What is disenfranchisement, really?
Leave it to the American Election system to draw out some of the most idiotic and incredible statements and images that politicians and their surrogates are capable of portraying. There was the Dukakis tank, and I'm sure McCain will be a source of ridiculous things here and there for the next few months.
However, I have to say something about what is, in my opinion, the most ridiculous and frankly moronic things I have ever heard.
Women posing as passionate Clinton supporters claiming that they have been disenfranchised, that they have been stripped of their right to vote.
As for this Bartoshevich character, I wonder who disenfranchised her? The Wisconsin Democratic Party? No, she did that to herself by publically supporting one of the most misogynistic candidates to run for President in our day.
But, I digress.
What is disenfranchisement, really?
My parents emigrated from the Republic of China on Taiwan. Not the Taiwan we all know today as a miracle of sensible economics and democracy (relatively). The Taiwan of Chiang Kai-shek, which was a brutal military regime that posed as a Republic and denied the right to vote to millions, including thousands of people who pre-dated the presence of the Kuomingtang on the island.
My girlfriend's parents were driven out of mainland China by the even more oppressive Peoples' Republic. Her mother was guilty of one egregious crime: being the infant daughter of parents who, during the Period of 100 Flowers, mildly suggested that China should adopt democratic reforms, including enfranchisement. My girlfriend's parents to this day have no idea what happened to her grandparents, although, since what followed 100 Flowers in China was the Anti-Rightist Movement, and later on, the Cultural Revolution, we can be pretty sure that they were executed.
Executed simply for expressing the desire for enfranchisement.
I know many ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton. All of them are still behind her in regards to her future, and all of them have points of disagreement with Obama that are legitimate. I trust and know that they will make the choice that honors their conscience in November.
But to those supposed Hillary "supporters", or anyone else, who choose the easy path of claiming to be disenfranchised when the truth is far from it, I just have one thing to say.
You do not want to know what its really like to be disenfranchised.
However, I have to say something about what is, in my opinion, the most ridiculous and frankly moronic things I have ever heard.
Women posing as passionate Clinton supporters claiming that they have been disenfranchised, that they have been stripped of their right to vote.
In an interview, Bartoshevich expressed lingering unhappiness over the Democratic nominating process, said Clinton was treated unfairly by the party, and said she has deep reservations about Obama's lack of experience and his judgment.The irrational old lady at the DNC Rules meeting, I am sure is a McCain mole, so I won't spend more time on her.
"I'm kind of disenfranchised," she said. (emphasis added)
As for this Bartoshevich character, I wonder who disenfranchised her? The Wisconsin Democratic Party? No, she did that to herself by publically supporting one of the most misogynistic candidates to run for President in our day.
But, I digress.
What is disenfranchisement, really?
My parents emigrated from the Republic of China on Taiwan. Not the Taiwan we all know today as a miracle of sensible economics and democracy (relatively). The Taiwan of Chiang Kai-shek, which was a brutal military regime that posed as a Republic and denied the right to vote to millions, including thousands of people who pre-dated the presence of the Kuomingtang on the island.
My girlfriend's parents were driven out of mainland China by the even more oppressive Peoples' Republic. Her mother was guilty of one egregious crime: being the infant daughter of parents who, during the Period of 100 Flowers, mildly suggested that China should adopt democratic reforms, including enfranchisement. My girlfriend's parents to this day have no idea what happened to her grandparents, although, since what followed 100 Flowers in China was the Anti-Rightist Movement, and later on, the Cultural Revolution, we can be pretty sure that they were executed.
Executed simply for expressing the desire for enfranchisement.
I know many ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton. All of them are still behind her in regards to her future, and all of them have points of disagreement with Obama that are legitimate. I trust and know that they will make the choice that honors their conscience in November.
But to those supposed Hillary "supporters", or anyone else, who choose the easy path of claiming to be disenfranchised when the truth is far from it, I just have one thing to say.
