immigrant Americans on the ballot. 

Typically, the voting turnout for midterms is quite low—but the early voting for the 2018 midterms is significantly fired up, on both sides of the divide. 

I live in Maryland, a state where the most apparently important choices for me were whether to re-elect our incumbent Republican Governor Larry Hogan, our Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh, and our U.S. Senator, Democrat Ben Cardin. I’m telling you, although a lot of people feel strongly about keeping their voting private. That’s why there are curtains around the tables-for-one where we fill out the ballot. I’m glad that where I am, it’s still done with a pen.

This midterm election has hung in my psyche like a suspense novel for two years. And today, I woke up to pounding rain and no sunshine. My mind went first to young voters, and whether they would think it was worth leaving their cozy nests to vote. Even though Uber and Lyft are offering free and reduced fares for people going to polls.

But is weather worth the worry? On November 8 2016’s election day, it was warm and beautifully sunny. I left Maryland to help with voter turnout in Pennsylvania. The people I met were lovely, the volunteers were stoked. It seemed like the very best kind of day to enhance voter participation—but in Pennsylvania, the state voted red for Trump.

I feel like I have a type of PTSD from being so disappointed in the last election. Perhaps that’s why I’ve given money to senator candidates in various states, but I did not abandon my own work to drive out of state to volunteer in different states, as I’ve done in the last two national elections. I am a shadow of myself. 

Today I worked on writing in the morning and went to the grocery store and water aerobics. It was raining, and I didn’t want to be drenched on my way to the neighbrhood's elementary-middle school that is also my polling place. The rain was just a faint sprinkle when I walked over at 1:30 with my husband. The school fence had a few political advertisements on them meant to remind voters of the obvious, but I saw no workers. I did see a friend from the neighborhood who joked he had just voted, and his vote would cancel mine. Is my choice written on my forehead—or was his assumption based on the fact that I’m an Asian woman? A joke between friends took on a curious subtext. That has what has happened, since the last election.

Inside the cafeteria where I once opened yogurt for kindergarteners, I greeted a few more neighbors. There were a few people waiting, and it took about ten minutes to check in--much easier than the hour-and-a-half line of my early voting friends told me she’d experienced. As I carried my ballot to an available curtained voting station, a five-year-old boy playfully ran out from underneath it, bringing back a sweet memory of voting here with a toddler daughter hanging onto my leg.

I thought it was important that my daughter, followed by my son, visit the poll with me. I wanted the children to think of voting as something to look forward to, and today I saw the voting officials give "I Voted" stickers to children, perhaps hoping for the same thing.

The first time I voted I was in my thirties. I had finally gotten naturalized, exchanging British citizenship for US citizenship. While I was naturalized in 1998, 2000 was the first year I voted in a US election. I voted for Al Gore, who lost to George W. Bush. But then—I had eight years of Barack Obama.

At ten o’clock tonight, I turned on the television to see what was happening with the election. I saw evidence of a much anticipated senate contest in Texas go to the incumbent, Republican senator Ted Cruz. I had been fixated on his challenger, Beto O'Rourke.

Yet Jacky Rosen, a strong woman Democrat running for Senate in Nevada, won. And many more women appear to be winning House seats, perhaps as continued fallout from the behavior of senators during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. I am intensely grateful for this and looking forward to seeing what comes next.

 Two different sides seem to present us the chance for a balance of power.

The race is done, and I'm ready for a glass of water.

No Matter What Happens, I Tried

Sujata Massey



As I work on this post, election returns are coming in from all over the United States. It might not surprise readers of this blog that I'm a supporter of Hillary Clinton. My home state, Maryland, has voted Democratic for many years, so I traveled to a state which is less secure (Pennsylvania) to see how I could help.

On Monday evening this past week I drove 3 hours from Maryland to Pennsylvania, a state where rural areas are bullish on Trump. However, the city of Philadelphia and its suburbs tend to support Democratic voters, and also has a racially diverse population. I intended to do all I could to encourage Philadelphia's voters to get to the polls.

