The 2020 U.S. Election: Poll-Workers Unite

By Jennings Dixon

What tumultuous times these are. It seems as though with each new day, some different part of the world is burning (in some cases, literally) and it feels like there is nothing we can do. 2020 has become a nightmarish fever dream that none of us expected nor wanted. It stresses me out, and I’m sure you are just as stressed. So, let’s just take a moment right here to close our eyes, take the deepest breath you can, and try to release as much tension and anxiety that I know you have. Feel slightly less existential? I hope so.

    As I just mentioned, it feels as though there is nothing that we can do to prevent 2020’s grand finale from becoming the long expected apocalypse. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is one thing that we all can do, and that is to vote. Voting is one of the most sacred hallmarks of a democracy, and it’s a beautiful thing to know that you can help decide who gets to lead. Whether that be at the local level, state level, or national level, if you can vote, you should. It’s as simple as that. If of course, it wasn’t 2020.

    Leaving the US for a short bit, let’s look at elections around the globe. COVID-19 is a brutal force to be reckoned with, and unfortunately for some nations, it has altered the state of their upcoming elections. Around 70 countries have had to postpone or cancel elections this year because of the pandemic, including New Zealand, Nigeria, and Brazil. Canada has moved some of their elections to May 2021, and Ethiopia’s parliamentary elections, which were supposed to be this month, won’t take place until August of next year. Some countries like Switzerland and Uganda have postponed theirs indefinitely.

    There are two potential outcomes with postponement: there is either democratic resilience, or there is authoritarian opportunism. Democratic resilience gives countries the ability to work together to come out of this crisis with an intact democracy. By postponing, countries can assess the best options for voting, make sure that elections are fulfilled in the safest ways possible, and accumulate as many resources to ensure that everyone can vote. On the other hand, some countries and their leaders are exploiting the pandemic by postponing, allowing current administrations to keep power indefinitely. They are using COVID-19 as an excuse to shrink political space, and leverage future elections to their advantage. In these situations, democracy is in jeopardy. That’s a scary thing.

    How does any of this pertain to the US? Well, as we all know, we are not postponing our election. It will happen on November 3rd, 2020, and there’s nothing that can change the fact. What is malleable about our election is whether or not we can emerge with democratic resilience. I’m not talking about potential mail-in fraud, USPS scandals, or the integrity of either major candidate. This is a nonpartisan thing, and I want to make that very clear. What I’m talking about is whether or not every single person eligible to vote can vote. This means that more people need to sign up to be poll workers.

    On a usual election, the majority of poll workers nationwide are over the age of 60. However, because of COVID-19 and the fact that older people are at higher risk for contracting the virus, they just aren’t signing up this year. That’s a major problem. We are less than a hundred days away from November 3rd, and we are a quarter of a million poll workers short. What that means is less polling sites, which results in longer drives for some, long lines, and the potential for delayed results. Marginalized communities, especially communities of color will be hit the hardest. They were during the primaries, and the same should be expected for November. Unless you sign up to be a poll worker.

    Regardless of who you think should be president, or governor, or senator, etc., it’s important to understand that in order to keep our democracy intact, we need to facilitate a fair and safe election. Becoming a poll worker may not seem incredibly impactful, but by you signing up, it might mean the difference of an entire community getting a proper chance to cast their ballots. That’s an incredible thing! So, sign up, get involved, and make a difference in your community and country. Maybe then 2020 won’t seem so bleak anymore.

Brief Thoughts on Democracy: America or Not

By Joshua O’Brien

Warning: This post contains the mildest of spoilers for a 15-year-old episode of The West Wing.

On Wednesday, September 2, 2020, famed pollster Nate Silver shared a forecast of the probability Joe Biden wins the electoral college, based on how many percentage points he wins over Trump in the popular vote. Journalist Evan Osnos commented “If I read about this system in, say, Turkmenistan, I’d pity them.” I am not sure if this journalist was aware, but they hit an academic issue pretty well—the ideal of what a democracy is and should be on the international stage and at home.

The knee-jerk reaction among Americans is to point to our own system—the oldest continuous constitutional system in the world with all of its checks, balances, and idealistic appeal. Constitutional scholars will detest this, and with good reason. The presidential system is slow, and by removing the need for majority legislative support, lends itself to authoritarian turns in executive functions. Parliamentary systems, with their speed and need for legislative support, might be better suited for countries without deep democratic traditions, though the academic debate makes such a definitive statement difficult. So much so, that the discussion has spilled into television, becoming a plot point of “The Wake Up Call” episode of The West Wing. In this episode, one of the White House staffers in the fictional Bartlet administration gets into heated debate with a group of Belarusian democrats rewriting their country’s constitution. While the Belarusians argue for a strong President, the staffer opposes the idea, labeling the Presidential system as one of America’s “most dangerous exports.”

The tweet just highlights the point of the debate—the American system is not universally understood as the best form of democracy, and depending on the context, might not even be a particularly good one. And some facets of it are criticized even here. Presidents of both parties have made unpopular actions through executive orders that a Parliament would have shot down, with an attached no-confidence motion. Some consider the Electoral College to be a quirky subversion of democracy, rather than a nuanced instrument of state will. While examining democratic functioning honestly can help inform larger global political forces, perhaps it can open a more nuanced discussion on what democracy should be at home, too.