You do not want to know what its really like to be disenfranchised.
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June 14, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not about to take communist China as the bar for what should be the standard for small d democracy in the United States.
If a candidate takes his name off the ballot, that is a political decision he makes and he should not be awarded votes on some computer poll-driven formual.
Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan for political reasons and then lied about it.
The OINC (formerly known as the DNC) elevated its rules over the principle of one person one vote and gave every voter in Michigan half a vote.
Obama's willingness to seat all of the delegates when it no longer matters is the sign of guilty conscience not the mark of a true Democrat.
Most of the 'supposed' female(and males) Democrats who have decided to vote for McCain have done so for the same reasons they became Democrats in the first place -- they believe in fair play and expect more of it -- even though they disagree with McCain on practically all of his policies -- from McCain than from Obama.
June 15, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh... some people were disenfranchised by the party with "democratic" in its name. They live in Michigan and Florida and had their votes count for half of what they should have.
Fact is that our party should not have acted as if controlling the primary calender is somehow more important than counting the vote of every party member.
Actually counting them at half value was wrong too.
Both states should have had revotes, on the party's dime if necessary because counting the votes of all of our party members should have been more important than any other goal.
And I don't say that because I think it would have tilted the primary. Had the revotes happened late in the season, with all the momentum Obama had going for him, he might well have upset her in one or both states and that would have shut up many of his current detractors.
June 14, 2008 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
First of all realize that stating an opinion of yours, and leading it off with "fact is" does not lend any credence at all to your opinion.
What you are saying shows what the problem with falling back to "disenfranchisement" as a blanket term for every voting irregularity. When you have the opportunity to contest and compromise from having a vote that doesn't count to a vote that does count in some way, you are not being disenfranchised. When there are perfectly reasonable rules to be followed in order for a vote to be counted (and let's not kid ourselves, there are thousands of such rules), and you still cannot fall in line with those rules, you are not being disenfranchised.
Disenfranchisement is what happened in the Jim Crow South. Disenfranchisement is what happened in Apartheid in South Africa. Disenfranchisement is what happened in 2000 in Florida. Disenfranchisement did NOT happen in 2008 in Michigan and Florida.
June 14, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
BRAVO!
June 14, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fact is that writing in all caps does NOT make you right. Neither does an unqualified blanket statement about who was or wasn't disenfranchised.
June 15, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly so. Now read what you just wrote and we will all be the better for it.
From Websters, Disenfranchise:to deprive a person or organization of a privilege, immunity, or legal right, especially the right to vote.
When a voluntary group of people form a constitution and bylaws, nothing is being taken away from them if those rules are followed. If representatives from all factions are present at the formation of these rules and at all secondary meetings, then no one can be disenfranchised. As far as I know, Being a Democrat is not a federal voting rights law or issue. Being a Democrat is voluntary and revocable. If you don't want to join, you don't have to.
Can we please move forward to the White House?
June 15, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Question for you destor: Why is it important that every party member have his or her vote counted? I'm serious. There is certainly a practical question of ensuring that most MI and FL voters don't feel alienated and vote by the party. But what is the moral imperative here? Are FL and MI at risk of being discriminated against because their voice in the Democratic primary was diminished? Have their citizens' civil rights been violated?
I suggest that managing the party calendar is much more important than counting the vote of every Democrat in every state. For FL and MI to vote early would be no big deal. But what if every state help it's primary on January 3rd? We'd have a "democracy" of the rich and famous, for no one without massive cash or massive name recognition would be able to win.
The right to vote is not important because it's an essential human right. It's important because voting helps ensure that our leaders are capable (more or less) and work for the benefit of the entire population (more or less). If the votes of FL and MI were discounted on a technicality because the Democratic Party disregarded those states, that would be of serious concern. But that is not the case. The citizens of FL and MI will not suffer from their "disenfranchisement." Rather, they will bask in the glow of political attention because our undemocratic electoral college offers disproportionate weight to citizens of large swing states.