It was a morning rush hour when I drove into North Philadelphia. A big transportation strike that mercifully ended, but its occurrence made a lot of people fearful voters couldn't get to polls. Lyft and Uber and the popular band Roots built networks of drivers who'd take people needing rides to polling stations. However, most polling stations are located every five blocks. This very old city has a great infrastructure of schools, the primary polling places.

Philadelphia schools and community centers are called into service on election day, and Spanish is widely used.

There weren't enough volunteers who could speak Spanish, but we had to connect with these voters if Hillary would carry Philadelphia. I was sent out not speaking a word of Spanish along with my partner, Barbara, who was fortunately studying the language. But we were certainly anxious about how communication would, or wouldn't, work.

The Democrats set up volunteer stations all over Pennsylvania. I worked out of one on W. Girard Ave. in North Philadelphia. Volunteers got assignments to canvass several blocks, house by house, at a time, to make sure people remembered to vote. Other people stayed back and made texts and phone calls to people who planned to vote Democratic.

We canvassed streets in Fairhall, a neighborhood with a high Latino voter base. The houses were old, but the people living within were full of energy and enthusiasm. People who'd voted told us the polls were busier than they'd ever seen. We began to feel optimistic.

Barbara was such a great person to volunteer with. She was friendly to everyone but really hammered in the importance of having a plan to get to the polling station.

We met this pair, who work for a PAC, on the streets doing similar work to ours.

People living in these narrow streets found ways to bring beauty and pride of place to share with others. Residents built in a delightful fishpond right in front of an ordinary row house. We saw flower-filled gardens behind chain-link fences, and cute Halloween decorations on doors.

We also were delighted by some of the him owners who sold foods from their windows. A coconut water ice was the best thing I ate (drank?) all day.

I'd never believed I could successfully canvass in a neighborhood where I didn't share the language with the people I met. However, my nerves were eased by my confident partner and all the Philadelphians were so gracious toward us. I appreciated the way they cared for their homes and kids, and how many socialized with each other on the streets. It made me feel more certain than ever that this country benefits from immigration.


This is a very tough election. At this point in the night, things don't look good for my candidate. However I feel optimistic about the situation in Philadelphia. No matter what happens, we tried.

The Silly Season

In my hometown of Knysna on the Indian Ocean coast, 500 kms east of Cape Town, we refer to the month around Christmas as “the silly season”.  That’s because the town is inundated with visitors, mainly from the Johannesburg area, but also from other parts of the country.  It is, of course, the summer vacation for school kids and university students.  That means that many families take their annual holiday at the coast.

View of Knysna lagoon

For Knysna residents, it is a time of plenty.  Shops and restaurants and other tourist-related enterprises make most of their annual income at this time.  So the influx is crucial to the local economy.  It is also a time of aggravation.  Unlike other times of the year, wandering into the village whenever convenient to shop or have a cup of coffee no longer works.  There are queues of people everywhere, and one can only get into the restaurant of choice with a reservation.  Locals often stock up on supplies in advance to avoid the mayhem.  There are even frustrating traffic jams that often snake along the lagoon road for several kilometres.

Knysna lagoon

Knysna waterfront

Minneapolis is my other home town, and I’ve been in town most of the time since early April.  It is also the silly season here.  And everywhere else in the United States.  It is election time!

For those of us who were brought up outside the USA, no matter how much we like and admire it, the election process seems weird – to put it mildly.  Nowhere else, as far as I know, does election season begin as soon as the new politicians are sworn in – with perhaps the exception of Senators. 

For the members of the House, election time is less than two years away.  So it is immediately time to start raising cash to fund the next TV campaign, to hire marketing geniuses, and staff.  

And it is no different for first-term presidents.  The next election is less than three years away, with the other party starting almost immediately to find a candidate. 