Moreover, since the leaders of those states blatantly disregarded the party rules, having been forewarned of the consequences, it's those leaders who are responsible for any disenfranchisement that their long suffering citizens have been forced to endure, not the Democratic or Republican parties.
June 15, 2008 2:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Genghis, I guess it all depends on what kind of party you want. I want a party leadership that responds to the needs of its members first and foremost and my first need as a party member is to have my vote counted in party elections.
Yes, managing the calender is important. But it's not as important as that. Especially when managing the calender means preserving undo influence for New Hampshire and Iowa, two states that have pretty much nothing in common with, say, our home state of New York, or with the country at large.
We're Democrats. We should emphasize the democracy in our name, every time.
June 15, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
D, you're conflating two questions:
1. Does the current primary schedule represent the will of most party members?
2. Is the denial of delegate voting rights an appropriate enforcement mechanism?
Starting with 2, denial of delegate voting rights is not an ideal mechanism, but can you think of a better one? The primary system is complicated by the fact that the party runs the convention, but the states select the delegates. If the party wants to guide the primary schedule, they can only do so with some kind of penalty, and I don't see any effective penalty other than denying states' delegates. And the party, or at least some central entity, needs to guide the primary schedule in order to avoid "primary inflation" where states keep one-upping each other to get the first primary, extending the length of the season. It's already happening to an extent and would have been worse had the party not instituted the Feb. 5th restriction that MI and FL ignored.
As for 1, I live in NY, but I grew up in IA, so I personally have mixed allegiances. For voters in every state to be equally represented, every primary contest would have to take place on the same day, which would dramatically and unfortunately advantage the rich and famous. If you spread out the primaries, the votes in some states just won't matter when the primary is settled early.
I don't think that IA and NH should necessarily be first, but I do think that they offer a couple of advantages. First, small states allow candidates without a lot of money to compete because the audience is smaller. Second, because there are fewer people, a higher percentage of the voters are able to actually see and even meet the candidates in person. Third, because of their tradition, the IA and NH electorate tends to be much more informed than those other states. Reading the news about the NV caucus, which had an early caucus for the first time, it sounded like many voters knew little and cared little about the candidates. In contrast, the caucus in IA and primary in NH are huge events in those states. It's not that voters from those states are smarter or better educated. It's that they take great pride in their role in the process and therefore devote a lot of time and energy to learning about the candidates.
That said, I could see advantages to a rotating schedule or lottery that balances the significance of primaries in all states. But that can't happen by states unilaterally pushing up their primaries. MI and FL are self-interested parties. They were not trying to come up with a more sensible schedule. They were trying to grab the limelight for themselves. If they feel that the schedule is unfair or unrepresentative, they need to take that up with the DNC.
June 15, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Minor counterpoint:
From what I saw of the RBC meeting (most of the MI part), I thought Michigan Democrats made a good case that their efforts were directed toward reforming the schedule and demonstrated that they had actually been working with the DNC since aprox. 2004.
Of course, self interest played a significant roll too.
June 16, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you used the correct word in 'Alienate' rather than 'disenfranchise'. People may feel that the process alienates them, but no one has been disenfranchised.
I am alienated by the traffic court system, but just because the judge didn't agree with my view that I was innocent, does not mean I have been disenfranchised.
June 15, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Calling it disenfranchisement is, IMO, a tad extreme. The votes were not ignored or forgotten. They did count, just not as much as they would have had the RBC ignored its rules and allowed them to move ahead without penalty. Had they stuck with the original penalty, which the RBC and all the candidates agreed to last year, then Michigan and Florida's elections would not have counted at all. That could reasonably be called disenfranchisement. Half votes still count, just not as much.