Ever since I have been in this country, I have been puzzled by its attitude towards Cuba.  It seems that this little country wields a hugely disproportionate influence on politics in Washington.  The USA’s attitudes have changed with respect to many other countries that are far more extreme that Cuba – and more important.  Yet Cuba raises hackles, rhetoric, and tempers.

It is only recently that I figured out why this is.  At least that is my story.  Florida is a swing state.  It has many voters of Cuban heritage, who generally – like many expats – have a strong dislike of their former homeland.  No President, particularly a first-termer, can afford to alienate the Cuban-Floridian voters too much.  So nothing changes.  Nobody is willing to do the commonsense thing and normalize relations.

Page 1 of the US Constitution

I have an admission to make.  Although I am an admirer of the Constitution, I do not believe God etched it on a tablet and left it for the Framers to find.  I think the almost religious reverence with which many Americans treat the Constitution has got in the way of progress.  And democracy. 

Of course, you know I am going to mention the Electoral College.  Many non-Americans look with puzzlement at an electoral system in which the President can be elected with fewer popular votes than his or her opponent - in a country that advertizes itself as the most democratic on the planet.  I’ve read a lot about the genesis and evolution (if I am allowed to use that word) of the Electoral College, and my take is that it came about because the Framers didn’t really trust voters to elect the best President.  So they gave states the opportunity to appoint (and sometime elect) those who would eventually decide who would be president.  They hoped (at least I think they hoped) that states would appoint men of substance, education, and wisdom, who would know better than the average Joe on the farm which candidate would do the best job in Washington.  


Of course, the Framers did not actually say anything about how states should determine who would be members of the electoral college.  This meant that states evolved how this occurred.  Today the idea of winner takes all is common, and to me is a cause of all sorts of political problems.  Have you noticed how many times the candidates for the presidency have visited the three most populous states – California, New York, and Texas?  Hardly ever, because those states are already sewn up.  All the attention is focused on the swing states.

Here is a little quiz before I move on to my next point.  If the Electoral College vote is tied, which has happened, do you know what the next step is in the election process?  A hint!  It is even less democratic than the Electoral College process.

Okay, okay.  I know you are groaning about this foreigner whinging about the system.  But I have a few more observations, so bear with me.

I appreciate and understand the appeal of the checks and balances built into the US Constitution.  And acknowledge the benefits that accrue.  On the other hand, a system that is in balance doesn’t move.  So when change is needed, the system makes that very difficult indeed.  I think the USA today is in need of real change – and I have met few people who disagree with that no matter their political leanings.  But I fear the system will prevent that from happening.

The length of the election process detracts from the reason why we elect people.  If politicians are constantly preparing for re-election, their attention is distracted from legislation and governance.  Although I know it will never happen in the USA, there are real benefits to the parliamentary system.  Elections are short – usually 6 to 8 weeks – so we wouldn’t have to put up with listening to interminable, regurgitated rubbish from the candidates on every TV channel, punctuated with attack ads.  And it is more flexible and able to react to changing circumstances more readily.

Finally – “at last!”, I hear you say – campaigns have morphed from an opportunity for voters to listen to half-way decent discussions of issues into events that have to compete with reality shows like Survivor. With the exception of public television, TV channels focus on contention, not substance, so they can keep viewership high and advertizing revenues up.  They make up statistics and scenarios that are meaningless, but which are given great import (you must take a look at this cartoon to put this in perspective - http://xkcd.com/1122).  Perhaps the next presidential contest will include mud-wrestling or a single gladiatorial contest to determine the winner.  That should increase the size of the viewing audience.

Michelle Obama vs Mitt Romney 2016?

Fighting for the Presidency 2020

CNN Stadium, Washington D.C. 2020

As a lover of the USA and one of its citizens, I am immensely saddened by what I see as a slow slide into mediocrity, by an increasing acceptance of legislation that undermines our freedoms, and an inertia in Washington to make the tough decisions that are necessary to restore the world’s confidence in the country.  Sad, sad, sad.

Someone once said that a cynic is someone who sees the world as it is, not as it should be.  So call me a cynic!

Stan - Thursday