The delegate split for Michigan was more debatable, but given that Obama, Edwards, and some other candidates weren't even on the ballot, some Democrats chose to vote in the GOP primary, and others stayed home because they believed party leaders who said the election wouldn't count there was no way to say what the will of the voters was. Finally, the contests in both states, would have favored Senator Clinton, who had greater name recognition, because nobody officially campaigned in either state. The situation was a mess, and there was no good way to resolve the problem, once revotes didn't happen.
All states are not equal in delegate allocation. The allocations are mostly driven by population, but states get more delegates for having supported Democrats in prior elections, and they get more for being willing to vote late in the calendar. Doesn't that relatively disenfranchise South Carolina Democrats relative to, say, Oregon ones? By the one person, one vote ideal, it certainly does, but the primary process doesn't work that way. Nor, for that matter, does the general election. I don't think the argument that Florida and Michigan voters were disenfranchised really holds water.
The franchise means that you have a vote which matters. It doesn't mean, as Bartoshevich implied, that you get your way.
June 15, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bryan, you are not the arbiter of disenfranchisement.
Disenfranchisment DID happen in Michigan and Florida in 2008. The voters were provided with a system that they did not create and could not control and that, essentially, caused their rights as voters to be destroyed. That's disenfranchisement.
June 14, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe that if the voters of MI-FL protested loud and clear at the time of the initial actions by their legislators that this unfortunate debacle could and would have been avoided. They either weren't paying attention or were apathetic to the nth degree. Either way, they made their choice and paid the price. Or is there another valid rationale?
June 14, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but how was Ms Bartoshevich disenfranchised exactly? This seems to be the source of her claim of dissatisfaction with the nominee of the Democratic Party.
Bartoshevich is from *Wisconsin*, a state that voted on February 19: 646,851 58.1% for Obama and 453,954 40.8% for Clinton.
As to those who claim that they are voting Republican because they could never vote for a political party that "disenfranchised" legal voters by counting their votes at 50%, uh, the Republicans only counted their Florida Primary voters at 50%.
June 15, 2008 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Honkychick - I just realized that you are now the McCain advocate/supporter who was a Hillary supporter. Hmmm, that puts a bit of twist in your comment - you do realize that even if given 100% of the votes, Hillary would still have lost, don't you? tsk. tsk.
June 15, 2008 12:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Want to see REAL disenfranchisement? Rent American Blackout. A documentary done by Greg Palance (who broke the whole Tim Griffin vote caging story and whose evidence Conyers has used in congressional hearings)
American Blackout shows what REAL disenfranchisement is. Not this bullshit Clinton supporters are trying to pass off as such.
June 15, 2008 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8_3Lk3x8fA
June 15, 2008 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
A discussion worth having. What of the voters whose names appear without merit on the felon lists? "Voter fraud" laws? Gerrymandering? All things that should play a role in this conversation.
Your family and your girlfriend's family stories are important ones. But because disenfranchisement in this country is often more hidden and less extreme does not make it unworthy of calling out.
The woman from Wisconsin speaks nonsense. She voted. It was counted. Delegates were awarded proportionally. In no way was her vote ineffective or less effective. While I suspect she is the exception rather than the norm, the spotlight on cases like hers, takes the spotlight off of the serious cases of disenfranchisement in our country.
June 15, 2008 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. There's this odd idea going around that "voting irregularities" don't equal disenfranchisement. I think that's BS. If you went to vote and your vote wasn't counted, you were disenfranchised.
June 15, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you've both summed it up quite well.
Examples like this frustrate me because it creates the crying wolf syndrome.
The situation in MI and FL are frustrating for the same reason, because they could have so easily been remedied. An unfortunate consequence over the debate of those states is that it has created this idea that disenfranchisement is a political tool rather than a serious problem.
June 15, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Disenfranchisement is the systematic violation of a right to vote, either perceived or actual.
Let me put it in an analogy that might be a bit extreme. There is a difference between "genocide" and "genocide-related activities." What is happening in Darfur is genocide, where the government behind the acts of genocide intends to wipe out an entire people, and directs the actors to do so. In Tibet, there may be acts that are related to genocide committed by police officers who truly desire to see the Tibetan people wiped out; however, there is no organizing force behind those acts from the government in charge, whose motivation is to see the Tibetan people assimilate economically.
Apply that thinking to disenfranchisement, and you will see what I am talking about. Disenfranchisement is when a government or a faction within the government intends to impede on a perceived or actual right to vote of the entire population or a group within the population. That is why what happened in 2000 is disenfranchisement: a government wanted to prevent people's votes from being counted to achieve some sort of ulterior goal.
What happened in Michigan and Florida, under ideal circumstances, should not have happened. But, no matter your opinion, what happened was not a systematic violation of a right to vote. The DNC did not intend to impede on a right to vote; it was the violation of party rules (which are tantamount to a legally-binding contract, a point I think has been lost on all of us) that caused their votes to not be counted. That DNC members risked embarrassing themselves on national television to attempt to find a solution shows that the right intentions were in place. Even Harold Ickes voted to count Florida as half-votes.
You're right, disenfranchisement is a serious problem. But the problem is exacerbated when people do use it as a political tool, which is exactly what has happen this primary season.
June 15, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one is trying to direct the discussion away from real cases of disenfranchisement. In fact, I believe the point of this thread was to point out those real cases. And part of those pointing out real cases is pointing out cases where someone has used the word for political gain, often at the expense of those who actually have been disenfranchised.
June 15, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there needs to be a very careful look at the primary system because, clearly, some things went wrong this time. It was too long, by far, to begin with, though that is in part because we had two very competitive candidates all the way to the end.
The issue of when states can hold their primaries is complex. It does need to be regulated. And the courts have upheld the right of the party to do the regulating. When MI and FL decided to hold their primaries in violation of the DNC's order, they knew what they were doing. They didn't care if the votes counted or not. They wanted to make a statement, knowing full well that there were penalties to doing so.
It's always so much more complex than the surface explanation. So MI and FL were running a sacrifice play. They want to change things next time, but they believed that they had to break the rules this time, and deal with the consequences.
Rules are sometimes necessary, no matter how much some of us dislike being told what we can or can't do. But in this case, the rules prevailed and the punishment was meted out, for the most part as expected. All the candidates and all the elected politicians who made and enforced these rules understood. Many voters did not. But that is why we have elected officials. They represent us, and if we don't like it, we can get rid of them.
I was once an elected official - a very small-time one, to be sure - and I did come to understand the complexity of supporting the rules when, at times, they were not what I preferred. I also found out how enormously expensive it was to hold a vote - let alone a re-vote.
In the end, it was a messy situation, and I think MI and FL got what they really wanted, which was scrutiny of the system and an opportunity to argue for change in the future. I also believe that if Hillary Clinton had not been losing to Barack Obama, the issue would not have been raised to the level that it did. It became a cause because she needed it to become one, even though she had supported the decision originally.
And if you call the ultimate decision of half-votes disenfranchising, then you also have to admit that many other voters were disenfranchised - the ones in FL and MI who did not believe it would count and therefore, perhaps, didn't vote, and the ones in MI who wanted to vote for Obama, but couldn't.
It's too complicated to boil it neatly down to something as raw as disenfranchisement. I think Bryan has done an excellent job of providing some context. What he mentions is real disenfranchisement. And there have been blatant examples of disenfranchisement in this country that were underhanded and should have been illegal. But I don't believe the situation is FL and MI were of that sort.
Finally, for this Wisconsin woman, she is suspect. Perhaps she really doesn't believe in Obama for some legitimate reason. Who knows? I am pretty sure she hadn't really tried to get to know who he is or what he represents. But she's really getting a lot of negative attention that she hardly deserves. She's ultimately a traitor to her own profession and to her gender, and I don't know if she was really a Republican mole or just someone who doesn't have the critical thinking skills to figure out what matters. In any case, she doesn't sound credible to me.
June 15, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink